Indian Mahayana Buddhism: The Bodhisattva and Emptiness

1
Indian Mahayana Buddhism The Bodhisattva and
Emptiness

• Berger
• Intro to Asian Religions

2
The Origins of Mahayana

• Splinter groups from 3rd Council (250 BCE)
• Kushan Empire (1st-3rd centuries) devotionalism
• Artistic representations of Buddha
• Production of Sanskrit scriptures
• New Teachings of bodhisattvas and Buddha
• Veneration of angelic beings
• Social/philosophical critique of early Buddhism

3
The Bodhisattva

• Compassion as new ideal virtue (248-253)
• Understanding and relieving suffering (248-49)
• Destroying egoism basis of compassion (250-51)
• Selfless giving (251-52)
• Upaya as a method with no resting-place (251, 53)

4
The Notion of Emptiness (sunyata) I

• Emptiness and its implications (pp. 253-57)
• The lack of inherent existence, even to ignorance
  and liberation (254)
• Emptiness as changing nature of forms (255)
• Three aspects of form/emptiness (256)
• Imaginary form external perceptions
• Designated form internal conceptual knowledge
• Form of reality things as they are

5
The Notion of Emptiness II

• Emptiness as distinction of enlightenment
  (256-57)
• Theravadins attached to nirvana as form (256)
• Emptiness as anecdote (256)
• non-abiding nirvana (257)
• Multiple marks and ways to nirvana (259-61)

6
Reading for Next Class

• Sourcebook, 501-508)