Overview
Excerpted from One Dharma by Joseph Goldstein
Although we might desire to order the differentiation and growth of the traditions with precise historical benchmarks, it was, in fact, an organic and intricate unfolding that happened gradually and incrementally over centuries. We go from the One Dharma of Gautama Buddha to the proliferation of schools in the centuries following his death. Through their contact with one other, these schools absorbed elements from each other, and so it is quite impossible to speak of them as isolated streams.
There were more councils and more splits, as the organic flowering of theory and practice continued. But as the traditions moved across Asia into different cultures, they became more isolated from one another, and many of the differences hardened into their own traditional orthodoxies, often with sectarian overtones.
Today we are coming full circle and there is again a great cross-fertilization across traditions. The factors nourishing the emergence of One Dharma at this time are the great wealth of teachings readily available and the dilemma of assessing diverse points of view, each true and verified from its own perspective. When we have learned from and respect the masters and teachings from various traditions, our challenge becomes how to hold them all in wisdom rather than in confusion or conflict.
Western Buddhism will inevitably be a synthesis of these great wisdom traditions. It is already happening. This need not be a watering down or a mixing tip of different teachings. We can practice each of them in its own integrity and come to a genuine depth of understanding. But when we see them all as skillful means for awakening, rather than as absolute statements of truth, we stay free of the sectarian divide that has plagued so many spiritual traditions and come to the essential points common to all of them. This can be the great gift of our culture to the long historical sweep of the Buddha’s teachings.
History of Theravada Buddhism
The Theravada Buddhists believe that they practice the original form of Buddhism as it was handed down to them by Buddha. Theravada Buddhism dominates the culture of Sri Lanka, but is also very prominent in Thailand and Burma.
While Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, spent several decades teaching, none of his teachings were written down until several hundred years later. In the third century, Asoka, the great Mauryan emperor, converted to Buddhism and began to sponsor several monasteries throughout the country. He even sent missionaries out to various countries both east and west. During his reign, the teachings of Buddha spread all across India and Sri Lanka.
Disturbed by the prolific growth of Buddhist heresies, a council of Buddhist monks was convened at the Mauryan capital of Patna during the third century BC to purify the doctrine. What arose from that council, more or less, were the definitive teachings of Theravada Buddhism; from this point onwards, Theravada Buddhism undergoes little if any change.
When the teachings of Buddha were finally written into a canon, they were written not in Sanskrit, but in a language derived from Sanskrit, called Pali. This language was spoken in the western regions of the Indian peninsula, but from Sri Lanka (which is off the eastern coast of India) to Burma, the Pali scriptures would become the definitive canon. We can’ determine precisely when they were written down, but tradition records that the canon was first written down somewhere between 89 and 77 BC, that is, over four hundred years after the death of Buddha.
This canon is called the Tripitaka, or “Three Baskets,” for it is divided into three parts, the Vinaya , or “Conduct,” the Sutta , or “Discourses,” and the Abhidhamma , or “Supplementary Doctrines.” The second part, the “Discourses,” are the most important in Buddhism. These are discourses by the Buddha and contain the whole of Buddhist philosophy and morality.
The basic doctrines of Theravada Buddhism correspond fairly exactly with the teachings of Buddha. Theravada Buddhism is based on the Four Noble Truths and the idea that all of physical reality is a chain of causation; this includes the cycle of birth and rebirth. Through the practice of the Eightfold Noble Path and the Four Cardinal Virtues, an individual can eventually attain Nirvana . Theravada Buddhism, however, focused primarily on meditation and concentration, the eighth of the Eightfold Noble Path; as a result, it emphasized a monastic life removed from the hustle and bustle of society and required an extreme expenditure of time in meditating. This left little room for the bulk of humanity to join in.
Note: As Theravada Buddhism migrated to the West, it became more accessible to lay practitioners, thanks in part to the efforts of such teachers as Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfeld, Sharon Salzberg, Stephen Levine, among others, who put the emphasis on Vipassana, or Insight meditation.
Theravada Buddhism (Applied)
By Bhante Nyanasobhano
Theravada Buddhism aims at the spiritual development of the individual through the practice of good moral behavior, concentration, and wisdom. A life of peace and dignity is possible if we understand and put together the necessary conditions. The teachings of the Buddha offer us guidance in how to gather wholesome factors and put them to use. With these teachings in mind, we practice meditation in order to realize insight for ourselves, by directly examining the arising and passing away of sensory objects. All this world is, in the Buddha’s teaching, changing and transient, and this fact when profoundly understood leads to the ending of craving and clinging, and hence to release from all suffering. This release is the final goal, but all virtuous efforts along the path bring benefits.
