What Do Buddhists Believe? by Tony Morris

Author:Tony Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Right Mindfulness means cultivating constant awareness of one's body, feelings, mental states and thoughts.

Right Meditation means developing deep levels of calm and insight through various techniques which concentrate the mind and integrate the personality.

6

From Dharma to Sangha

Buddhism after the Buddha

I go to the Buddha for refuge, I go to the Dharma for refuge, I go to the Sangha for refuge.28

Buddhism abounds with numbers - the eightfold path, the six perfections, the five precepts, the four noble truths . . . Above all, it goes in for the number three. To the three marks of existence, the three poisons and the three qualities, let us now add two further trinities — the 'three turnings of the wheel' and the 'three jewels'. For in describing them we can outline the story of how the Buddha's followers came to understand themselves as a community and what happened to his teachings as a consequence.

When the Buddha preached his first sermon, in a deer park in Sarnath, near the town of Benares, the scriptures say that he set in motion the wheel of the Dharma'. Dharma means 'the Buddha's teaching'. And since what the Buddha taught was neither an invention nor an interpretation, but rather what he had discovered as the result of his enlightenment, dharma means, by extension, the way things are, the way the world works, the Law of Life.

The first people to hear the Buddha's teaching were five companions from his days as an ascetic. To start with they were reluctant to speak to him (they had been very upset when he had decided to part company with them and leave the forests). But they were intrigued by the transformation they observed in him and soon found themselves captivated as he began to recount his recent experiences and insights. Word spread quickly. People from all walks of life (even the local king, Bimbisara) came to hear the new teacher speak. In no time a group of 'disciples' had emerged. These formed the nucleus of a sangha, or community of adherents, the third of what are called the three Buddhist 'jewels' — Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

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