Noble Truths Research Articles

Budismo: Da Índia para Mundo. O Buddha, o Dharma e a Sangha

Este trabalho tem como principal objeto demonstrar o que é o Budismo que nasceu na Índia e quais são suas três joias fundamentais - o Buddha, o Dharma e a Sangha - que constituíram os elementos da natureza do Budismo como as Quatro Nobres Verdades e o Nobre Caminho Ócutplo para a lucidez. A vida do Buddha, a doutrina do Buddha e, finalmente, a comunidade formada após o Parinirvana do Buddha. A perspectiva que adotamos visa, também, perceber a instituição do Budismo para além da Índia, a forma como chegou à China, Japão e Tibete, propagando, assim, as três joias e os fundamentos da Roda do Dharma

On the Yogic Path to Enlightenment in Later Yogācāra

In later Yogācāra, the path to enlightenment is the course of learning the Four Noble Truths, investigating their meaning, and realizing them directly and experientially through meditative practice (bhāvanā). The object of the yogi’s enlightenment-realization is dharma and dharmin: The dharma is the true nature of real things, e.g., momentariness, while the dharmin is real things i.e., momentary things. During the practice of meditation, dharma is directly grasped in the process of clear manifestation (viśadābhā) and the particular dharmin is indirectly ascertained in the process of determination (adhyavasāya). So, even though a yogi does not directly perceive any actual thing, s/he is still nonetheless able to undertake practical activity directed toward it. The realization of the Four Noble Truths consists of two aspects: firstly, the manifestation of momentariness, etc., in the stream of the yogi’s consciousness; secondly, the ascertainment of momentariness, etc., in whatever s/he happens to encounter.

Secular Buddhism and the Quest for a Lived Ethics

Secular Buddhism and the Quest for a Lived Ethics

Emptiness and the Education of the Emotions

This article argues that Buddhist philosophy offers a plausible theory of the education of the emotions. Emotions are analyzed as cognitive feeling events in which the subject is passive. The education of the emotions is possible if and only if it is possible to evaluate one’s emotional life (the normative condition) and it is possible to satisfy the normative condition through learning (the pedagogical condition). Drawing on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, as well as the concepts of conditioned arising, emptiness and anattā, the article presents a view of the education of the emotions that rejects craving for permanence.

Building emotional resilience: small steps towards big change

Building emotional resilience: small steps towards big change

Outlines of a Pedagogical Interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s Two Truths Doctrine

This paper proposes an interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of the two truths that considers saṃvṛti and paramārtha-satya two visions of reality on which the Buddhas, for soteriological and pedagogical reasons, build teachings of two types: respectively in agreement with (for example, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths) or in contrast to (for example, the teaching of emptiness) the category of svabhāva. The early sections of the article show to what extent the various current interpretations of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of the dve satye—despite their sometimes even macroscopic differences—have a common tendency to consider the notion of śūnyatā as a teaching not based on, but equivalent to supreme truth. This equivalence—philologically questionable—leads to interpretative paths that prove inevitably aporetic: indeed, according to whether the interpretation of śūnyatā is ‘metaphysical’ or ‘anti-metaphysical’, it gives rise to readings of Nāgārjuna’s thought incompatible, respectively, with anti-metaphysical and realistic types of verses traceable in the works of the author of the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (MMK). On the contrary, by giving more emphasis to the expression samupāśritya (“based on”), which recurs in MMK.24.8, and therefore, by epistemologically separating the notion of śūnyatā from the notion of paramārtha-satya (and of some of its conceptual equivalents such as nirvāṇa, tattva and dharmatā), we may obtain an interpretation—at once realistic and anti-metaphysical—of the theory of the two truths compatible with the vast majority (or even totality) of Nāgārjuna’s verses.

