EASTERN PHILOSOPHY - The Buddha — Transcript

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1. 0:08The story of the Buddha’s life, like all of Buddhism, is a story about confronting suffering.
2. 0:14He was born between the sixth and fourth century B.C., the son of a wealthy king in the Himalayan
3. 0:19foothills of Nepal.
4. 0:21It was prophesied that the young Buddha — then called Siddhartha Gautama — would either
5. 0:25become the emperor of India or a very holy man.
6. 0:28Since Siddhartha’s father desperately wanted him to become the former, he kept the child
7. 0:33isolated in a palace.
8. 0:35Young Gautama had every imaginable luxury: jewels, servants, lotus ponds,
9. 0:39even beautiful dancing women.
10. 0:41For 29 years, Gautama lived in bliss, protected from the smallest misfortunes of the outside world
11. 0:47But then, he left the palace for short excursions.
12. 0:50What he saw amazed him: first he met a sick man, then an aging man, and then a dying man.
13. 0:54show these kind of people in India—add them to the same image one by one
14. 0:55He was astounded to discover that these unfortunate people represented normal—indeed, inevitable—parts
15. 1:01of the human condition that would one day touch him, too.
16. 1:04Horrified and fascinated, Gautama made a fourth trip outside the palace walls—and encountered
17. 1:09a holy man, who had learned to seek spiritual life in the midst of the vastness of human suffering.
18. 1:14Inspired by the holy man, Gautama left the palace for good.
19. 1:18He tried to learn from other holy men.
20. 1:20He almost starved himself to death by avoiding all physical comforts and pleasures, as they did.
21. 1:25Perhaps unsurprisingly, it did not bring him solace from suffering.
22. 1:28Then he thought of a moment when he was a small boy: sitting by the river, he’d noticed
23. 1:32that when the grass was cut, the insects and their eggs were
24. 1:35trampled and destroyed.
25. 1:37As a child, he’d felt a deep compassion for the tiny insects.
26. 1:41Reflecting on his childhood compassion,
27. 1:43Gautama felt a profound sense of peace. He ate, meditated, and finally reached
28. 1:47the highest state of enlightenment:
29. 1:49Nirvana
30. 1:51It refers to the “blowing out” of the flames of desire.
31. 1:55With this, Gautama had become the Buddha, “the awakened one”.
32. 1:58The Buddha awoke by recognising that all of creation, from distraught ants to dying human beings,
33. 2:04is unified by suffering.
34. 2:06Recognising this, the Buddha discovered how to best approach suffering.
35. 2:10First, one shouldn’t bathe in luxury,
36. 2:13nor abstain from food and comforts altogether.
37. 2:15Instead, one ought to live in moderation .
38. 2:17The Buddha called this
39. 2:19the middle way
40. 2:20This allows for maximal concentration on cultivating compassion for others and seeking enlightenment
41. 2:26Next, the Buddha described a path to transcending suffering called
42. 2:29The four noble truths
43. 2:31The first noble truth is the realisation that first prompted the Buddha’s journey:
44. 2:35that there is suffering and constant dissatisfaction in the world.
45. 2:39The second is that this suffering is caused by our desires.
46. 2:42As the Buddha said,
47. 2:43“attachment is the root of all suffering.”
48. 2:46The third truth is that we can transcend suffering by removing or managing these desires.
49. 2:51The Buddha thus made the remarkable claim that we must change our outlook, not our circumstances.
50. 2:57We are unhappy not because we don’t have enough money, love or status but because we
51. 3:00are greedy, vain, and insecure. By re-orienting our mind we can grow to be content.
52. 3:05The people become happier—superimpose smiles or use a second image of their face
53. 3:06With the correct behaviour and what we now term a mindful attitude, we can also become
54. 3:10better people. We can invert negative emotions and states of mind, turning ignorance into
55. 3:15wisdom, anger into compassion, and greed into generosity.
56. 3:19The fourth and final noble truth the Buddha uncovered
57. 3:22is that we can learn to move beyond suffering through what he termed
58. 3:25the noble eightfold path.
59. 3:27The eightfold path involves a series of aspects of behaving “right” and wisely:
60. 3:31right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness,
61. 3:35and right concentration.
62. 3:37What strikes the western observer is the notion that wisdom is a habit, not merely an intellectual
63. 3:41realisation. One must exercise one’s nobler impulses on a regular basis, as one would
64. 3:47train a limb. The moment of understanding is only one part of becoming a better person.
65. 3:52After his death, The Buddha’s followers collected his “sutras” (sermons or sayings)
66. 3:56into scripture, and developed texts to guide followers in meditation, ethics,
67. 4:00and mindful living.
68. 4:02The monasteries that had developed during the Buddha’s lifetime grew and multiplied,
69. 4:05throughout China and East Asia.
70. 4:08For a time, Buddhism was particularly uncommon in India itself, and only a few quiet groups
71. 4:13of yellow-clad monks and nuns roamed the countryside, meditating quietly in nature.
72. 4:18But then, in the 3rd century B.C., an Indian king named Ashoka grew troubled by the wars
73. 4:22he had fought and converted to Buddhism.
74. 4:25He sent monks and nuns far and wide to spread the practice.
75. 4:28Buddhist spiritual tradition spread across Asia and eventually throughout the world.
76. 4:32Buddha’s followers divided into two main schools:
77. 4:34Theravada Buddhism which colonised Southeast Asia, and
78. 4:38Mahayana Buddhism which took hold in China and Northeast Asia.
79. 4:41Today, there are between a half and one and a half billion Buddhists in both East and West
80. 4:45following the Buddha’s teachings and seeking a more enlightened and compassionate
81. 4:49state of mind.
82. 4:50Intriguingly, the Buddha’s teachings are important regardless of our spiritual identification.
83. 4:55Like the Buddha, we are all born into the world not realising how much suffering it
84. 4:58contains, and unable to fully comprehend that misfortune, sickness, and death
85. 5:03will come to us too.
86. 5:04As we grow older, this reality often feels overwhelming,
87. 5:07and we may seek to avoid it altogether.
88. 5:10But the Buddha’s teachings remind us of the importance of facing suffering directly.
89. 5:13We must do our best to liberate ourselves from the grip of our own desires,
90. 5:17and recognise that suffering can be viewed as part of our common connection with others,
91. 5:22spurring us to compassion and gentleness.