The Buddha wandered as a beggar to spread his message of renunciation. He did not let followers write down his words draw or engrave his image, or exaggerate, romanticize, or deify him. Apparently scholars recorded the numerous Buddha cannons in the second or third century A.D. A lot changed in those 600 or so years of oral record. A personal philosophy became the religion Buddhism, and a man become more than a man—in modern terms the Buddha was most likely an atheist or agnostic. A lot has changed since then too.

So what does Buddhism say? What were the secular teachings of the Buddha? The Buddha reduced his world view to four points: (1) life is suffering (dukha), (2) suffering arises from desire (tanha), (3) eliminate desire and you eliminate the suffering, and (4) live a decent life and meditate to help eliminate desire. Want not, hurt not. This is less religion and more an intellectual pain pill.

The Buddha hammered these points over and over in his recorded conversation or sutras. He refused to get caught up on words, the 'world built up by intellectual distinctions and emotional defilements' as Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki described it

The Buddha was not a fuzzy theorist in a mathematical sense. He wrote no papers on fuzzy sets or systems. But he had the shades-of-grey idea: He tolerated A and not-A. He carefully avoided the artificial bivalence that arises from the negation tern' `not' in natural languages. Hence his famous line: 'The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things. The Buddha seems' the first major thinker to reject the black-white world of bivalence altogether. That alone took great insight and detachment and tenaciousness in an age with no formal analysis. He built a personal philosophy atop his rejection of bivalence. Today we in the West associate Buddhism with the big-bellied caricatures of that personal philosophy.

The Buddha refused to let words get in the way of what matters as a living and dying organism. Avoiding black-white boundaries helped one see the connected world more clearly and focus on the lot of man. The quote from Buddha at the start of this chapter continues, `... I have not explained that the world is finite or infinite. And why have I not explained this? Because this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamental of religion, nor tends to aversion, absence of passion, cessation quiescence.'

The Buddha focused on death and the old age and suffering that tend to precede it. There was more of that in his day than in ours and we have other painkillers. But life still ends quickly and badly. The Buddha wins at the boundary.

Q44. What changes did the author imply by the statement ‘A’ lot changed in those 600 or so years of oral record'?

(a) The Buddha's teachings and canonical codification of his teachings by later scholars might not be exactly the same.

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(b) While alive the Buddha did not allow his messages to be written down, but his followers developed his teachings into a full-fledged religion.

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(d) While the Buddha's might have been an atheist or agnostic, his followers developed religious cult centring on his personality

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Solution

The correct option is A
(a) The Buddha's teachings and canonical codification of his teachings by later scholars might not be exactly the same.

You are required to focus on the single quoted statement. The author is talking about the changes that took place to oral record embodying the teachings of the Buddha. Understandably each successive generation assimilated the teachings in their own way and might have brought in subtle changes. When the scholars started codifying they did not have the benefit of directly listening to the Buddha and hence the cannon could be in some ways different from the teachings of the Buddha. This is expressed in answer choice (a).

The statements in (b) and (d) are correct implications of the author's narration, but these are not directly related to the oral record of the teachings of the Buddha. The author has not suggested that the followers of the Buddha consciously detracted from the teachings. They were so deeply immersed in the Buddhist philosophy that they created a religion contrary to the wishes of the Buddha but this is understandable. Hence (c) is not a correct statement.

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The Buddha wandered as a beggar to spread his message of renunciation. He did not let followers write down his words draw or engrave his image, or exaggerate, romanticize, or deify him. Apparently scholars recorded the numerous Buddha cannons in the second or third century A.D. A lot changed in those 600 or so years of oral record. A personal philosophy became the religion Buddhism, and a man become more than a man—in modern terms the Buddha was most likely an atheist or agnostic. A lot has changed since then too.

So what does Buddhism say? What were the secular teachings of the Buddha? The Buddha reduced his world view to four points: (1) life is suffering (dukha), (2) suffering arises from desire (tanha), (3) eliminate desire and you eliminate the suffering, and (4) live a decent life and meditate to help eliminate desire. Want not, hurt not. This is less religion and more an intellectual pain pill.

The Buddha hammered these points over and over in his recorded conversation or sutras. He refused to get caught up on words, the 'world built up by intellectual distinctions and emotional defilements' as Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki described it

The Buddha was not a fuzzy theorist in a mathematical sense. He wrote no papers on fuzzy sets or systems. But he had the shades-of-grey idea: He tolerated A and not-A. He carefully avoided the artificial bivalence that arises from the negation tern' `not' in natural languages. Hence his famous line: 'The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things. The Buddha seems' the first major thinker to reject the black-white world of bivalence altogether. That alone took great insight and detachment and tenaciousness in an age with no formal analysis. He built a personal philosophy atop his rejection of bivalence. Today we in the West associate Buddhism with the big-bellied caricatures of that personal philosophy.

The Buddha refused to let words get in the way of what matters as a living and dying organism. Avoiding black-white boundaries helped one see the connected world more clearly and focus on the lot of man. The quote from Buddha at the start of this chapter continues, `... I have not explained that the world is finite or infinite. And why have I not explained this? Because this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamental of religion, nor tends to aversion, absence of passion, cessation quiescence.'

The Buddha focused on death and the old age and suffering that tend to precede it. There was more of that in his day than in ours and we have other painkillers. But life still ends quickly and badly. The Buddha wins at the boundary.

Q46. . According to the author why the Buddha did not like to get involved in semantic or wordy discussion of abstract questions such as finiteness of the world?

