Introduction to Buddhism and Summary by Dalai Lama for everyone
This is my eagerness to write down the teachings by Dalai Lama on "Buddhism for beginners". He gave a very good explanation on "introduction", "4 noble truths" and what is so special there to learn for every sentient being. I am inspired to write this article as close as possible to the translation by Thupten Jinpa in discussion( link attached at the end of this article). You can watch the video itself although reading this would be more helpful as i draw few pictures too as per the need to help you understand tough concepts.
Introduction to Buddhism:
I will begin with the statement from the genre of scripture known as the "perfection of wisdom". The statement goes like "the mind is devoid of mind ,the ultimate nature of the mind is clear light". The first part deal with the phenomenon called "The mind" . When we talk about the mind we are directly talking about the phenomenon of our experience of pain and pleasure, suffering and Joy. Which means we are talking about:
- all the minds of all those sentient beings which have the capacity to feel Suffering and Joy.
- means we are talking about the experiential nature
- in other words we are talking about the conscience of beings.
WE are all aspire to overcome sufferings and seek happiness.
Mind is very crucial in buddhism because in buddhism it is understood that:
- Pain and Sufferings are functions of Untamed and in Disciplined mind.
- Joy and Happiness are functions of tamed and Disciplined mind.
Explained best in another link here:
So back to the statement that says
“mind is devoid of the mind”.
Description and meaning: Buddha said that our naive understanding of the mind as some concrete or real thing is our distorted understanding. There is no such thing as mind as concrete or real. We can ultimately talk about it's nature to understand the Sufferings and Joy.
The second part of the statement says
"the ultimate nature of the mind is clear light”.
Description and meaning: The mind can be best understood as the dependent relations of causes and conditions. Beyond this one can not say that it is separate from this causes and conditions. Essential nature of the mind is bright might. It gets polluted from thoughts and pollutants which are adventitious( external ). In its roots mind's nature is luminosity which Buddhism says as the Buddha Mind.
End of Introduction.
We can proceed towards the 4 noble truths of buddhism as follows:
- The truth of suffering (dukkha)
- The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
- The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
- The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga).
as you can see we are dealing with the sufferings here. Buddhism describe 3 levels of Sufferings.
First describes at the level of feelings and sensations. Our direct pain and sufferings when we get hurt by direct actions and feelings.
Second level describes the suffering of change. When we get involved in comfort of pleasures then we tend to involve in it for too long. This makes us not to change the causes and conditions with which we are living. Hence this pleasures, over Happiness and Joy, Drugs influenced joys are referred to as the sufferings. Simply when we think "why world changes, why can't it remain the same" at the time of joy.
Third level of suffering is the root and basis of all sufferings which is directly related to the existence. Causes and conditions bring us the sufferings.
So buddha talks about the nature of sufferings and say that for cessation of suffering, the suffering itself has to be recognised or understood.
Buddha says that: After you would have understood and accept that there is suffering than there is no more suffering. which means after you will be able to understand that suffering then you can go towards the cessation of it and after your fruitful actions there will be no more sufferings.
So we see a pattern in teachings of Buddhism. We see a fundamental pattern in spiritual journey of individual towards an enlightened person from an ordinary being. From an ordinary physical being to fully awakened person or enlightened being.
Buddhism is essentially different from other theistic traditions( the belief in one God as the creator ) where a form of revelation comes from a transcendent being which is top down approach in terms of spiritual evolution. Whereas in buddhism it is bottom up. Which means that buddhism is about teaching together and based on the possibility that everyone can be enlightened.
Buddha himself is the enlightened being who was an ordinary human being at first.
Cessation of suffering:
So a practitioner must inquire about the possibility of cessation of the Sufferings which means inquire about such causes and conditions that leads to the sufferings.
Cessation of sufferings refers to a state of mind where these causes and conditions will not have the power to create sufferings to a person anymore. This is the Truth of cessation.
Then comes the Karma, Our actions, that plays a significant role in understanding the whole wheel of karma. To reach enlightenment this understanding of the wheel is very important.
Ignorance plays a vital role if we are talking about further sufferings as result of one actions. Ignorance can be just unknowing the reality or it can be the distorted form of knowing. In both cases it can be replaced with the correct picture of the reality.
No-Self inspired by emptiness. Buddhism says again that mind is devoid of mind and true nature of the mind is bright light. Ignoring the fact that 'mind is not concrete or absolute', 'everything cease one day' and 'there is nothing in this world to fear about' lead us to sufferings . We will no longer be here, only the light will illuminate. Sun will still shine and air will still blow even after our disappearance. Realising true nature of self is very important which is no-self.
Summarizing the whole point of Buddhism:
Sentient mind begin to feel pain and sufferings. Pain and sufferings are cause of unhappiness in life. Untamed and indisciplined mind functions in way that cause sufferings. In order to make our soul strong so that we can be free from this sufferings we have to understand the cause and conditions and karma relationship. When we understand these karma relationships we understand that ignorance is there with in our understanding. Ignoring our true nature and ignoring the no-self nature of our mind becomes a hurdle in achieving the enlightenment state. Meditations and "Dhyaan" on our breadth and our nature of mind is suggested by Buddhism.
Video Link:
Thupten Jinpa profile:
