Buddhism
Twelve Nidanas
The concatenation of twelve nidanas as described in Buddhism is as follows:
1- From spiritual ignorance (avidyā) arises mental formations (saṃskāra).
2- From mental formations arises consciousness (vijñāna).
3- From consciousness arises name and form (nāmarūpa).
4- From name and form arise the sense organs and their objects (ṣaḍāyatana).
5- From sense organs and their objects arise contact (sparśa).
6- From contact arises sensation (vedanā).
7- From sensation arises craving (tṛṣṇā).
8- From craving arises clinging (upādāna).
9- From clinging arises becoming (bhava).
10- From becoming arises birth (jāti).
11 & 12- From birth arise aging and dying (jarāmaraṇa).
Four Noble Truths
The four noble truths are:
The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, dissatisfaction)
The truth of the origin of dukkha
The truth of the cessation of dukkha
The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha
Noble Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering (dukkha) and the achievement of self-awakening:
1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration
Theosophical view
H. P. Blavatsky and her Masters claimed that the esoteric teachings of Buddhism are different from the commonly known ones:
Notwithstanding widespread misconceptions and errors— often most amusing to one who has a certain knowledge of the true doctrines—about Buddhism generally, and especially about Buddhism in Tibet, all the Orientalists agree that the Buddha’s foremost aim was to lead human beings to salvation by teaching them to practice the greatest purity and virtue, and by detaching them from the service of this illusionary world, and the love of one’s still more illusionary—because so evanescent and unreal—body and physical self. And what is the good of a virtuous life, full of privations and suffering, if the only result of it is to be annihilation at the end? If even the attainment of that supreme perfection which leads the Initiate to remember the whole series of his past lives, and to foresee that of the future ones, by the full development of that inner, divine eye in him, and to acquire the knowledge that unfolds the causes [Nidānas] of the ever-recurring cycles of existence, brings him finally to non-being, and nothing more— then the whole system is idiotic, and Epicureanism is far more philosophical than such Buddhism. He who is unable to comprehend the subtle, and yet so potent, difference between existence in a material or physical state and a purely spiritual existence—Spirit or “Soul-life”—will never appreciate at their full value the grand teachings of the Buddha, even in their exoteric form. Individual or personal existence is the cause of pains and sorrows; collective and impersonal life-eternal is full of divine bliss and joy for ever, with neither causes nor effects to darken its light. And the hope for such a life-eternal is the keynote of the whole of Buddhism.[1]
Nidanas
In stanza I, sloka 4 of The Secret Doctrine the nidanas are called "the great causes of misery".[2] Mme. Blavatsky defined them as follows:
The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the effect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the Hînayâna System. They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its threshold—Devachan.[3]
Q. Are Nidâna and Maya (the great causes of misery) aspects of the Absolute?
A. Nidâna means the concatenation of cause and effect; the twelve Nidânas are the enumeration of the chief causes which produce the severest reaction or effects under the Karmic law. Although there is no connection between the terms Nidâna and Maya in themselves, Maya being simply illusion, yet if we consider the universe as Maya or illusion, then certainly the Nidânas, as being moral agents in the universe, are included in Maya. It is Maya, illusion or ignorance, which awakens Nidânas; and the cause or causes having been produced, the effects follow according to Karmic law. To take an instance: we all regard ourselves as Units, although essentially we are one indivisible Unit, drops in the ocean of Being, not to be distinguished from other drops. Having then produced this cause, the whole discord of life follows immediately as an effect; in reality it is the endeavour of nature to restore harmony and maintain equilibrium. It is this sense of separateness which is the root of all evil.[4]
Four Noble Truths
Mme. Blavatsky defined them as follows:
Aryasatyâni (Sk.). The four truths or the four dogmas, which are (1) Dukha, or that misery and pain are the unavoidable concomitants of sentient (esoterically, physical) existence; (2) Samudaya, the truism that suffering is intensified by human passions; (3) Nirôdha, that the crushing out and extinction of all such feelings are possible for a man “on the path”; (4) Mârga, the narrow way, or that path which leads to such a blessed result.[5]
Q. Are the Four Truths of the Hinayâna school the same as those mentioned by Sir Edwin Arnold in “The Light of Asia”; the first of which is the Path of Sorrow; the second of Sorrow’s cause: the third of Sorrow’s ceasing; and the fourth is the WAY?
A. All this is theological and exoteric, and to be found in all the Buddhist scriptures; and the above seems to be taken from Singhalese or Southern Buddhism. The subject, however, is far more fully treated of in the Aryasangha School. Still even there the four truths have one meaning for the regular priest of the Yellow Robe, and quite another for the real Mystics.[6]
Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the “Eye of Dangma” toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any influence. It is here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to the Nidanas and the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are secret.[7]
Online resources
Articles
- The Noble Eightfold Path by Annie Besant & C.W. Leadbeater
- The Three Refuges by Radha Burnier
- The Radiant Mind by John Cianciosi
- "Buddhism Q&A" by Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)
Audio
- The World of Religious Beliefs and Practices: Buddhism by Robert Ellwood
- Development of Buddhism by Lama Govinda
- Buddhist Sacred Literature by Helen Zahara
Video
- The Buddhist Niyamas: Five Cosmic Laws by Olande Ananda
- Buddha's Views on Sexuality and Marriage by John Cianciosi
- Four Emotions of the Buddha by John Cianciosi
Notes
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. XIV (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1995), 432.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 38.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 39.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 326-327.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 33.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Collected Writings vol. X (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988), 326.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 45.