Part B: Ultimate Reality

Question 1

The Trikaya
Dharmakaya (4)

Answer 1

Truth body
- enlightened mind, truth of all things
- enlightened purified consciousness
- is always present

Question 2

The Trikaya
Sambhogakaya (4)

Answer 2

Heavenly body
- body of bliss and enjoyment
- located in splendid paradise
- can appear to teach Bodhisattvas through visionary experiences

Question 3

The Trikaya
Nirmanakaya (4)

Answer 3

Physical body
- subject to sickness, old age death
- could be that of an animal or God
- governed by Upaya

Question 4

How does Anicca cause suffering? (3)

Answer 4

1) ignorance and delusion
2) attachment to things
3) not understanding change

Question 5

Benefits/ Positives of Anicca (3)

Answer 5

Helps to reduce attachment
Can help us realise anatta
Help to overcome craving

Question 6

Difficulties/ Negatives about Anicca (2)

Answer 6

Attachment can be good
Do all things change? The Dhamma?

Question 7

Sunyata
Why is it important? (2)

Answer 7

Leads to no attachments
Realisation of Bhodi-Prajna (awaken wisdom)

Question 8

Sunyata
Theravada View (3)

Answer 8

Made up of 5 aggregates which are self and impermanent
Clinging to them gives rise to greed and hate
So Sunyata means anatta

Question 9

Sunyata
Mahayana View (3)

Answer 9

All phenomena are empty
Sunyata isn’t that nothing exists but that everything is empty
Identity of things is what we have named it not what its essence is

Question 10

Nirvana
General knowledge (3)

Answer 10

Means literally ‘to extinguish’
Linked to 3 fires (or three poisons)
Karma is fuel that keeps you in Samsara

Question 11

Nirvana
What did Buddha say? (3)

Answer 11

It is ‘incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable, unutterable’
Is completely different from normal existence
Our language is inadequate to describe it

Question 12

Nirvana
Where is it? (2)

Answer 12

Not a place but like a state of existence
Can’t be entered like you enter a room

Question 13

Nirvana
Theravada view (2)

Answer 13

2 kinds
1) w. remainders
- living enlightened being e.g. Arhat
- conscious of pain but not bound to it
2) parinirvana
- final/ complete nirvana entered at death
- state is neither existence nor non-existence

Question 14

Nirvana
Mahayana view (2)

Answer 14

Bodhisattva Vow
Samsara and nirvana aren’t separate as N is purified form of S

Question 15

Questions of King Milinda
80th Dilemma

Answer 15

KM asks N to describe Nirvana but N says it can’t be described so instead he likens it to other things e.g.
Medicine, Ghee, Mountain Peak

Question 16

Anatta
Is this a problem for rebirth? (2)

Answer 16

If there is no self/soul, what passes from one life to the next
Buddha taught no PERMANENT self so self can be evolving and that can be moved on

Question 17

Anatta
The Five Aggregates (Skandhas)

Answer 17

1) Consciousness
2) Mental Formations
3) Perceptions
4) Sensations
5) Form
Constantly changing