Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 33-minute introduction, Jampa Kaldan traces Buddhist philosophy from its origins with the Four Noble Truths through its major historical transformations. He begins with the central insight that habitual patterns and mental disturbances create repetitive suffering, but that liberation—a mode of being free from these disruptive states—is attainable through a genuine path of practice. Kaldan then moves through Buddhism’s spread from India across Asia, the emergence of Mahāyāna Buddhism’s emphasis on compassion and engaging others, and the flowering of tantra. He sketches the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet in the eighth century, the development of the four Tibetan traditions, and Tsongkhapa’s reformation in the fourteenth century, which founded the Gelug school. He connects this lineage to the present through twentieth-century events and Lama Yeshe’s introduction of Buddhism to the West. Finally, he addresses whether the Buddha’s diagnosis of suffering applies to modern life, offering two happiness myths as invitations to investigate our own patterns, and closes with a practical meditation exercise: setting motivation, practicing for five to ten minutes on breath, and dedicating the benefit. Pitched at newcomers encountering Buddhist fundamentals.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2000 01 17 02 Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy 17-1-00.mp3
UUID: 37801365-89e9-4e1e-9cb3-0fbb7c2a4c69
Teacher: Jampa Kaldan
Collection: Intro to Buddhist Philosophy (Jampa Kaldan)
Date: 2000-01-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,352
We we start living our life and acting on it. And as soon as we start doing that, we start creating a whole lot of habitual patterns and ways of outgoing how we do things. And then those habitual patterns set us up to get ourselves over and over again into the same old tangles and dissatisfactions that we have in from the past. So then the third. Śākyamūni is saying, well, there’s a cessation to this existential problem or this minor technical difficulty in our lived experience, whatever.
That there is in fact a mode of being within our lived experience, not some place out there like going somewhere else. It’s better when you die or now or whatever, but somewhere here in our lived experience where these disruptive mental processes don’t arise anymore. And that way of being is called liberation or nirvana. And I suppose one of the central presuppositions or assumptions of Buddhist life and practice is that such a thing exists. It’s not just a fable to keep the masses sedated.
And following on from that point is the claim that there is a path to such a state. There’s a way of going about attaining that. The fourth noble truth, there is a path to the state of cessation. There are ways of practicing. There are ways of living which can turn down our disruptive mental states, can turn them down.
There are ways of enhancing and facilitating the things that are good about the way we work. And there’s a a fundamental and more radical way of cutting right through that that state of underlying bewilderment in our mind and seeing the nature of reality the way it really is. Seeing ourselves as what we really are. He’s as he mentioned as Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned our interconnected state with everything rather than our separate isolated state. So the path to cessation.
Now this simple but profound teaching had a huge impact in India it would seem at the time. This was about the sixth century before the common era. Or does c stand for common era or Christian era? Do you know? Does anyone know?
It used to be b c and a d, but nowadays people say c e and b c. I don’t know. I haven’t worked out yet what the c stands for. Maybe it’s just maybe it’s Christ. I don’t know.
Is it? So it’s so when you when you say the c e is the Christian or Christ era, is it? And b c e is the the before Christ era era, is it? Anyway, if you know what I mean. Before then, six BC six BCE or whatever.
And it actually very quite rapidly spread and had a big impact in northern India over the next couple of hundred years. And so that by the time of perhaps one of the most famous empire builders in in India, probably the most famous of all the empire builders in India, king Ashoka in the third century BC. He in fact was very strongly influenced by Buddhism. Didn’t didn’t sort of perhaps adopt Buddhism fully even though it’s sometimes said that way, but he certainly gave a strong emphasis to the practice of correct living according to what Indians called Dharma, was the right way of going about things in your life. It was very and provided a lot of support for for Buddhism and Buddhist monasteries.
And so that had a very stimulating effect on the spread of Buddhism throughout India. It then quickly spreading down into Sri Lanka, into Southeast Asia, and into Central Asia. So that about the time of Christ or even there was throughout those areas and what was generally practiced, the type of practice which is very closely along the lines of the four noble truths that we talked about and which certainly had its main focus on monastic practices. That is the the ordained had given up their their household life and gone to live in forests and monasteries. That was the earlier much stronger focus.
