Buddhist Holy Book Ks2

[Elly Ker]

According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught that attachment or clinging causes dukkha (often translated as "suffering" or "unease"[note 1]), but that there is a path of development which leads to awakening and full liberation from dukkha.[17] This path employs meditation practices and ethical precepts rooted in non-harming, with the Buddha regarding it as a Middle Way between extremes such as asceticism or sensual indulgence.[18][19] Widely observed teachings include the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Noble Path, and the doctrines of dependent origination, the three marks of existence, and karma. Other commonly observed elements include the taking of monastic vows and the cultivation of perfections (pāramitā).[20]

The names Buddha Dharma and Bauddha Dharma come from Sanskrit: बुद्ध धर्म and बद्ध धर्म respectively ("doctrine of the Enlightened One" and "doctrine of Buddhists"). Dharmavinaya comes from Sanskrit: धर्मवनय, literally meaning "doctrines [and] disciplines".

The Buddha ("the Awakened One") was a Śramaṇa who lived in South Asia c. 6th or 5th century BCE.[34][35] Followers of Buddhism, called Buddhists in English, referred to themselves as Sakyan-s or Sakyabhiksu in ancient India.[36][37] Buddhist scholar Donald S. Lopez asserts they also used the term Bauddha,[38] although scholar Richard Cohen asserts that that term was used only by outsiders to describe Buddhists.[39]

Details of the Buddha's life are mentioned in many Early Buddhist Texts but are inconsistent. His social background and life details are difficult to prove, and the precise dates are uncertain, although the 5th century BCE seems to be the best estimate.[40][note 2]

Various details about the Buddha'a background are contested in modern scholarship. For example, Buddhist texts assert that Buddha described himself as a kshatriya (warrior class), but Gombrich writes that little is known about his father and there is no proof that his father even knew the term kshatriya.[53] (Mahavira, whose teachings helped establish the ancient religion Jainism, is also claimed to be ksatriya by his early followers.[54])

According to various early texts like the Mahāsaccaka-sutta, and the Samaaphala Sutta, on awakening, the Buddha gained insight into the workings of karma and his former lives, as well as achieving the ending of the mental defilements (asavas), the ending of suffering, and the end of rebirth in saṃsāra.[61] This event also brought certainty about the Middle Way as the right path of spiritual practice to end suffering.[18][19] As a fully enlightened Buddha, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha (monastic order).[63] He spent the rest of his life teaching the Dharma he had discovered, and then died, achieving "final nirvana", at the age of 80 in Kushinagar, India.[64][43][according to whom?]

The Buddha's teachings were propagated by his followers, which in the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE became various Buddhist schools of thought, each with its own basket of texts containing different interpretations and authentic teachings of the Buddha;[65][66][67] these over time evolved into many traditions of which the more well known and widespread in the modern era are Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.[68][69]

Buddhism teaches that the idea that anything is permanent or that there is self in any being is ignorance or misperception (avijjā), and that this is the primary source of clinging and dukkha.[76][77][78]

Saṃsāra means "wandering" or "world", with the connotation of cyclic, circuitous change.[81][82] It refers to the theory of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental assumption of Buddhism, as with all major Indian religions.[82][83] Samsara in Buddhism is considered to be dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful,[84] perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma.[82][85][86] Liberation from this cycle of existence, nirvana, has been the foundation and the most important historical justification of Buddhism.[87][88]

Buddhist texts assert that rebirth can occur in six realms of existence, namely three good realms (heavenly, demi-god, human) and three evil realms (animal, hungry ghosts, hellish).[note 6] Samsara ends if a person attains nirvana, the "blowing out" of the afflictions through insight into impermanence and "non-self".[90][91][92]

Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death.[93] In Buddhist thought, this rebirth does not involve a soul or any fixed substance. This is because the Buddhist doctrine of anattā (Sanskrit: anātman, no-self doctrine) rejects the concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul found in other religions.[94][95]

The Buddhist traditions have traditionally disagreed on what it is in a person that is reborn, as well as how quickly the rebirth occurs after death.[96][97] Some Buddhist traditions assert that "no self" doctrine means that there is no enduring self, but there is avacya (inexpressible) personality (pudgala) which migrates from one life to another.[96] The majority of Buddhist traditions, in contrast, assert that vijāna (a person's consciousness) though evolving, exists as a continuum and is the mechanistic basis of what undergoes the rebirth process.[98][96] The quality of one's rebirth depends on the merit or demerit gained by one's karma (i.e., actions), as well as that accrued on one's behalf by a family member.[note 7] Buddhism also developed a complex cosmology to explain the various realms or planes of rebirth.[84]

