Question

Huston Smith: The World Religions; "The Man who Woke up" to "The Four Noble Truths" Chapter III 82-103

Read the Life of The Buddha.

1. Who is Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakya? Compose 6 "bullet-type" statements that capture the more salient points of his life. List them here.

2, What is the sangha?

3. How did the followers of Buddha categorize his teachings?

Answer 1

Siddharth Gautam was an Indian philosopher and social reformer of 5th century BCE.

1) He was born in sakya clan an was son of ruler but left home after looking at an young man , a sick man and dead man in a spree that forced him to search and think on philosophy of life and death.

He meditated and achieved enlightenment under a bodhi tree in Gaya , Bihar, India, after several year of hard work.

He then started propogated his philosophy bybgiving sermon , first being at sarnath . His teachings included denial of dagmatism of religion, including marginalised people into Sangha, promoting non killing of animal and vegetarianism, promoting logical thinking and striving towards attaining Nirvana.

He made her disciples like Ananda, Upali, whom he suggested to spread the teaching to help every individual attain enlightenment.

He gave 4 noble truth of life,  The truth of suffering, The truth of the origin of suffering , The truth of the cessation of suffering , and The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. He considered desires to be the cause of sorrow in everyone's life and said that this keep people caught withinthe cycle of birth and death and suffering an pain associated. He suggested 8 fold path to end this suffering , by attaining Nirvana.

He gave three jewels , Buddha Dhamma and Sangha , each having specific characteristics.

His teachings were propogated by his followers and disciples through texts, speeches and sermon and creating Sangha and bringing in more people in it.

2) It means an association or assembly or monastic community that works together to achieve Nirvana. It is one of the jewels given by Buddha . Most important Sangha was Arya Sangha which included this monks who have attained at least one of four factor of attaining nirvana

3) His teaching was initially propogated by disciples orally , moving from one place to other .

They were categorised into vinaypitaka( concerned with behavior of monk) suutapitaka(concerned with speeches of budhha) and abhidhamma pitaka( concerned with general philosophy of Buddhism , may be called Buddhist psychology)