The Final Installment (Writings in Philosophy, III)

Buddhism (Hinayana)

In this reading from Buddhism we see that its teachings stem from the Upanishads, and eventually branches off into becoming its own philosophy and religion. In the philosophical aspect of Buddhism, we see that the main (overall) goal of its teaching is that there is a lot of suffering in this world that causes one from reaching their overall potential and goal of freedom in life. Within Buddhism there are two major schools of thought. The first school is Hinayana, in this school we understand that there are three characteristics of Being, and the first characteristic is that all constituents are transitory. What this first characteristic means is that everything in this life is not permanent and eventually it and we have to pass away at some point in this life time. The reason for this saying is because (like I said earlier) is that the teachings of the Buddha (Philosophical and Religious) tell us that life causes us major suffering, and the route of that is the fact that we have a lot of attachment that we struggle with on the inside of us. According to the Source Book it says that the Buddha describes suffering being traced from "ignorance and selfish craving (avidya and tanha) [SB, 272]. The second characteristic says that all constituents are misery. Basically, saying that everything in this life since it is going to do nothing but cause us pain is just adding on to the misery that we are going to feel eventually once we realize that nothing in this life is eternal and becoming attached is just going to hurt us. It's like the Buddha himself is trying to get us to become aware so that when the "real-life" realization hits us we will be prepared (SB, page 274). The third and final characteristic states that all elements are lacking in ego (substantial, permanent self-nature).

This source book divides Hinayana Buddhism into seven subcategories. The first subcategory talks about the three characteristics of being, the second talks about the very first sermon that the Buddha gave to his first generation of followers the arhats who also follow the Hinayana view of Buddhism. The third subcategory that we see is entitled "The Synopsis of truth" in this we see here that the Buddha beings to dive more into the understanding of what Truth is. In this sermon we see that within Truth there are 8 Noble Paths that will ultimately help one become free from all the suffering and pain that is in this world: Right Outlook, Right Speech, Right Acts, Right Livelihood, Right Mindfulness, Right Rapture of Concentration, Right Resolves, and Right Endeavor. As we continue on within this understanding of Buddhist Philosophy, we see clearly that Buddhism is a vehicle to help us achieve our hardest achievement yet: Freedom of self, Freedom from others, as well as forgiveness because without us understanding these three things then we are lost in a world and a cycle of suffering (samsara).