Bereavement and the Four Noble Truths

Bereavement and the Four Noble Truths

Buddha philosophy and western psychology

Four noble truths as preached by Buddha are that the life is full of suffering (Duhkha), that there is a cause of this suffering (Duhkha-samudaya), it is possible to stop suffering (Duhkha-nirodha), and there is a way to extinguish suffering (Duhkha-nirodha-marga). Eight fold Path (astangika-marga) as advocated by Buddha as a way to extinguish the sufferings are right views, right resolve/aspiration, right speech, right action/conduct, right livelihood, right effort right mindfulness and right concentration.Mid-twentieth century saw the collaborations between many psychoanalysts and Buddhist scholars as a meeting between “two of the most powerful forces” operating in the Western mind. Buddhism and Western Psychology overlap in theory and in practice. Over the last century, experts have written on many commonalities between Buddhism and various branches of modern western psychology like phenomenological psychology, psychoanalytical psychotherapy, humanistic psychology, cognitive psychology and existential psychology. Orientalist Alan Watts wrote ‘if we look deeply into such ways of life as Buddhism, we do not find either philosophy or religion as these are understood in the West. We find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy’.Buddha was a unique psychotherapist. His therapeutic methods helped millions of people throughout the centuries. This essay is just an expression of what little the current author has understood on Buddha philosophy and an opportunity to offer his deep tribute to one of the greatest psychotherapists the world has ever produced!

From Positionality to Relationality: A Buddhist-Oriented Relational View of Conflict Escalation and its Transformation

Through a theoretical analysis, this paper suggests that the Buddhist philosophy and psychology offer a unique contribution to our understanding of conflict escalation and the potential for its transformation from a relational point of view. In particular, it presents an in-depth analysis of conflict escalation, applying the Buddhist Four Noble Truths and Twelve Links models. With the help of these models, it analyzes the psychological process that invokes the escalation of conflict, resulting in what is considered “suffering” (Duhkha) in Buddhist thought, seen also as lack of relational awareness. The paper demonstrates how a Buddhist-oriented view of conflict adds value to current scholarship of relational conflict resolution and has the potential to help conflict specialists transform adversity into dialogue. Furthermore, it argues that the suggested framework can help scholars and practitioners who implement Mindfulness practices into ADR processes assist disputants cultivate relational awareness.

Chop Words, Carry Sentences

Chop Words, Carry Sentences Paul Haney (bio) Dinty W. Moore. The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life. Wisdom Publications, 2012. 152 Pages, Paper, $12.95. Lisa Napoli. Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. Crown, 2011; Broadway Books, 2012. 320 Pages; Cloth, $25.00; Paper, $15.00. Ira Sukrungruang. Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy. University of Missouri Press, 2011. 184 Pages; Cloth, $24.95; Paper, $19.95. Ever since I was a boy, I’ve wanted to be a writer and a golfer. I read The Chronicles of Narnia and scribbled my own stories, hoping one day to write like C. S. Lewis. With my dad I’d watch the Skins Game and see Arnold Palmer stand over a 15-footer worth $100,000, then I’d go out back to chip balls until the sun went down. After graduating from college with a degree in English, I still thought about writing; but being free from school for the first time in my life, I found myself at the golf course most days and serving tables at night to support my golfing habit. I logged countless hours on the putting green, splashed loads of sand from the practice bunker, and pounded balls at the driving range. When I’d win a match, I felt uplifted and worked the dinner shift bragging to coworkers about my triumphs. When I’d lose, I’d berate myself, replay the mis-hits in my mind, and go out drinking after work. [End Page 189] The next day I’d be back at the course working on my game. I’d write a little here and there, but nothing serious. I saw no point in sitting down to write until inspiration struck. Dinty W. Moore’s new book, The Mindful Writer (Wisdom Publications, 2012), argues that writers must adopt a daily writing practice, whether words flow freely or you feel like you’re slicing them into the trees. “Let’s dispense with inspiration from the start,” writes Moore, “because nothing causes more dissatisfaction and disappointment in a writer’s life than the myth of the thunderbolt.” Moore says you must go to your writing workstation (just as I went to the driving range) and allow the words themselves to shape a piece. If you wait for the “thunderbolt,” chances are you’ll be waiting for a while and your craft will lose its sharpness. “Listen to where the writing wants to take you,” Moore says. “Understand that the writing itself will often provide far richer material than your logical, predictable mind.” He’s speaking about the ego here. As a Buddhist, whose memoir is titled The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still (Algonquin, 1997), Moore cautions that the ego is a source of suffering for writers—the voice in your head that says the process itself is an inconvenience in your quest toward publishing glory. Embrace the process, says Moore; enjoy the journey. The Mindful Writer is a collection of 59 short essays, each based on an inspirational quote about writing, mindfulness, or both. Moore puts these essays and adages into four categories, each focused on an aspect of the process: “The Writer’s Mind,” which stays awake and mindful of the possibilities presented by language; “The Writer’s Desk,” where the writer sits, like a meditating monk, and waits for the words to come; “The Writer’s Vision,” which encourages the writer to look to her craft as a way into her self; and “The Writer’s Life,” which is lived by committing to daily practice, accepting failure and rejection, and being present with one’s thoughts throughout the day. Moore introduces readers to mindfulness, the fundamental tool used by Buddhists to quell the ego: “In the context of writing, mindfulness means that . . . you are able to remain attentive to the task at hand, seeing the words that are before you, hearing the possibilities in your mind, not succumbing to the thousands of other willing and ready distractions.” According to Moore, mindfulness can help all people focus their attention on the work at hand, but [End Page 190] especially writers, for “mindfulness includes...

On the Combination of the Four Noble Truths and the Dependent Origination

On the Combination of the Four Noble Truths and the Dependent Origination

CSR through the heart of the Bodhi tree

PurposeThis paper seeks to explore an alternative direction to break the theoretical impasse in CSR.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs ancient insights from the core of Buddhist teaching, featuring the Four Noble Truths and the concept of “me” and “mine”, for the modern application of CSR by investigating the crux of major related theories.FindingsThe Noble Truths emphasize that suffering should be eradicated at its root. The Buddhist model of CSR suggests that beyond doing good such as supporting philanthropy and avoiding evil as mitigating the impact of corporate malpractice, which are consistent with major CSR theories, it is also crucial to purify the hearts of stakeholders from the “self” and “what belongs to self”, the genesis of suffering. Detachment is the key.Research implicationsThe shift from an institutional to an individual level, more specifically the transformation from a mindset of over‐consumption to one of conscious consumption, is an alternative direction to the progress of theory and practice in CSR.Practical implicationsDefiled by greed and profitability, consumers and investors, who provide income and funding to an organization and define its business practice, are of the highest priority among all stakeholders to start the change according to the Buddhist model of CSR.Originality/valueThis paper takes Buddhism as timeless insight, rather than a religious belief, to propose an alternative model and direction to development of CSR in theory and practice.

Toward a Buddhist Sociology: Theories, Methods, and Possibilities

This article explores potential links between Buddhism and sociology, highlighting the many commonalities between sociology and Buddhism, with an emphasis on ways that Buddhist thought and practice may contribute to the field of sociology. What could Buddhism offer to our understanding of social institutions, social problems, and to the dynamics and possibilities for social change? The Four Noble Truths, central to Buddhist teachings, are explored in reference to their sociological theory applications. Finally, mindfulness practices that are endemic to Buddhism are explored as tools for sociologists to consider as they work reflexively, develop sociological insights, and pursue social justice.

The Sutta on Understanding Death in the Transmission of Borān Meditation From Siam to the Kandyan Court

This article announces the discovery of a Sinhalese version of the traditional meditation (borān yogāvacara kammaṭṭhāna) text in which the Consciousness or Mind, personified as a Princess living in a five-branched tree (the body), must understand the nature of death and seek the four gems that are the four noble truths. To do this she must overcome the cravings of the five senses, represented as five birds in the tree. Only in this way will she permanently avoid the attentions of Death, Māra, and his three female servants, Birth, Sickness and Old Age. In this version of the text, when the Princess manages not to succumb to these three, Māra comes and snatches her from her tree and rapes her. The Buddha then appears to her to explain the path to liberation. The text provides a commentary, padārtha, which explains the details of the symbolism of the fruit in terms of rebirth and being born, the tree in terms of the body, etc. The text also offers interpretations of signs of impending death and prognostications regarding the next rebirth. Previously the existence of Khmer and Lānnā versions of this text have been recorded by Francois Bizot and Francois Lagirarde, the former publishing the text as Le Figuier a cinq branches (Le figuier a cinq branches, 1976). The Sinhalese version was redacted for one of the wives of King Kīrti Śrī Rājasiṅha of Kandy by the monk Varanāṇa Mahāthera of Ayutthayā. This confirms earlier speculation that this form of borān/dhammakāya meditation was brought to Sri Lanka with the introduction of the Siyam Nikāya in the mid-eighteenth century. It also shows that in Sri Lanka, as in Ayutthayā, this form of meditation—which in the modern period was to be rejected as ‘unorthodox’—was promoted at the highest levels of court and Saṅgha.

