Buddha: His Life and Teachings
About This Book
The proceedings of the seminars of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) have developed into the most representative world-wide cross-section of Tibetan Studies. They are an indispensable reference-work for anyone interested in Tibet and capture the cutting edge of Tibet-related research.This volume is the second of three volumes of general proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the IATS. It presents a careful selection of scholarly and academic articles on Tibetan Buddhist and Bon religious culture, including a sizeable section of anthropological contributions. The complete series covers ten volumes. The other seven volumes are the outcome of expert panels. Of special interest to readers of this book are the edited volumes by Katia Buffetrille & Hildegard Diemberger (anthropology: territory and identity), Helmut Eimer & David Germano (Buddhist canon), Toni Huber (anthropology: Amdo cultural revival), Christiaan Klieger (anthropology: presentation of self & identity), and Deborah Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger (art history).
What You'll Learn
• Follow the complete arc of Siddhartha's life: from the royal birth and the prophecy that shaped his sheltered childhood, through the four sights that shattered his innocence, the great renunciation, the years of ascetic struggle, the discovery of the Middle Way, and the night of enlightenment — with the inner logic connecting each stage to the next
• Understand the first sermon at the Deer Park: what the Buddha taught his five former companions in his first discourse after awakening, why this sermon is known as 'Setting the Wheel of Dharma in Motion,' and what specific teaching it conveyed about the nature of suffering and the path to its cessation
• Grasp the Three Marks of Existence: impermanence (anicca) — the recognition that all conditioned phenomena are in constant flux; suffering (dukkha) — the unsatisfactoriness that pervades all experience rooted in attachment to what is impermanent; and non-self (anatta) — the insight that what we call 'I' is a process rather than a substantial entity
• Recognise the community dimension: how the sangha (the community of practitioners) was established as the third of the Three Jewels alongside the Buddha and the Dharma, what its role in the practitioner's development is, and how the first community of monks and nuns around the historical Buddha established the pattern for Buddhist community life across all subsequent traditions
• Appreciate the Tibetan perspective: how the specific tradition from which this account comes has preserved and transmitted the Buddhist teaching, what distinctive emphases the Tibetan tradition brings to the story and teaching of the historical Buddha, and how its presentation differs from and complements the Theravada and Zen perspectives
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