2. GOTAMA AND HIS MISSION
Course in Construction: Not ready as a teaching tool.
Course MI 102
The Life of Buddha, his Path and his Legacy (4 Units)
The essence of Buddhism is the Dharma, not Buddha, as many masters would have us believe. However the path of Buddha is our path and so it is imperative to look at the life of Buddha because, with great application and diligence, he learned, discovered by direct experience, and taught the Dharma with the great passion that has made it a precious jewel. Who was the man, called the Buddha, beyond history and legend? Why was he motivated with such spirit and resolution? Why did he go beyond, where others had never trod?
Through an examination of both history and legend and our understanding of his Sutras, we can perhaps get a glimpse of this remarkable person and discover the real Buddha who lived walked, perceived things around him and reacted to those impressions.
The course will then begin with the life of the Buddha, according to both history and Buddhist tradition, and then, to illuminate his life and times, we make an analysis of the Ten Dharma worlds.
His path then, being better understood, will provide us with an enriched understanding of his internal, not external, search for Truth. A study of the Six and Ten Perfections will further help all see the development of the Bodhisattva impulse that led the way to his Awakening and Enlightenment. These aspects will be treated from the Buddha’s perspective not from our own limited vision.
In retrospect, we can historically see Buddha’s spiritual qualities and attainments, but a study of them will here serve to point the way to our own potential growth and development, for, although there are clearly apparent individual differences between us, the Complete Buddha is within us waiting to be realised.
An understanding of the three higher states of knowledge (tevijja), and omniscience (sabbannuta), are essential within our own paths, as are the four sublime states, so we will explore them in the profound way which they merit.
Then we will take and interesting excursion, and look at the 16 Arhats surrounding Buddha, and remove the mystery that prevents many people from seeing that each human creature on this planet now and in the future can aspire to that state.
In order to balance the “arhat eye view” of Buddha, we will then look at Buddha from the point of view of his contemporaries.
Then finally we will see how he was as a teacher, and once again destroy the rigidity of the dogmatic ideas that prevent us from understanding the magnificent truth: that Buddhas are human and indeed all humans are Buddhas.
The Life of Buddha through an examination of both history and legend (24)
Analysis of the Ten Dharma worlds (18)
Buddha’s internal search for Truth (6)
Study of the practice of the Six and Ten Perfections (12)
Awakening and Enlightenment. (12)
Buddha’s spiritual qualities and attainments (6)
An understanding of the Three Higher States of Knowledge (tevijja) and Omniscience (sabbannuta) (18)
The Four Sublime States (24)
The 16 Arhats of Vulture Peak (18)
Buddha from the point of view of his contemporaries (12)
Buddha as a teacher (12)
1080 Min. 18 hours 162 hours
Information about this course
Without a firm foundation, well prepared, no edifice can be supported
The purpose of this course to examine “who indeed was Buddha?”. There are legends which are romantic, and these do little to give us an idea who this human creature relly was and whet led huin to the Dharma path that eventually led the inins themselves, the Tibetansm the Chinese and other nations of Asia to developtheir various spitiritual visions.
In Anthropology more than any other scientific discipline it is important to look to the source material, and because the difference beetween Chan Buddhism and that of Tibet and India itis imperative to understand what Buddha really was like as a man and divorse ousselves from the words that generate emotional clinging and the ideas and words that float upon clouds of empty esoteric flim flam.
We have said in the introduction to the earlier course that enquiry by the Indian mind was different in the time of Buddha, its purpose being to realise inwardly the Truth perceived by the mind or the intellect. Is it enough to know that halva is sweet? You must experience its sweetness by eating it. That is how the truth was perceived and that is clearly how we wish to teach it.
It is our aim here to eliminate the empty shell treatment of the Dharma and Buddha