A Secular Buddhism

This essay explores the possibility of a complete secular redefinition of Buddhism. It argues that such a secular re-formation would go beyond modifying a traditional Buddhist school, practice or ideology to make it more compatible with modernity, but would involve rethinking the core ideas on which the very notion of “Buddhism” is based. Starting with a critical reading of the four noble truths, as presented in the Buddha’s first discourse, the author proposes that instead of thinking of awakening in terms of “truths” to be understood one thinks of it in terms of “tasks” to be accomplished. Such a pragmatic approach may open up the possibility of going beyond the belief-based metaphysics of classical Indian soteriology (Buddhism 1.0) to a praxis-based, post-metaphysical vision of the dharma (Buddhism 2.0).

The Spirit of Contradiction in the Buddhist Doctrine of Not-Self

In his comprehensive and authoritative study of the doctrine of “notself ” (Pāli anattā; Sanskrit anātman) in Theravāda Buddhism, Selfless Persons (1982), Steven Collins identifies two distinct functions of this doctrine. He correlates these functions, moreover, to a sociological distinction between the religious specialist and the ordinary Buddhist. Thus, in the context of the practice of the analytical “insight” meditation practiced by members of the former group, the anattā doctrine refers to “the classification of any experience or concept into a known, nonvalued, impersonal category.” Such classification or redescription of experience serves as an effective technique for cultivating an attitude of disinterest toward the object thus classified, thus negating the desire that, according to the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth, is the root cause of suffering. For the vast majority of Buddhists, however, who do not practice such meditation, the doctrine’s main function was to provide “an intransigent symbolic opposition to Brahmanical thought.” Because Collins associates this latter, oppositional dimension of the anattā doctrine with those Buddhists lacking in specialized knowledge of the doctrine or a commitment to the corresponding regimens of meditative practice, one might be tempted to infer that this political-ideological function of anattā appears only in default of the former, as a kind of

Empty and extended craving: an application of the extended mind thesis to the four noble truths

According to Buddhism's four noble truths, (1) we find our lives filled with anguished suffering because (2) we habitually crave for life to be other than it is; and (3) this habit of craving will cease (4) only if we cultivate in our lives the Buddha's path of mental discipline, wisdom, and moral conduct. The aim of Buddhist practice is to cure craving. There is a model of the self that can be derived from the recent work of some philosophers in the field of cognitive science, Andy Clark in particular. His writings suggest a model of the self that is spread out or extended. I will argue that the model of the extended self offers contemporary insight for interpreting what craving is in the Buddhist sense and how to cure it.

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism in Victorian England, 1870–1900

Now this, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning suffering. Birth is attended with pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful. In brief, the five aggregates which spring from attachment (the conditions of individuality and their cause) are painful. This then, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth concerning suffering.

How does mindfulness transform suffering? I: the nature and origins of dukkha

This, the first of two linked papers, presents the Buddha's analysis of the nature and origins of dukkha (suffering) as a basis for understanding the ways in which mindfulness can transform suffering. The First and Second of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths are presented in a way that has proved helpful to teachers of mindfulness-based applications. These Truths offer a framework of understanding that can guide the application of mindfulness to stress and emotional disorders, while stressing the continuity and inevitability of the experience of dukkha in clients, teachers, and those primarily seeking a new way of being. The crucial involvement of self-view and identification with experience are emphasized.

Sarkar on the Buddha's Four Noble Truths

This is a critical comparison of two important figures, one ancient and one contemporary, in the Indian religious landscape: Gotama Buddha and Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. Such comparison of their key ideas and practices is warranted for two reasons. First, Sarkar, a neo-Hindu thinker and reformer, has both praised the Buddha's humanism and criticized the Buddhist doctrine of the Four Noble Truths, and it is of interest to examine exactly where Sarkar stands in relation to the Buddha and to Buddhism as a whole. It is particularly interesting to examine in what ways Sarkar's teachings are an attempt to find an alternative to Buddhism. Second, it is of academic interest to explore the accuracy of Sarkar's interpretations of the Buddha's teachings and the problem of their acceptability to Buddhists. This essay argues for the commensurability of the Sarkarian and Buddhist emancipatory ethic despite real doctrinal and practical differences, and suggests that Sarkarian and Buddhist approaches can each contribute to the alleviation of human suffering both individual and collective.