That that style of practice is still almost exactly the same as what we see being practiced today in Sri Lanka and Thailand. The Theravadan tradition is very, very close to those extremely early days. Then around the time of Christ, there was one of the great creative unfoldings of a whole new dimension within Buddhism. And there’s various historians put forward various reasons for this. And within the traditional Buddhist account, if you talk to our Tibetan teachers, they have a completely different account, of course, for for these things.
But I’m gonna talk more like a Western historian here for a little bit rather than one of our teachers. So around this time, there was this incredible creative flowering of a whole new approach to Buddhism, which has come to be called Mahāyāna Buddhism. And there the emphasis some of the key things about that were that the emphasis was shifted much more from this sort of inward inward looking individual approach. I want to attain peace and enlightenment for nirvana for myself. I’m much more looking outward to engage others in the world.
Much more emphasis on the development of compassion. Probably more emphasis on on the philosophical exploration of different understandings of the nature of reality. Okay. Yeah? Okay.
Well, there’s two two answers two quick answers to that. One is one is prop perhaps the historical one that we would that our that our scholars today would say, which is this was a an unfold a natural unfolding of the implications of what Śākyamūni Buddha was teaching because of various social and historical conditions that were different five hundred years after Śākyamūni had initially taught influence changes in society, demands for more involvement from the laity, impact from Greek culture, and all sorts of things. Now the other answer is and I actually find that explanation very what do you say? Encouraging to me to think that way. I don’t see that as a necessarily bad thing.
To me that it that it actually shows the the the extraordinary richness of what the spiritual path is about. Anyway, what our what our teachers in what our Tibetan teachers would say would was that this whole new dimension which was radically different in many ways from the from the first type was actually taught by Śākyamūni Buddha himself, but in secret to a select group. Now I suppose the skeptical scholar would say, that’s just looking back rewriting history a bit, but this is what’s accepted in in the in the traditional tradition. It doesn’t mean that you feel that you should, you know, have to accept it, But that’s the way it’s taught. So in fact and the same is applied to what we’re what we’re going to talk on about next.
The next development. Anyway, so then in those early centuries after Christ, Buddhism spread and it was especially this Mahāyāna Buddhism that was extremely potent. And it spread through Central Asia into China, across to Korea, into Japan by about the fifth century. It spread down into Southeast Asia in places where the Theravadin type approach had already been down into Indonesia. And and then in around the middle of the millennium, there was another revolution or a more incredible new unfolding of Buddhism.
And in fact, there was a double one. Both happened around the same time. One was a very strange character called Bodhidharma went to China about the fifth century with a quite a radical new approach. It was within Mahāyāna, but the way he went about it and said the way you should practice was quite different. And that was the beginnings of the Chan schools in China or as we more commonly know and as it’s called in Japan, the Zen tradition or Zen Buddhism.
And so he he came from India around that middle of the millennium time. And and the other big thing that was happening in India at that time was the the the flowering of tantra. And this happened not only in Buddhism, also in Hinduism, but there was the the rise and the the spread of tantric practice within the context of Buddhism was another unfolding if you like of the the potentialities of what spiritual practice is about. There with its radical affirmation of our human potential with the discovery if you like of the fact that all of our energies as a human being can be harnessed in the correct context towards spiritual growth. And as I said, you answered your question a minute ago, Our teachers, if you say, well, where did that come from?
They would say, well, Śākyamūni also taught that to an even more select group of people, and it was kept completely secret until it serviced again a thousand years later. Okay. So Buddhism really dominated life in India in very strongly for about a thousand years or more. And it’s very interesting that it that it that it then went on to die out in India in about the thirteenth and fourteenth century for various reasons. But it would just this completely disappeared from the country.
