What is Theravada Buddhism? (video)

Asangoham, 2/14/23; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (DBM) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The ancient teachings of Theravāda Buddhism

(Asangoham) Feb. 14, 2023. Buddhism is a religion and philosophy that originated in ancient India and has since spread across the modern world.

Theravada Buddhism is based on the teachings of the historical Buddha, born Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

The Buddha lived in ancient Gandhara (Central Asia) and traveled east to proto-India in the 5th century BCE. He was a prince, born into a wealthy and privileged family in the Shakya (Scythian) clan in present-day Central Asia (Scythia, Sakastan, Afghanistan, Pakistan).

However, he became deeply troubled by the unsatisfactoriness, disappointment, and suffering (dukkha) he saw all around him, in luxury and pursuit of sensual pleasures as in old age, sickness, and death.

He made a vow to find a solution to this problem of disappointment. So he renounced his royal palaces and left his circle of familiars -- parents, wife, child, friends, relatives, royal subjects, and familiar surroundings of his homeland (Shakya Land/Scythia) -- and all his worldly possessions behind and set off on a quest, a search to bring all suffering to an end, enlightenment/awakening, and the source of true and lasting happiness.

After years of intense study, contemplation, and practice, including many years of severe privations and austerities, the wandering ascetic Siddhartha attained a Great Awakening, glimpsed nirvana, and thus came to be called the Awakened One or the Buddha.

He found what he had been looking for -- the source of true and lasting happiness. From that moment on, the Buddha devoted himself to sharing this insight and the liberation it leads to with a monastic community of nuns and monks he established and with the many laypeople who gathered to learn from him, including his family back in Scythia.

The Buddha's teachings, known as the Dharma (Pali Dhamma), are centered on The Four Noble (or Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths and The Noble Eightfold Path:

1. Life is unsatisfactory.
2. The cause of this unsatisfactoriness is ignorance and craving.
3. All unsatisfactoriness can be ended.
4. The way to end unsatisfactoriness (the way to true and lasting happiness) is to practice the Ennobling Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path is a set of virtuous, moral, ethical, spiritual practices. They are:

1. Right understanding
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration 

The Buddha offered the Four Noble Truths (the Noble Eightfold Path being the fourth) as a framework to understand the nature of our predicament (disappointment and suffering) and how to overcome it to awaken to wisdom, bliss, and complete liberation.

#theravada #buddhism #buddha #spirituality

• Script: Matt Mackane
• Voiceover: Andrea Giordani
• Editing: Rohit
• Score: Motion Array x Epidemic Music x Original Score

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