sermon near Benares:

the Buddha is believed to have founded Buddhism here in 528 BC when he gave his first sermon.  Following his awakening or enlightenment, the Buddha decided to teach.  He travelled hoping to meet up with 5 of his earlier companions (who like him had been ascetics).  He came to the Deer Park near Vārānasī  (Benares) where he met these companions; he convinced them that he had achieved full awakening.  He gave the "first sermon", or the "Benares sermon", the teaching of "the noble eightfold path” a middle path aloof from the 2 extremes of sensual indulgence & self-mortification.

 

Four Noble Truths:

In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the realities for the spiritually worthy ones.  They are:

• the feelings of suffering & pain (dukkha) are innate characteristics of existence in the world

• the origins of suffering arises from craving, desire or attachment

• the end of suffering comes from renouncement or letting go of these cravings

• the Buddhist path, englightenment, comes from renouncement  of cravings

They were the first teaching given by the Buddha, considered some of the most important teachings in Buddhism.   They represent the awakening & liberation of the Buddha, and the potential for his followers to reach the same religious experience as him.   They provide a conceptual framework for introducing & explaining Buddhist thought, which has to be personally experienced.

 

prince-philosopher:

The Buddha was born to an aristocratic Kshatriya family called Gautama, members of the Shakyas tribe of rice-farmers living near the border of India & Nepal; his father was an elected chief of the Shakya clan.  His mother, Maya, was a Koliyan princess.

 

Sankhya philosophy:

see above page 353, Buddhism (Sankhya):

 

Sensualism (18th century):

This is a reference to English empiricism.  One founder of this school, Locke (1632–1704) is more 17th century, but both Hume (1711–1776) & Hartley (1705-57) are 18th century empiricists

see above page 353

 

Materialism (18th century):

philosophy holding that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, all things, including mental states & consciousness(e.g. the biochemistry of the human brain & nervous system) are results of material interactions;  contrasts with idealism, in which mind & consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject & material interactions are secondary.  Significant in the 18th century was the French Materialists who differing in detail, all agreed that matter could explain all phenomena.  Prominent were Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), Baron d'Holbach (1723–89) & Diderot (1713-84).  In the 19th century Feuerbach (1804-72), a German atheist anthropologist  posited anthropological materialism (The Essence of Christianity, written 1841), presenting religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature, making materialist anthropology a universal science.  This would influence Marx who developed historical materialism as the basis for his scientific socialism.

 

Stoa (and Heraclitus):

The direct influence of Heraclitus on the Stoicism is hard to confirm but inferences are clear.  Most of the commentators on Herakleitos mentioned in Diogenes were Stoics who held him in high esteem & interpreted him in light of their own systems.  They claimed their major tenets, in particular theories of the logos and the ekpyrosis (fire), were derived from him.  His Cosmology (the periodic destruction of the world by fire, followed by regeneration) this inspired their own version.  The earliest surviving Stoic work, the Hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes, (a work making the transition from pagan polytheism to more modern religions) appears to be the Heraclitean logos modified.  

 

Stoa (Protagoras & the Sophists)

see Chapter IX page 311, and 353 above

 

Buddhism (and God):

Buddhism is focused on spiritual liberation, but is not a theistic religion.  The Buddha himself rejected the idea of a creator god. Buddhist philosophers have argued that belief in an eternal god is a distraction for humans seeking enlightenment and while Buddhism does not argue that gods don’t exist, god(s) are irrelevant to those who strive for enlightenment. In the creation narrative of Buddhism, the samsaric cycle (a cycle of time, without beginning or end, of repeated birth, mundane existence & death) is responsible for the cosmos; it was not created by god(s), nor is it run by god(s). Everything is subservient to this system.  Classical Buddhist scholars assert that Buddhism is atheistic although Buddhist texts often talk of gods. These however are not the eternal beings which dominate Westerner religion.

 

Nagasena:

Buddhist (Sarvastivadan)monk & sage born in Kashmir, living around 150 BC; famous for his Milind-Pañha, a Pali treatise which means "Questions of King Milinda" & dealing with the conversation that took place between Nagasena & King Milind.   Nagasena wrote it originally in Pali language (a derivative of Sanskrit); he answers questions about Buddhism posed by Milinda.

 

King Milinda:

aka Menander I the Saviour (165-130 BC); Indo-Greek King of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, who ruled a large empire in the NW India subcontinent from his capital at Sagala.  Initially a king of Bactria; after conquering the Punjab he established an empire in India stretching from the Kabul River valley in the west to the Ravi River in the east, from the Swat River valley in the north to the Helmand Province.  He launched expeditions south into Rajasthan & east down the Ganges River Valley; Strabo (the Greek geographer) wrote he conquered more tribes than Alexander the Great.  He became a patron of Buddhism.

 

Skandhas (groups, and are impermanent):

aka khandhas, meaning heaps, aggregates, collections or groupings & in Buddhism  refers to the 5 material & mental factors that take part in the rise of craving and clinging.  They also are the 5 factors that constitute & explain a sentient being’s person & personality.  The 5 aggregates are: form (material image or impression), sensations (feelings, received from form), perceptions, mental activity and consciousness.  According to this interpretation, the personality has no substance, only emptiness plus the 5 aggregates.

​

association-psychology:

aka free association, the expression (by speaking or writing) of the content of consciousness without censorship as an aid in gaining access to unconscious processes.  Originally devised by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, as an alternative to hypnosis (the method of his  colleague, Josef Breuer), because he perceived the latter as subjected to more fallibility, and because patients could recover and comprehend crucial memories while fully conscious.  Freud stated: “The importance of free association is that the patients spoke for themselves, rather than repeating the ideas of the analyst; they work through their own material, rather than parroting another's suggestions".  During psychoanalytic sessions, typically lasting 50 minutes, 4–5 times a week, the patient may lie on a couch, with the analyst often sitting just behind and out of sight.  The patient expresses his or her thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analyst infers the unconscious conflicts causing the patient's symptoms and character problems.

 

Heraclitus (the Logos):

535- 475 BC, first philosopher to give the word “logos” any special attention although his use of the term did not differ significantly from its standard meaning.  For him it provided the link between rational discourse and the world's rational structure.  What he meant is not certain; possibly "reason" or "explanation" as an objective cosmic law, but he does suggest the independent existence of a universal logos.

 

Stoic (the idea of Logos):

this school believes that becoming a clear & unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason (logos), the active reason pervading & animating the Universe.  It was material & is identified with God or Nature.  They referred to the “logos spermatikos” or seminal reason, the law of generation in the Universe, active reason working in inanimate matter.  Humans possessed a portion of the divine logos, the primordial Fire, the reason that controls and sustains the Universe.  The later Stoics understood the Logos as "the account which governs everything.  The direct influence of Heraclitus on the Stoics is hard to confirm but inferences are clear.  Most of the commentators on Herakleitos mentioned in Diogenes were Stoics who held him in high esteem & interpreted him in light of their own systems.  They claimed their major tenets, in particular theories of the logos and the ekpyrosis (fire), were derived from him.  His Cosmology (the periodic destruction of the world by fire, followed by regeneration) this inspired their own version.  The earliest surviving Stoic work, the Hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes, (a work making the transition from pagan polytheism to more modern religions) appears to be the Heraclitean logos modified.