And it was that perhaps it was very fortunate that before that happened, it went to Tibet. So it went to Tibet quite late. The first time that that that that the Buddha Dharma or went to Tibet was in around the eighth century. A teacher called Padmasambhava, a very wild and flamboyant spiritual master conjoined together with another spiritual master called Shāntarakshita who was a very highly placed one in the from one of the great monasteries in India. Then between them, they went to Tibet and they really introduced Buddhism to Tibet and they they brought all of the developments within fifteen hundred years worth of Buddhism and all of its texts and they many of them were translated into Tibetan and they designed a new language because they really had no written language up to them.
So the Tibetans sent someone to India to devise a language based on Sanskrit and he brought it back and then they had something to write their translations in. And then after a hundred years or two, it lapsed due to some oppression by one king and then about it was revived again in the eleventh century. Now that first influx of Buddhism and the text that they translated, that has come right through in the tradition that’s still active today in Tibetan Buddhism. One of the four Tibetans that still is active in Tibetan Buddhism today called the Nyingma or Nyingma Pa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. And then as I said, it died out in the eleventh century.
It was reintroduced by someone called Atisha and several others including one great master called Marpa and he’s very famous student, a Tibetan called Milarepa. The the master Atisha formed a tradition called the Kadampa tradition tradition. And Marpa and Milaraipa formed a with the beginnings of another tradition that’s still going to be called Kagyu tradition. Now the Kadampa tradition tended to sort of become rather diffused and not remain as a separate group. And then soon after, a third tradition, so there was the Nyingma from the very early days.
There was the from Milarepa. There was a third one from called Sakya which also arrived around the late twelfth century or so. And then, actually, it was it was a pretty confusing place in terms of studying Buddhism in those hundreds couple of hundred years because there were all these different traditions and different approaches and and some and there was different opinions about all sorts of things and it must have been a very interesting place to be. And then about the fourteenth century, probably one of the greatest figures in in Tibetan his Tibetan spiritual history, I guess, which is basically the history of the last thousand years, a teacher called Tsongkhapa really did a lot of investigating of all the different traditions, took teachings from a vast number of teaching teachers, was an absolute brilliant brilliant scholar, a genius, I suppose. He created a system of thought, not anything particularly new, but he systemized Buddhist thought in an extraordinarily powerful way, in a very in a very scholastic type way perhaps similar to what happened in the Middle Ages in Christian scholasticism to some degree.
And then but he also he reformed the monastic systems and he he he’s turned out to be the founder of the fourth tradition in Tibetan Buddhism called the Gelugpas. And this became rapidly became the biggest and most powerful and it is now the group that is headed by his holiness the Dalai Lama most Tibetan monks or people would see themselves as member of the Gelugpa tradition. The second today biggest today would be the Nyingmapa and the Sakya and Kagyu traditions are somewhat smaller. So this particular organization, Buddha House, is most closely related to the Geluk tradition, that one that was founded by Tsongkhapa in the fourteenth century. And then let’s jumping forward to the twentieth century, things began not to be going so well between China and Tibet and earlier this century.
China try invaded once in about nineteen fourteen or something and then they left again and now that was the English you tried to invade in nineteen fourteen, but the Chinese also did. So there was growing tension between China and Tibet. Although historically, they’d they’d even though they had a lot of close intercourse historically, they’d been very separate in many ways. And then in nineteen fifty, the Chinese invaded again. And in nineteen fifty nine, many people including his holiness, the Dalai Lama and a younger two younger monks.
One was called Thubten Yeshe. One was called came out at the same time as his holiness the Dalai Lama. These they two other monks went to live at the camp in in Buxa in North India where they were the refugees. The Indians were very generous and gave the Tibetans places to live. And one of these decided very quickly to become involved with teaching Westerners and to try and learn some English and he’s he became well known as Lama Yeshe.
Lama Yeshi began teaching all the hippies who was who were coming to Kathmandu in North India, and he founded an organization called the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna Tradition of which Buddha House is a member now and there’s something like a hundred centers in that tradition now in the world. And Lama Yeshe died in nineteen eighty four and handed over the spiritual leadership of the organization to his closest disciple who was Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The pic pictures of Lama Lama Yeshe is pictured on the left here at the back, and you can come and have a look there. There’s another picture here. Lama Zopa is on the right.
