Sources of A - Upaya and Dukkha Flashcards
1
Q
what is upaya + scholar
A
- skill in means
- knowledge on what to do in a situation
Theravada: Buddhas skill in shaping teaching to be appropriate to his audience so they can understand the dhamma (beginners, jataka tales vs advanced)
- mahayana: activity tha helps others realise enlightenment
- buddhas teachings are provisional to enlightenment –> M see T as a skill in means to get to enlightenment
John hick: his life is the teaching (dhamma)
2
Q
buddhas teaching style and upaya
A
- socrates and jesus blend
- similies, metaphors, parables
- remembering deeper truth
3
Q
buddhas parables and upaya
A
- saft: dharma should be abandoned if not needed, no attachment
- kisa gotami: needed experience
- poison arrow: do not concern yourself with metaphysics as it does not lead to cessation of suffering –> thich Nhat hanh and Rupert Getwin
4
Q
adaptation of teaching as upaya
A
- teachers willingness to adapt the interests, needs and level of understanding of others to communicate to them
- flexibility and sympathy
- buddha: adapted speech and appearance to be better able teach the dhamma to different people
- monks and nuns should learn the foreign languages of the people they are living with
5
Q
importance of critical thinking
A
- “when you know through your own experience that certain things are wrong and unwholesome, do not lead to calm and happiness and are not beneficial, then give them up” Buddha
- B: only accept his teaching only having examined it for themselves and not out of reverence for him
- need to understand the consequences first
6
Q
john hick and skill in means in religion
A
- presupposes that a teacher knows some truth which is to be communicated to others so that they may come to see it for themselves
- skilful means are the devices in which teachers uses to do this
- Buddha in PC: skilful questions, parables and stories, uses particular individuals or group and adapts teachings to their karmic state
7
Q
sigala and skill in means
A
- sigala promised to worship 6 directions as his father asked on his death bed
- B didnt criticise or condemn but asked him to modify it slightly –> see people he were in relationships with as equivalent to directions and worship them by treating them with kindness respect and love
8
Q
kisa gotami and skill in means
A
- lost only child and became desperate to find someone to help her
- buddha said he could help if she brought white mustard seeds from any family who didnt have death
- she realised that this did not exist –> buddha comforted her and preached to her the truth
- awakened and entered the first stage of enlightenment
- B uses skill in means to help her have experience of grief –> death is life
9
Q
parable of the poison arrow and skill in means
A
- about the 14 unanswerable questions –> questions of the cosmos do not remove suffering, origin of existence is not the point
- not answering q: upaya, asking the questions wrongly
- the questions are irrelevant (or he doesnt know)
- dhamma is to pull out the arrow youve been shot with instead of contemplating its nature –> rejects the metaphysical
- thich nhat hanh: dont waste time in metaphysical speculation, problem of liberation remains the same, speculation brings us no closer to the truth
- rupert gethin: buddha wanted to keep these matters open, since these questions do not contribute to the cessation fo suffering, their purpose is pulled into question in human life (undermines meta thinking)
10
Q
the lotus sutra
A
- not recognised by T, but roots in T
- acclaimed, only taught to some
- teaches of M view of T Buddhism –> T is skill in means, and so is the PC
11
Q
describe the lotus sutra
A
- wealthy man and children = humanity and bodhisattva, cosmic buddha
- children would not flee burning house, absorbed in game = attachment stops us from leaving suffering/samsara (link to 4 sights), dharma is the way to get out of the burning house
- wealthy man had practical way to save us: upaya, preaches T Buddhism first so people can access M and the sutras
- 3 carts ‘goats, deer, oxen’ = 3 lesser vehicles, T buddhism to save them from suffering
- children come out and see greater cart –> greater vehicle, M buddhism
12
Q
difference between T and M upaya, and issue raised
A
- M belief is that everything TB teaches and the PC is upaya, and MB and the sutras is the true way
- TB is therefore foundational but not the right teaching, B teaches so people can understand foundationally and then
- when the B was teaching T, did he lie? or is the Lotus Sutra propaganda as only they endorse it? or was this upaya?
13
Q
3 vehicles in the lotus S significance
A
- sravakayana: yana of the arhat who had been taught the dhamma of the buddha and is apart of the monastic sangha, typical T path
- Pratyekabuddhayāna: yana of the solitary b, outside sangha and not taught the dhamma, avoids companionship
- bodhisattva-yana: someone who models approach on historical Buddha’s, leads to the attainment of perfect buddha hood or the realisation of tathagatagarbha (buddha within) –> rebirths, paramitas and bodhicitta (awakened mind)
14
Q
the foundation of the dhamma
A
- ‘all i teach is suffering and the cessation of suffering - buddha
- 3 fires poisons, greed, hatred, ignorance –> aim is to extinguish or cease suffering and attain nirvana
15
Q
3 truths of human life
A
- annica: impermanence, nothing lasts forever
- dukkha: all life is suffering, we suffer because we want things to last forever, and we do not understand
- anatta: no fixed permanent unchanging self/soul
- links to 4 sights, B realises that all life is suffering and death is inevitable –> impermanence
- asceticism vs luxury: suffering, no happiness, not just destitution –> asceticism implies that there is a soul to release but there is no such thing
