1) Buddhism (general overview):
-4 Nobel Truths: life is suffering (dukkha), suffering is made from attachment to anything, nirvana is when dukkha does not exist. It is all a mind set.
-Conditional Arising: everything is connected through a chain of events, nothing stands alone except nirvana. Nirvana is above everything else.
-Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelyhood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. These are your goals, but you can't want them because that would be desire and desire is suffering.
Buddha was born wealthy and sheltered, when he saw suffering and age for the first time he decided to change. He then meditated by the Bodhi tree and there he found enlightenment.
The wheel in the image represents the eightfold path, the lotus represents enlightenment, and the aura surrounding him represents nirvana.
3) The Buddha Image:
One way Buddha is shown is pre enlightenment, to show that there is a path you can take too. The second way is Buddha on the lotus throne, showing inevitable death.
-superman mark, he is superhuman.
-halo, Buddha's holiness.
-messy hair, the wandering path taken.
-posture, meditating.
-wheel, eightfold path.
4) Stupas, Temples and Relics:
Stupas are the burial grounds for Buddha, therefore making it a highly marked place for pilgrimages. They are marked with 8 pronged wheels, the sun, and the moon.
The stone slabs represent Buddha himself. The wheel represents the eightfold path, the sun represents compassion and the moon represents wisdom.
5) Devotion:
Monks and nuns shave their heads to show devotion. They release all attachments, even the attachment to becoming enlightened.
6) Cosmology:
There are four realms, the highest and purest is the realm of the gods. The lowest level is hell. The middle levels are realms of desire. There realms are not permanent. Nothing is permanent.
Mandalas represent the pure ideal world, Buddha's world.
7) Texts and Monasteries:
8) Celestial Beings:
9) Chinese Buddhism/ Japanese Buddhism:
Role of death, ignorance, and craving are the most important to me. Death because a main aspect is accepting that everything must die. Ignorance because one must understand everything to succeed. Craving because The whole point is to reach enlightenment, but you can not want it, it just has to come, so if you crave it, it will not be. They all relate to suffering.
7) Texts and Monasteries:
What I found most interesting about the text is the fact that the story is not the important part, the ending point is the important part. In a lot of religions the stories in the texts are pushed into learning. They do have a moral, but the story is also important. In Buddhism, the story is completely irrelevant because we all see it in a different way. How it happened is not what we are looking at, what is happening now is the importance of the text.
8) Celestial Beings:
Bodhisattvas are beings that have reached enlightenment, but chose to continue being reborn to help others achieve enlightenment.
The statue of Tara has a third eye to show that she sees all.
The open palm of Tara shows kindness and openness.
Avalokiteshvara represents compassion.
9) Chinese Buddhism/ Japanese Buddhism:
The fat laughing Buddha came from China, so the art was different.
Japanese use tea for purification.
10) Tantric Buddhism:
This is the use of magic to achieve enlightenment at a more rapid pace. This works because Tantric Buddhism believes that all humans are connected, so they dwell on past experiences and lives.
11) Overall Analysis / Synthesis: Buddhism is really deep and you have to understand everything in order to know anything, but at the same time, you can't care that you know everything about everything because it would be attachment to thoughts. You just do in order to be.
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