The other other younger monk that came out, Gelong Tukten, when stayed in the monastery and did his traditional study became graduated as with his Geshe degree as they call it. Did eventually became the abbot of one of the biggest monasteries that they’d established in Southern India, Sera Monastery. And we know him as Khensur Rinpoche. He’s now our teacher here, and he’s my my my teacher. And so it’s because of those relationships that we’re in fact sitting here tonight talking together.
But there’s this link of masters relating to disciples running all the back all the way back to Śākyamūni Buddha two and a half thousand years ago. So back to those first teachings. Well, what what’s all this about suffering really got to do with us? I mean, surely we’ve got our acts together a bit more than they did then. It was pretty primitive times back then.
Life was pretty tough. Suppose it was nasty, brutish, and short for most people. Surely surely it doesn’t really apply so much to us. I’d like to read you some short thing. Perhaps I won’t.
We’re running out of time. Let me just briefly summarize what Pema Chodron is saying in this book, the wisdom of no escape. She’s saying that there’s that there’s this fundamental natural energy flowing through us, and we don’t like going with it. We get all scared of it so we back away and we make everything complicated. And part of that natural flow is is sometimes some pain and unhappiness but that’s all part of the natural flow.
But the way our mind works in its normal habitual way is to is to back away from that and make everything complicated. And so we precipitate ourselves into this situation of discontent. This full blown never ending apparent discontent everywhere we look at sort of popping up. The first noble truth recognizes that we also change like the weather weather. We ebb and flow like the tides.
We wax and wane like the moon. We do that and there’s no reason to resist it. If we resist it, the reality and vitality of life becomes a misery, a hell. Part of what we can investigate in this course and what you can investigate is how what what to what degree does this message apply to us here now? Is there is there something in it?
Do we throw a spanner in our own works for some reason and then blame everyone else in the world around us? We don’t like facing up to that natural flow perhaps. Let me quickly well, we we tell ourselves and everyone else that we’re really happy, don’t we? A lot of the time. And let me tell you about two happiness myths.
At least I think they’re myths. And please, in the discussion if later you might have a different opinion. But let me quickly outline what I think are two happiness myths. That happiness is attainable if only I could get the right combination of bits and pieces together in my life. Sounds good.
If only I can manage my diary and fill up all the slots with the right things and the right people at the right times, then everything will be okay. First happiness myth. Second happiness myth, everyone else is happy. What’s wrong with me? When we start to investigate and look under the surface at what’s happening in all those other happy together worked out integrated people, where it’s not there.
There aren’t any. Except a few odd strange individuals like our teacher here who seems to be living somewhere a little bit differently to the rest of us in that regard. So the two happiness myths. So do we wanna do an experiment stopping our incessant and habitual running without thinking, which is the way we normally live our lives? Do we wanna really question those happiness myths?
Do we wanna have a deeper look into these issues? Buddhism invites us to do just that if we’ve got the inclination or the and the courage to do it. Did anyone see the film Matrix? A couple? And this is gonna be really bad for all those of you who haven’t, but maybe someone can explain to you after or in the discussion.
But Buddhism is sort of saying, well, here you go. There’s a red and a blue pill. Which one do you wanna take? Should I explain what Matrix was about? Maybe later in the discussion.
We’ve run out of time. So just does anyone have maybe just a minute for a a question? Does anyone have a question? We will have the discussion after, but if someone wants to leave or would rather raise it now, please yeah. Don’t if you don’t wanna take any?
That’s a good I don’t know. Don’t know. So I just felt like saying Yeah. It’s a good good did you see the movie, did you? Said it.
Yeah. So I didn’t try. But I do like. You change the metaphor? I just said that’s that’s exactly what happened in the movie.
So that’s all. Yeah. I know what you’re saying. Yeah. So yeah.
