MIDTERM I - RELIG Flashcards
Empire of spirit
Ahkbar, non-violence, 330 million gods, all inclusive religion india hinduism.
Hinduis and Buddhism – why they’re psychological
“states of being,” various yogas, rather than forms of scripture, famous figures, language groups, countries and the like.
4 yoga traditions / 4 paths to the goal:
- Jnana: path to god through knowledge, thinking.
- Bhakti: way to god through love.
- Karma: path to god through work.
- Raja: through psychophysical exercises; Postures and breathing, then samadhi (synthesis with all)
Caste of siddhartha, a hindu:
samana / ascetic
Harijan
god’s people (are the untouchables)
Hinduism summary:
you can have what you want. But what do we want?
Goals of life:
PATH OF DESIRE: charting life’s course.
PATH OF RENUNCIATION: Life holds more than what it does not (wanting and seeing there’s more to life - neg and pos)
PATH OF DESIRE
- pleasure
2. worldly success - 3 prongs of worth, power, fame.
PATH OF RENUNCIATION
community
What people want:
Being
Knowledge
Joy
What people want:
Being
Knowledge
Joy
We carry within us: s
supreme strength, fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy.
Hinduism tenets:
Underlying the human self is unrestricted in consciousness and bliss. Infinite center of every life, this is the hidden self Atman no less than Brahman the Godhead. Body, personality, and Atman-Brahman
(a human self is not completely accounted for until all three are noted.)
samadhi
synthesis together with all, no boundaries, no form
Stages of life:
Student: After initiation. 8-12 years old. Responsibilities.
Householder: begins with marriage
Retirement: after arrival of first grandchild.
Sannyasin: one who neither hates nor loves anything (final stage)
Stations of life: castes:
- Brahmins / seers: high
- Kshatriyas:
- Vaishyas:
- Shudras: low
Brahmins / seers
reflective, passion to understand, keep intuitive grasp of values that matter in life. Intellectual and spiritual leaders.
Kshatriyas
born administrators, orchestrate people / human talents.
Vaishyas
producers; they are artisans and farmers
Shudras
servants / followers. Unskilled laborers.
Brahman
most exalted, either personal or transpersonal.
Brahma
creator (personal)
Vishnu
preserver (personal)
Shiva
destroyer (personal)
TRANS
(he is also above all these things.)
jivas
Individual souls: jivas enter the world mysteriously
Reincarnation
Process by which jivas pass through bodies; soul’s growth is automatic.
Karma
mechanism; the moral law of cause and effect. Implies
- commits you to compete personal responsibility
- closes door on chance
nature
Nature is all grounded in god, not self-existent.
Maya
illusion, does not exist objectively; mental fabrication, but still real. Magic. Seductive in attractiveness, trapping us within it sometimes.
Lila
god’s play. Place themselves in harm’s way, but spontaneous overflow of creativity. God is cosmic dancer.
“What kind of world do we have?” Hinduism answers:
- innumerable galaxies
- karma is never suspended
- middling world
- maya
- training ground to improve
- lila: cosmic dance
Many paths to the same summit:
religions okay! God can be found.
Sikhs
disciples: wayward members of their own extended family
Gu
darkness
Ru:
enlightenment bringer
Sanatana dharma:
eternal truth
Avatars
divine incarnations
Guru
only true one is God. God speaks through gurus.
satyagraha
Gandhi’s understanding of nonviolent resistance
Vedas
the most ancient sacred writings in any world religion
“the birth of religion[:]
true religion begins with the quest for meaning and value beyond self-centeredness. It renounces the ego’s claim to finality.”
moksha
liberation: anything that prevents us from being grounded in the “really real.” This connection to being, to “the source,” to the infinite is “already here,” deep within us.
Atman
This personal connection to the infinite is Atman, the personal expression of the All, Brahman.
Brahman
Brahman is the Hindu word for the God behind all the gods, the Reality undergirding all appearance.
religion ***
acknowledge that “life is out of joint” and they all offer techniques to overcome or deal with this “out-of-jointedness.” - to knit or bind together ***
Why, at the bottom of page 20, do you think Hesse uses the image of “a plague?”
?
Nirvana
the Buddhist goal of liberation or fulfillment. There is the fruit of new hope, and our two characters are going to seek it out in an interview with the founder of Buddhism. Siddhartha seeks the blessing of his Master, his teacher.
How do we know that this ferryman is important, not only for Siddhartha but for the novel?
Of the river, perhaps the most profound symbol of the novel, “everything comes back.”
sanga
community
He nearly commits suicide.
What saves him? He wakes up and sees Govinda
What might Hesse mean by the line, on page 99, that “too much knowledge had hindered” Siddhartha?
knowledge had gotten in the way. garnering knowledge of various kinds in our study of these historic wisdom traditions.
6 aspects of religion
tradition Ritual Speculation Tradition grace mystery
tradition
the natural social progression of certain religious individuals beyond standard deviation within a society, so much that they are highly revered and are sought for spiritual advice.
