Many students of Theravada find that learning the Pali language -- even just a little bit here and there -- greatly deepens their understanding of the path of practice. A brief summary of the Buddha's teachings What follows is a brief synopsis of some of the key teachings of Theravada Buddhism. I've left out a great deal, but I hope that even this rough outline will be enough to get you started in your exploration.
Shortly after his Awakening , the Buddha "the Awakened One" delivered his first sermon , in which he laid out the essential framework upon which all his later teachings were based.
This framework consists of the Four Noble Truths , four fundamental principles of nature Dhamma that emerged from the Buddha's honest and penetrating assessment of the human condition and that serve to define the entire scope of Buddhist practice. These truths are not statements of belief. Rather, they are categories by which we can frame our direct experience in a way that is conducive to Awakening: 1.
Dukkha: suffering, unsatisfactoriness, discontent, stress; 2. The cause of dukkha: the cause of this dissatisfaction is craving tanha for sensuality, for states of becoming, and states of no becoming; 3. The cessation of dukkha: the relinquishment of that craving; 4.
The path of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha: the Noble Eightfold Path of right view , right resolve , right speech , right action , right livelihood , right effort , right mindfulness , and right concentration. To each of these Noble Truths the Buddha assigned a specific task which the practitioner is to carry out: the first Noble Truth is to be comprehended ; the second is to be abandoned ; the third is to be realized ; the fourth is to be developed.
The full realization of the third Noble Truth paves the way for the direct penetration of Nibbana Sanskrit: Nirvana , the transcendent freedom that stands as the final goal of all the Buddha's teachings. The last of the Noble Truths -- the Noble Eightfold Path -- contains a prescription for the relief of our unhappiness and for our eventual release, once and for all, from the painful and wearisome cycle of birth and death samsara to which -- through our own ignorance avijja of the Four Noble Truths -- we have been bound for countless aeons.
Although Theravada is sometimes used to replace the pejorative term Hinayana, in actuality Theravada Buddhism is the last remaining school of the twenty or so early Indian non-Mahayana schools of Buddhism to survive and is not an adequate substitute.
Theravada practice focuses primarily on meditation and concentration, and it is centered on monastic life, which is thought to be a superior way of achieving liberation than the life of a layman. Theravada stresses worship of the three jewels triratna : the Shakyamuni Buddha, the monastic community sangha , and the Buddhist doctrine dharma.
The highest ideal is that of the arhat , the monk who attains enlightenment by meticulously following the teachings of the Buddha.
Mahayana Buddhism Mahayana "Great Vehicle" is a term used by proponents of texts that began to appear roughly four centuries after the death of the Buddha. The texts were regarded as the word of the Buddha. In Mahayanasutralankara by Asanga, which is a very representativ Mahayana text, we find something of interest for our quest.
Asanga says: "There are three groups of people: hiina-madhyama-vishishta A very interesting text is an edition of the Catushparishatsutra where the text is presented in four parallell columns: Sanskrit, Pali Mahavagga , Tibetan and a German translation from a Chinese version.
Here, again, we find the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta. We have already looked into the Sanskrit and Pali. But it at least is clear that the strongly negative connotation of "hiina" was carried over into the Chinese translation.
So far nothing had changed from the Pali and Sanskrit meanings. And here we have the cause of later confusions and misunderstandings of the term hiinayaana. Let us see what Tibetan-English dictionaries say about "dman-pa": Sarat Chandra Das' Dictionary says: " dman-pa : low, in reference to quantity or quality, little". It thus seems that the Sanskrit word hiina , which without any reasonable doubt means "of low quality", came to be translated by the Tibetan word dman-pa , which has the double meaning "low quality" and "low quantity".
Thus we see that the confusion arose from the fact that dman-pa has two meanings in Tibetan. But this is a result of a wrong method. Therefore it is clear that one can not assert that Hinayana has the "mild" meaning that the Tibetan tradition has given it, via the Tibetan word dman-pa.
What then, is Hinayana? Is it Theravada buddhism? No, that is both insulting and historically wrong. Reference herein to "Tibetan Buddhism" refers broadly to the Buddhism of the countries and regions of the broader Tibetan cultural world: not only Tibet but also Bhutan, Sikkim, northern Nepal, northwestern India, and Mongolia.
Although the Theravadins claim seniority, the Mahayana movement was a fairly early development, and has been traced back to the first century B. Mahayana, meaning "greater vehicle," is a broader, more inclusive school, with a more ambitious approach and more visionary concepts.
It is in light of Mahayana's grander aims that the term "lesser vehicle" came into use.
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