Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 40: On the Relation of Study and Meditation

Each of the traditions of Buddhism in Asia has thousands of texts, some originating in India and translated into the local language, others produced locally but presented in the guise of Indian texts, yet others written in the vernacular to comment in some way on the Indian corpus. What, if anything, do these texts

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 41: Both Sudden and Gradual Enlightenment

The question of sudden versus gradual enlightenment was a sustained concern in East Asian Buddhism. One of the more sustained elaborations of the problem was that of the Huayan and Chan master Zongmi (780-841), who explored the possible combinations of sudden and gradual. Gradual cultivation followed by sudden enlightenment was like gradually chopping down

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 42: Reciting the Name of the Buddha

It is prophesied in numerous texts that the teachings of the Buddha will one day disappear from the world. The prophecies differ on how long the dharma will remain after the death of the Buddha; some say only five hundred years, some say two thousand. But all describe a gradual process of decline, not

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 43: The Bodhisattva Vow

A bodhisattva is someone who vows to achieve buddhahood in order to free all beings in the universe from suffering. In the early tradition, the term was used to refer to the Buddha in his millions of lives from the time that he made such a vow himself (see Chapter 15) to his achievement

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 44: Freeing Birds and Fish from Bondage

Much Buddhist practice is the practice of restraint, especially the restraint of body, speech and mind in order to avoid the performance of negative deeds that will result in suffering in the future. Refraining from non-virtue, whether it be physical, verbal or mental, is said to produce merit, especially when it is motivated by

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 45: Against Animal Sacrifice

Contrary to common assumptions, not all Buddhists are vegetarians. The consumption of meat was not prohibited even for monks and nuns in the early tradition. The Indian monastic codes state instead that monks and nuns may not eat the flesh of an animal that was slaughtered specifically to feed them. The promotion of a

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 46: Feeding Hungry Ghosts

As described in Chapter 1, ghosts suffer from hunger and thirst. They are constantly seeking food and drink, and when they find it they encounter obstacles. The Sanskrit term that is rendered here as ‘ghost’, preta, means ‘departed’, suggesting that these ghosts are the wandering spirits of departed ancestors whose families have failed to

Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 47: A Sutra for Long Life

As we have seen in chapters 5 and 38, it is typical for a Mahayana sutra to conclude with a description, often of considerable length, of the extraordinary benefits to be received by those who in some way revere the sutra. In the body of the sutra, the Buddha will have set forth the

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Meditation and other Rituals – Chapter 48: Transforming Death into Buddhahood

The famous Tibetan Book of the Dead sets forth a technique for using death and rebirth to progess on the path to enlightenment. Here, death is followed by something called the *intermediate state’ (bar do in Tibetan), a period in which consciousness wanders in search of the next place of rebirth, a period that

Enlightenment – Chapter 49: A Lay Master of Meditation

Despite the fame of the monks, the majority of the Buddha’s followers did not become monks or nuns, but remained in lay life. In the parlance of the tradition, they did go forth from the home to homelessness, but remained householders. The order of monks and nuns could not survive without them for they

Enlightenment – Chapter 50: Nuns Triumph over Evil

The Buddha had many female disciples, and many of them joined the order of nuns (bhikkhuni in Pali). These included his own stepmother, as well as former queens, princesses, courtesans and the wives of men who had become monks. A woman named Kisagotami joined the order of nuns after the Buddha helped her overcome

Enlightenment – Chapter 51: The Perfection of Wisdom

The rise of the movement referred to as the Mahayana, some four hundred years after the Buddha’s death, is sometimes marked by the appearance of new sutras that were called the ‘perfection of wisdom’ (prajnaparamita). Like many other Mahayana sutras, the perfection of wisdom texts were not systematic treatises that set forth philosophical points

Enlightenment – Chapter 52: In Praise of Reality

Buddhism is renowned for the doctrine of no-self, the assertion that among the constituents of the person there is nothing that is permanent, independent, or ultimately real. It is said that the mistaken belief in an autonomous self is the most fundamental form of ignorance, and hence the root cause of all suffering, and

Enlightenment – Chapter 53: Songs of the Siddhas

A The last centuries of Buddhism in India (roughly the ninth to twelfth centuries) saw the rise of figures called siddhas, a term which might be translated as ‘accomplished ones’ or ‘adepts’. Their name derived from their possession of magical powers (siddhi). The lists of such powers varied, but typically included such things as

Enlightenment – Chapter 54: The Ultimate Couple

The state of enlightenment is often said to be beyond the conception of the unenlightened, and hence beyond expression in language. Yet there have been numerous attempts across the Buddhist world to describe enlightenment in words. Some of the most beautiful and evocative of those descriptions derive from the Rnying ma (pronounced ‘Nyingma’) sect

Enlightenment – Chapter 55: Buddhahood in this Lifetime

The various texts and ritual techniques encompassed by the term *Buddhist tantra’ became established in East Asia (China, Korea and Japan) from the eighth century. The various claims of supernormal power and the images of sovereignty that commonly occur in tantric texts first created great interest in the courts of East Asian kings. But

Enlightenment – Chapter 56: The Practice of No Thought

Buddhist theories of enlightenment might be seen as falling into two categories: a purification model and a recognition model. In the first, the path is seen as a process of removing defilements from the mind in order to arrive at the purity of enlightenment. In the second, enlightenment is a natural and inherent quality

Enlightenment – Chapter 57: Finding Enlightenment in the Final Age

As noted in Chapter 42, many monks in East Asia came to believe that they were living in a degenerate age, the final age of the dharma, a time so far removed from the time of the Buddha that the traditional path was no longer possible. Special modes of salvation were necessary. The Japanese

Enlightenment – Chapter 58: The Gift of Faith

Honen’s (see Chapter 42) most famous disciple was Shinran (1173­1262), who set forth the doctrines that would be central to the True Pure Land Sect (Jodo Shinshu) in Japan. His most important work was entitled Teaching, Practice and Realization of the Pure Land Way (Kyogyoshinsho), a work that he continued to revise until his

Enlightenment – Chapter 59: A Zen Master Interprets the Dharma

The Buddha is said to have preached the dharma unceasingly, from the time of his enlightenment at the age of thirty-five to the time of his passage into nirvasa at the age of eighty. He was renowned for adapting his teachings to the interests and abilities of his audiences. After his death, it was