Ritual
an act of grief or celebration in unison with other believers, but when believers take the heart and meaning out of an act, it results in spiritual stagnation.
Speculation
the spiritual angle with which bigger questions about life and our purpose rae answered.
Tradition
“template” with which past guidelines and practical manifestations of spirituality are passed onto future generations.
Grace
what we don’t deserve.
mystery
what every human unknown is filled with.
buddha 3 things
fast, wait, think
6 aspects of religion
Ritual Speculation Tradition grace mystery
types of person-ability
- personal: image, icon, embodiment to guide our attentions “Can you pray to this image of God as ‘process?’”
- impersonal/transpersonal: the ‘mystical’ apprehension of the sacred. It is much easier to worship her than to worship the impersonal Brahman”
Devi
is a form the absolute takes.
Buddhism, you will note, originally emerged as a
reform of Hinduism;
Four Noble Truths
- dukkha
- tanya
- selfish craving
- eightfold path
Four Noble Truths
- dukkha
- tanya
- selfish craving
- eightfold path - the way out of captivity is through
eightfold path
- Right views: beliefs; make up our mind about what life’s problem is
- Right intent: make up our hearts as to what we want.
- Right speech: speak nothing but the truth.
- Right conduct: understand one’s behavior objectively before improving it. Reflect on actions.
- Right livelihood: occupation; work.
- Right effort: will; reaching goal.
- Right mindfulness: we are the result of what we think
- Right concentration: raja yoga – meditation.
Budh
wake up and to know
Buddha
enlightened one / awakened one
Buddhism began with man who shook of the daze of ordinary awareness and woke up.
Mara
the evil one did not rejoice for buddha waking
lord of death.
Siddhartha Gautama
from sakyas clan; gautama was surname.
Father was a king, but there were any kingdoms. Exceptionally handsome, perfect. At 16, married neighboring princess, Yasodhara, they had a son, Rahula. He seemed to have everything.
Source of discontent:
the four passing sights book tells it. On the 4th time, he learned of the life of withdrawal from the world. The body’s inescapable involvement with disease, decrepitude, and death made him despair of finding fulfillment on the physical plane.
after 6 years, he found what yoga?
rana yoga
The Great Awakening
His being was transformed - cosmic import. Everything rejoiced. 49 days he was lost in rapture and woke up.
He challenged the deadness of brahmin society.
buddha 6 things religion
Preached a religion devoid of authority
Devoid of ritual; ridiculed brahmanic rites as superstitious trappings, irrelevant to ego-reduction.
Skirted speculation: noble silence
Devoid of tradition; do not go by what was handed down. Know yourselves. Teachin are not good. Loss and suffering, reject them.
Intense self-effort: hard labor to move up castes for eternity (no!); work out your salvation
Devoid of supernatural: condemned all forms of divination, forecasting, etc.
Original buddhism:
Empirical: final test of truth Scientific: cause and effect Pragmatic: everyday life Therapeutic: waht is your suffering? Psychological: coping Egalitarian: broke caste Individuals-directed: importance of reinforcing resolves.
Skandas
body, sensations, thoughts, feelings, conscious, what we are.
Skandas
body, sensations, thoughts, feelings, conscious, what we are.
Nirvana
life’s goal: to blow out, to extinguish, fire goes out. Highest destiny of human spirit.
Anita / Atta
no soul: spiritual substance, retains identity forever. Buddha denies these! If there is ever an enduring self, subject always, never object, it never shows itself.
Anicca
transitoriness of everything finite. Impermanence.
3 marks of existence: apply to everything
Impermanence
Suffering (dukkha)
Anatta (no soul)
Arhat
the holy one who has extinguished all such desires.
Yanas
rafts or ferries carry people across life’s sea to enlightenment
Theravada
way of elders;
Boddhisattva
one whose essence is perfected wisdom
Boddhisattva
one whose essence is perfected wisdom
pilgrimage route
Khatmandu down to Lumbini (the Buddha’s birthplace),
Sarnath in the Varanasi district (where the Buddha preached his first sermon),
then through Patna (where the Buddha preached from a high overlook to some five thousand)
to Nalanda (where the film focuses on the ruins of an ancient Buddhist university)
and finally to Bodh Gaya, center of the Buddhist universe and the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
Maharaja of Banaras
who can trace his lineage all the way back to a great grandparent who hosted Lord Buddha, King of the Deer.
Banaras
is one of the holiest of Hindu cities as well, on the banks of the holiest of rivers, the river Ganges.
The Big Raft (Mahayana)
The Little Raft (Theravada, also called Hinayana).
two foundational paths - Remember, they are BOTH truly Buddhist,
Mahayana’s key virtue is
compassion, and its ideal embodiment is the bodhisattva
once nirvana [discussed on page 113] is achieved,
the devotee returns to this side of the river again to lead others across to the “other side”
Theravada’s key virtue is wisdom,
and its idea figure would be the Arhat
Paul Tillich, defined religion as
“the state of being grasped by ultimate concern.”
Zen Buddhistterm for enlightenment”
with “sartori”
