Telling the Story of Buddhism

Tracing Back to Early Buddhism

Amitabha Buddha
Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco
Steve Prezant

As we read Chapters 11 and 12 of Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought by Patrick S. Bresnan, we discover new ideas and thoughts: the evolution of Buddhism, the underlying importance of Ashoka's role in the development of the Buddhist tradition, the rules of Theravada Buddhism, who or what is a bodhisattva, and other religious concepts and characteristics Buddhism shares. Or is this Yogacara? and what you're reading right now "simply doesn't exist; it's an illusion, a creation of the mind" (Bresnan 285). I'll be digging deeper into the explanation of why there is no such thing as "Buddhism", and the Mahayana Buddhist's interpretation of reincarnation.

Buddhist? or Buddhism? What is it?

Early Expansion of Buddhism

In the centuries immediately following Buddha's death, Buddha's teachings and principles were being morphed into a new modern day term we now call Buddhism, but there is no such thing as "Buddhism". To hear the term Buddhism, it can be easily confused and familiarized with religious groups such as Hinduism or Judaism. As we've read in previous chapters before, Buddha does not refer to himself or his teachings as a religion with a god or set of leaders, but as a "way of life". The suffix -ism, is a suffix that is usually added to a word that represents a specific practice, system, or philosophy. With the help of Buddha's followers after his death, his teachings were becoming a huge part of India's varied culture. "As the tradition developed, there was much interplay, much give-and-take between the Buddhist and others" (Bresnan 246). Meaning, since a lot of his practices were being interpreted and taken by other religions, the teachings of Buddha was being interpreted as a religion. But as we study the origin of Siddhartha Gautama (aka Buddha), we know Buddha does not refer to his practices as a religion but a "way of life" and a science of the mind. 

The Reason Behind Existence

Reincarnation is a term that is highly familiarized with most human beings. Most people identify the term as the belief that the soul, upon death, rebirths itself, and comes back to earth in another embodiment or form. Each religion, such as Mahayana Buddhism, has its own interpretation and reality of what reincarnation really is. The Mahayana refers to reincarnation as samsara, the cycling of existence, or a cycling process that has a continuous flow of energy. Another way of saying that our current human life is apart of the cycling process. Meaning "with regard to human beings, though, the particular character of the flow is generated by karma, the consequences that follows every kind of volitional act" (Bresnan 290). So unlike Hinduism's belief of their atman being reborn into another body, Mahayana believes that the cycling process itself and our energy, is the one being reborn and regenerated back into the world. I find this interpretation very interesting and uncommon because as I watched the video below, he uses an analogy of taking a drop of water and putting it into another body of water, and how we can't extract that same exact droplet of water because it(s energy) has already became a part of something else. 

The Start of My Spiritual Awakening

These two chapter readings are probably my favorite part of this unit's journey. Maybe even the whole semester so far. I've never thought of defining reincarnation the way Mahayana Buddhist do, and as I've mentioned before in past blog posts, I am not religious, and I think this is one of the most eye opening and influential ideas to my own spiritual awakening.

Work Cited

Gabriele. “What Is an -Ism?” English Language Blog, Transparent Language, 19 Feb. 2012, blogs.transparent.com/english/what-is-an-%E2%80%93ism/.

Hawley, Jack. The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners. New World Library, 2011.

Hoden, Vernerable, director. What Is The Difference Between Reincarnation and Rebirth? - Zen Buddhism. YouTube, Dharma Gate Zen, 7 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW5WlEkFszw.

Kartapranata, Gunawan. “User:Gunkarta.” Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Feb. 2012, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gunkarta. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Buddhism

O'Brien, Barbara. “The Six Perfections of Mahayana Buddhism.” Learn Religions, Dotdash, 27 Apr. 2019, www.learnreligions.com/the-six-perfections-449611.

“Reincarnation.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/reincarnation.