1. The Buddha did not consider such discussion to be relevant for religion.

2. The Buddha knew that such questions did not have clear and categorical answers.

3. Such discussion according to the Buddha did not help to attain cessation from desire and renunciation of passions.

After the enlightenment, the Buddha walked over one hundred miles to India's holy city of Benares. In a deer park near the city, he preached his first sermon to the five followers who had previously renounced him. This sermon formed the basis of his teaching from then on. He spoke about The Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths which came to the Buddha at the enlightenment revolve around the logical process of seeing life, seeing all actions, not as we wish to see them, but as they really are. The first truth is that life always incorporates suffering or Dukkha as it was called then. Dukkha has a broader meaning than suffering. It can be the feeling you experience when you encounter pain, old age, sickness, loss, or separation from loved ones, but it can also represent a general unsatisfied feeling. If you feel that your life is like pushing a supermarket trolley which always wants to go in a different direction, then that is Dukkha. In "The Vision of the Buddha" by Torn Lowenstein, the Buddha says "What, monks, is the truth of suffering? Birth is suffering; decay, sickness, and death are sufferings. To be separated from what you like is suffering. To want something and not getting it is suffering. In short, the human personality, liable as it is to clinging and attachment brings suffering?” The second noble truth is that suffering in its broad sense, comes from desire, and specifically, desire for meeting our expectations and for self-fulfillment as we see it. By desiring for ourselves rather than the whole, we will always have suffering. In the same way that a child wants a new toy and then, having achieved that, will long for yet another, we seek fulfillment of our desire, to then move on to another. All the time, our lives are only temporarily satisfied. So far, that is the bad news. In the language of many teenagers "life sucks." But Buddhism is a positive philosophy, and the next two noble truths give us an optimistic message. The third noble truth tells us that if our attachment to desire ends, so too will the suffering. Specifically if we change our perception and reduce our attachment to desire, suffering will also reduce. This is not intended to lead to a cancellation of the zest for life, but to an understanding of the nature of life and to controlling those desires which come from that lack of understanding. The fourth noble truth shows the way to the ending of suffering. The Buddha said that the way to cease suffering is to follow the middle way, the Noble Eightfold path. This provides the guidelines for day-to-day living. There is some analogy here with the Ten Commandments in Christianity, but the eightfold path is meant as a guideline rather than a strict rule. The Buddha reached this middle way after himself living the extremes of life. In his early years, he was surrounded by luxury, given access to all pleasures available at that time. In his search, he lived the opposite life, one where he deprived himself of even the essentials, and faced death. The Noble Eightfold path leads to a way, which embraces life and is neither indulgent nor austere. The Noble Eight-fold path is Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. When the Buddha gave this first sermon to the world, he is said to have set in motion the Wheel of the Law. And the wheel as a Buddhist symbol appears over and over again in Buddhist art, symbolizing the cyclic nature of existence.

Q74. Buddha could become probably the greatest preacher because

1. He had royal blood.

2. Buddha had the courage to leave his luxurious life, go through and understand the root causes of human sufferings himself.

3. He talked about the middle way which was neither indulgent nor austere.

4. He had the X-factor.

Q. Read the following passage and answer the (four) items that follow:
After the enlightenment, the Buddha walked over one hundred miles to India's holy city of Benares. In a deer park near the city, he preached his first sermon to the five followers who had previously renounced him. This sermon formed the basis of his teaching from then on. He spoke about The Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths which came to the Buddha at the enlightenment revolve around the logical process of seeing life, seeing all actions, not as we wish to see them, but as they really are. The first truth is that life always incorporates suffering or Dukkha as it was called then. Dukkha has a broader meaning than suffering. It can be the feeling you experience when you encounter pain, old age, sickness, loss, or separation from loved ones, but it can also represent a general unsatisfied feeling. If you feel that your life is like pushing a supermarket trolley which always wants to go in a different direction, then that is Dukkha. In "The Vision of the Buddha" by Torn Lowenstein, the Buddha says, "What, monks, is the truth of suffering? Birth is suffering; decay, sickness, and death are sufferings. To be separated from what you like is suffering. To want something and not getting it is suffering. In short, the human personality, liable as it is to clinging and attachment brings suffering?” The second noble truth is that suffering in its broad sense, comes from desire, and specifically, desire for meeting our expectations and for self fulfillment as we see it. By desiring for ourselves rather than the whole, we will always have suffering. In the same way that a child wants a new toy and then, having achieved that, will long for yet another, we seek fulfillment of our desire, to then move on to another. All the time, our lives are only temporarily satisfied. So far, that is the bad news. In the language of many teenagers "life sucks." But Buddhism is a positive philosophy, and the next two noble truths give us an optimistic message. The third noble truth tells us that if our attachment to desire ends, so too will the suffering. Specifically if we change our perception and reduce our attachment to desire, suffering will also reduce. This is not intended to lead to a cancellation of the zest for life, but to an understanding of the nature of life and to controlling those desires which come from that lack of understanding. The fourth noble truth shows the way to the ending of suffering. The Buddha said that the way to cease suffering is to follow the middle way, the Noble Eightfold path. This provides the guidelines for day-to-day living. There is some analogy here with the Ten Commandments in Christianity, but the eightfold path is meant as a guideline rather than a strict rule. The Buddha reached this middle way after himself living the extremes of life. In his early years, he was surrounded by luxury, given access to all pleasures available at that time. In his search, he lived the opposite life, one where he deprived himself of even the essentials, and faced death. The Noble Eightfold path leads to a way, which embraces life and is neither indulgent nor austere. The Noble Eight-fold path is Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. When the Buddha gave this first sermon to the world, he is said to have set in motion the Wheel of the Law. And the wheel as a Buddhist symbol appears over and over again in Buddhist art, symbolizing the cyclic nature of existence.

According to the passage, which of the following are true?

(iii) and (iv)
All of the above
None of the above
(i) and (ii)

Q. Which among the following works, does not belong to the teachings of Buddha or his followers?

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