Unit 2, Lecture 2: The Middle Path and Buddha's Enlightenment

§ Middle Path: finding a middle way (balance) between 2 extremes, body indulgent (pleasures) and body mortification (starve) o Gets kicked out for eating food (being soft) o Budhi Tree (Tree of Enlightenment): vow to not leave until find freedom from death by mediating -> attacked by Mari to stop him by showing pleasures and temptations -> Buddha calls Earth for the right to be there until Mari leaves o Last night: series of 3 watches 1. Samsara: Cycle of existence: Remembered his past lives of suffering, pleasures a. “Death” hovers over wheel or time and death that swallows all -> fall into jaws again and again b. Poisons: Pig, Boar -> lusting, hating, ignorant c. Light vs Dark Realms, karma born into 6 high/low realms: ALL lives into account so never know where stand as don’t know past lives i. Gods: distracted by long life, pleasures forget suffering reality ii. Titans/Demigods: power but fighting, distracted too iii. iv. Animals v. 1. Humans: “won the lottery” most rare and precious birth, mixture Hungry Ghosts: extended bellies that can’t be full, closed mouth No mental space to seek liberation vi. Hell Realms: intense torture suffering d. 12 links of dependent origination e. The Twelve links in chain: origin of suffering i. Ignorance, consciousness, contact, sensation, craving, attachment, action, rebirth, decay/death --> focuses on ignorance by teachings and craving as CAN do something about (harder at attachment) 1. Ignorance: we think we have a self, if let go then rest dissolve 2. The Law of Karma: Insight in workings in dharma -> past lives make sense, how one's deeds in past life affects next life (pattern of causation) a. The Law of Dependent Origination: cause and effect of existence depends on causes -> nothing originates on its own cause, nonrandom (ex. Parents) i. Origin of suffering --> suffering: eliminate the cause as can’t rid death 3. The Doctrine of No-Self (anatma, anatta --> “an” negates it to “no”-self): What is the nature of the self? Who am I? -> radical answer, you have no self. Only 1 distinct to Buddhism -> created his enlightenment a. The Five Skandhas: a heap/aggregate of “groups of existence” classifies physical and mental existence (too much experiencing) -> impermanent, nothing lasts for more than a moment i. Form (physical body and objects) ii. Feeling (sense of positive, negative, neural) mental iii. Perception (hearing, sight, touch) mental iv. Volition (will, desire, other states) mental v. Consciousness (thoughts, awareness) mental b. Self is whatever accounts for own personal identity across time; self is your essence that provides continuity over time, whenever say “I” i. Not body/form as changes from child to adult -> impermanent ii. Not mental as thoughts /sense/feelings come and go -> impermanent 1. If skandhas catches all, if they are all impermeant, if self is continued identity --> then there is no self o Gods come down to tell Buddha teach for those not clouded by pleasures o First Semon of Buddhism to 5 of his renunciate friends before o Created the set in motion wheel of dharma, founding of Buddhism