Thanks. When the Buddha was talking about suffering and, you know, we look at our relative lives and we can say that relatively, we’re well off in the world. For social action, then strive for anything better? In that case, should they just say, well, you know, life’s suffering what they have? In a way I understand this message, it’s a call to do something. It’s not a call to be passive.
And and perhaps it’s about empowering of empowering us. So, I mean, I mean, wearing the extraordinarily good fortune of having the space to be able to sit and consider these things, whereas many other people in the world have not got and probably never will have the time or space or energy or resources even to be able to have the shortest break to consider such issues that we are just we have such good fortune to be able to do. So I think if if people can strive to improve their circumstances and make the world a better place, I mean, that seems a very wonderful thing to me. So Buddhism is not one of passive And I think that’s the someone one of the implications of the Mahāyāna approach to Buddhism is is what are the implications for our our wider reality. And and I I suspect that we’re at another one of those points in the history of Buddhism where what is I don’t what’s gonna happen?
Buddhism has never engaged the western world before. It’s a completely different approach. We come out of a Christian tradition with its tremendous emphasis on getting out there and doing things in the world rather than so much on the inward work. It’s having to come to fronts with other than other than the inner tradition of of inner spiritual tradition of Buddhism, which is perhaps one of the great human achievements of human civilization. Maybe Western science is another one.
A huge long term community effort about transforming the transforming the world and in oneself. That’s what science has been doing for the last four hundred years. Who knows what’s gonna come from that? His Holiness of Dalai Lama sees that as a very rich encounter. Anyway, we passed our time.
Some homework. If you would like, consider setting yourself the task this week each day trying to meditate. Sit down somewhere by yourself for five to ten minutes only and see if you can meditate on your breath. And maybe you’ve already done that with some other investigation you’ve done with meditation before. And if that’s the case, then what I want you to do a little bit differently in this case is when you sit down to start, think about what’s my motivation?
Why am I doing this? And if you detect something positive, then bring that make that explicit to yourself. Just real quickly. Right? Just real quickly do that in your mind.
Why am I here? Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s I I wanna and then yeah. Okay.
That’s why I’m doing it. Five, ten minutes. And then at the end, do something similar to what we’re going to do right now. You know, in in Buddhist practice, we often say when you do undertake some sort of practice, it should have three stages, the beginning, the middle, and the end. Buddhism loves dividing things up like this.
Drives you crazy after sometimes. Anyway, now in the beginning, what’s your motivation? Save it. Don’t just let it wander like we always do in our lives. We do things we never know why or never check our motivation.
Set your motivation at the beginning. Then do the meditation in the end. So do yourself well, now I did that that because and then I’m now offering the benefits of this for certain for a certain cause or purpose. So your homework is consider your med motivation, five or ten minutes meditating, and then dedicate the positive energy you’ve generated from doing that towards whatever it is you wanna dedicate it towards. And let’s do a little practice run now.
So just before we break, let’s we’ve engaged in some skillful activity tonight. We’ve stepped away from our normal lives to consider some things that we wouldn’t normally consider about ourselves, about a spiritual path. We’ve generated some positive creative potential through doing this. What are we gonna do with this positive energy? And you may want to think, well, I wanna dedicate this for my future well-being, helping me to sort out, make myself a better person.
That’s what I wanna dedicate it towards. And maybe there’s just a little bit left over, and you can offer a little bit to the person sitting next to you metaphorically. Hey. I’ve got a little bit of this energy that he has left over. I’ll I’ll offer some to you for your benefit as well.
So I’m not just doing it for me, but maybe it can be of use to you as well somehow. And maybe do that little thing in your mind. Here you go. Have some of my energy. My help.
Okay. Thank you very much. So it’s ten past nine. For those of you who would like to come to stay, you’re most welcome. If you are going to stay and you don’t have a name tag, perhaps we can find one.
Whether you stay or not please feel free to either get some more ice water or grab yourself a tea or Milo or coffee out the back and then those who do wish to stay we’ll reassemble just put our our mats or chairs in a circle here, and we’ll we’ll have a more informal chat until about ten. Thanks very much. Thank you. You’ve been extraordinary group given the heat.