A central aspect of Buddhist theory of karma is that intent (cetanā) matters and is essential to bring about a consequence or phala "fruit" or vipāka "result".[103] The emphasis on intent in Buddhism marks a difference from the karmic theory of Jainism, where karma accumulates with or without intent.[104][105] The emphasis on intent is also found in Hinduism, and Buddhism may have influenced karma theories of Hinduism.[106]

In Buddhism, good or bad karma accumulates even if there is no physical action, and just having ill or good thoughts creates karmic seeds; thus, actions of body, speech or mind all lead to karmic seeds.[102] In the Buddhist traditions, life aspects affected by the law of karma in past and current births of a being include the form of rebirth, realm of rebirth, social class, character and major circumstances of a lifetime.[102][107][108] According to the theory, it operates like the laws of physics, without external intervention, on every being in all six realms of existence including human beings and gods.[102][109]

A notable aspect of the karma theory in modern Buddhism is merit transfer.[110][111] A person accumulates merit not only through intentions and ethical living, but also is able to gain merit from others by exchanging goods and services, such as through dāna (charity to monks or nuns).[112] The theory also states a person can transfer one's own good karma to living family members and ancestors.[111]

This Buddhist idea may have roots in the quid-pro-quo exchange beliefs of the Hindu Vedic rituals.[113] The "karma merit transfer" concept has been controversial, not accepted in later Jainism and Hinduism traditions, unlike Buddhism where it was adopted in ancient times and remains a common practice.[110] According to Bruce Reichenbach, the "merit transfer" idea was generally absent in early Buddhism and may have emerged with the rise of Mahayana Buddhism; he adds that while major Hindu schools such as Yoga, Advaita Vedanta and others do not believe in merit transfer, some bhakti Hindu traditions later adopted the idea just like Buddhism.[114]

The cessation of the kleshas and the attainment of nirvana (nibbāna), with which the cycle of rebirth ends, has been the primary and the soteriological goal of the Buddhist path for monastic life since the time of the Buddha.[115][116][117] The term "path" is usually taken to mean the Noble Eightfold Path, but other versions of "the path" can also be found in the Nikayas.[note 8] In some passages in the Pali Canon, a distinction is being made between right knowledge or insight (sammā-āṇa), and right liberation or release (sammā-vimutti), as the means to attain cessation and liberation.[119][120]

The nirvana state has been described in Buddhist texts partly in a manner similar to other Indian religions, as the state of complete liberation, enlightenment, highest happiness, bliss, fearlessness, freedom, permanence, non-dependent origination, unfathomable, and indescribable.[132][133] It has also been described in part differently, as a state of spiritual release marked by "emptiness" and realisation of non-self.[134][135][136][note 11]

While Buddhism considers the liberation from saṃsāra as the ultimate spiritual goal, in traditional practice, the primary focus of a vast majority of lay Buddhists has been to seek and accumulate merit through good deeds, donations to monks and various Buddhist rituals in order to gain better rebirths rather than nirvana.[139][140][note 12]

Pratityasamutpada, also called "dependent arising, or dependent origination", is the Buddhist theory to explain the nature and relations of being, becoming, existence and ultimate reality. Buddhism asserts that there is nothing independent, except the state of nirvana.[143] All physical and mental states depend on and arise from other pre-existing states, and in turn from them arise other dependent states while they cease.[144]

The 'dependent arisings' have a causal conditioning, and thus Pratityasamutpada is the Buddhist belief that causality is the basis of ontology, not a creator God nor the ontological Vedic concept called universal Self (Brahman) nor any other 'transcendent creative principle'.[145][146] However, Buddhist thought does not understand causality in terms of Newtonian mechanics; rather it understands it as conditioned arising.[147][148] In Buddhism, dependent arising refers to conditions created by a plurality of causes that necessarily co-originate a phenomenon within and across lifetimes, such as karma in one life creating conditions that lead to rebirth in one of the realms of existence for another lifetime.[149][150][151]

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