Study Notes: Basic Buddhist Practices

Hey everyone! Welcome to your study notes for "Basic Buddhist Practices". Think of this chapter not just as learning about a religion, but as exploring a powerful 'toolkit' for the mind. Buddhist practices are the 'how-to' guide for applying the Buddha's teachings to reduce suffering and increase wisdom and compassion in our own lives. It's all about action and training the mind!

In this chapter, we'll explore the core structure of Buddhist practice, look at the different 'vehicles' or paths people can take, and dive into the specific actions and meditations they use. Let's get started!


The Foundation: The Tripod of Buddhist Practice

Imagine a stool with three legs. If you take one leg away, the stool falls over. It's the same in Buddhism. The entire path to enlightenment is built on three essential, interconnected practices that support each other. This is known as the Tripod of Buddhist Practices.

The Three Pillars of the Path:

1. Discipline (Sila)

  • What it is: This is all about ethical conduct. It’s the foundation of the path and involves behaving in ways that don't harm yourself or others. It covers your actions, your words, and your livelihood.
  • Analogy: Think of it like building the foundation of a house. Before you can build the walls and the roof, you need a strong, stable base. Discipline provides that stability for your mind.

2. Concentration (Samadhi)

  • What it is: This is about training your mind. It involves practices like meditation that help you develop a calm, focused, and stable mind, free from distractions.
  • Analogy: It's like focusing a camera lens. A blurry, shaky camera can't take a clear picture. Concentration practice makes your mind sharp and steady so you can see things clearly.

3. Wisdom (Prajna)

  • What it is: This is the goal – understanding the true nature of reality. With a disciplined life and a concentrated mind, you can develop the insight to see things as they truly are (e.g., understanding concepts like impermanence and non-self).
  • Analogy: Wisdom is the clear, perfect photograph you get after you've built a stable tripod (Discipline) and focused the lens (Concentration). It’s the direct insight that brings liberation.

How the Tripod Fights the "Three Poisons"

Buddhism teaches that our suffering is caused by three mental poisons. The Tripod is the perfect antidote!

  • Desire/Greed is controlled by Discipline (not acting on every craving) and understood through Wisdom (seeing that chasing desires doesn't bring lasting happiness).
  • Hatred/Aversion is controlled by Discipline (not lashing out in anger) and calmed by Concentration (settling the agitated mind).
  • Ignorance/Delusion is the root poison, and it is directly eliminated by Wisdom (seeing reality clearly).
Key Takeaway

The Buddhist path is a balanced training of Discipline, Concentration, and Wisdom. They work together. Good conduct makes meditation easier, and a calm mind is needed to develop wisdom. Wisdom then reinforces why good conduct and concentration are so important. You need all three!


All Aboard! The Five Vehicles (Yanas)

Buddhism understands that people have different motivations, abilities, and goals. So, it offers different paths or 'vehicles' (Yanas) to carry them along their spiritual journey.

Analogy: Think of it like different modes of transport. Someone might take a bicycle for a short journey (a good rebirth), while another might take an express train for a specific destination (personal liberation), and another might pilot a giant rescue helicopter to save everyone (universal liberation). They are all valid ways to travel.

The Five Vehicles Are:

  1. The Vehicle of Human Beings
  2. The Vehicle of Celestial Beings (Devas)
  3. The Vehicle of the Sravakas ('Hearers')
  4. The Vehicle of the Pratyeka-buddhas ('Solitary Realizers')
  5. The Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas

Comparing the Vehicles

The syllabus wants you to know the differences in their motivation, practice, and attainment (goal).

Vehicles 1 & 2: Human and Celestial Beings

  • Motivation: To avoid suffering and gain a happy, fortunate rebirth in the next life.
  • Practice: Taking refuge, practising the Five Precepts and the Ten Virtues (basic ethical conduct).
  • Attainment: Rebirth as a human or a celestial being (deva). This is seen as a good foundation for future spiritual practice.

Vehicles 3 & 4: Sravakas and Pratyeka-buddhas

  • Motivation: To achieve personal liberation from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) and suffering as quickly as possible.
  • Practice: The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, mindfulness, and deep meditation to realise non-self.
  • Attainment: The state of an Arhat, which is the attainment of Nirvana (the end of suffering).

Vehicle 5: Bodhisattvas

  • Motivation: To achieve full enlightenment (Buddhahood) for the sake of liberating all other sentient beings from suffering. This is a universal goal driven by great compassion.
  • Practice: The Six Perfections (like charity, patience, wisdom) and developing Bodhicitta (the mind of enlightenment).
  • Attainment: Full Buddhahood, the ultimate and perfect enlightenment.
Key Takeaway

The Five Vehicles show that Buddhism offers different paths for different aspirations. The first two focus on a good rebirth, the next two on personal liberation, and the final one on universal liberation for all beings.


Starting the Journey: Practices for Human and Celestial Rebirth

This is the starting point for many Buddhists. The goal is to live an ethical life to ensure a good future, creating the best conditions to continue practicing the Dharma. The practices here form the foundation of the Bodhisattva vehicle.

Taking the Three Refuges

This is the formal act of becoming a Buddhist. It means placing your trust and reliance on the "Three Treasures" (or Three Jewels) to guide you.

Analogy: If you are sick, you take refuge in a doctor (the Buddha), the medicine they prescribe (the Dharma), and the nurses who help you (the Sangha).

  • Taking refuge in the Buddha: The awakened teacher who showed the path.
  • Taking refuge in the Dharma: The teachings of the Buddha; the path to enlightenment.
  • Taking refuge in the Sangha: The community of monks, nuns, and other practitioners who support you on the path.

Practising the Five Precepts: Your Ethical GPS

These are not strict commandments, but personal commitments to train your mind and act ethically. They are guidelines to prevent harm.

The Fundamental Precepts (avoiding direct harm):

  1. Refraining from killing.
  2. Refraining from stealing (taking what is not given).
  3. Refraining from sexual misconduct.
  4. Refraining from lying (false speech).

The Protective Precept (preventing heedlessness):

  1. Refraining from consuming intoxicants (like alcohol and drugs that cloud the mind).

Did you know? The fifth precept is called 'protective' because being intoxicated makes you much more likely to forget yourself and break the other four precepts!

Practising the Ten Virtues: Leveling Up Your Conduct

This is a more detailed breakdown of ethical actions, dividing them into actions of the body, speech, and mind.

  • Three Body Virtues:
    • Refraining from killing.
    • Refraining from stealing.
    • Refraining from sexual misconduct.
  • Four Verbal Virtues:
    • Refraining from lying.
    • Refraining from licentious speech (e.g., gossip, meaningless chatter).
    • Refraining from duplicitous speech (speech that divides people).
    • Refraining from harsh speech (e.g., insults, yelling).
  • Three Mental Virtues:
    • Refraining from desire (covetousness, strong greed).
    • Refraining from hatred (ill will, aversion).
    • Refraining from ignorance (wrong views, not understanding cause and effect).
Key Takeaway

Practices for a good rebirth are based on ethics. By Taking Refuge, following the Five Precepts, and cultivating the Ten Virtues, a person creates positive karma and builds a strong foundation for deeper practice.


The Express Lane to Nirvana: Sravaka & Pratyekabuddha Practices

The goal here is personal deliverance – to end one's own suffering and escape the cycle of rebirth. Those who achieve this are called Arhats.

  • Sravaka means 'hearer' – one who hears the Dharma from a teacher and puts it into practice.
  • Pratyekabuddha means 'solitary realizer' – one who achieves enlightenment on their own, without a teacher in that lifetime, but does not teach others.

Practising the Four Foundations of Mindfulness

This is the core meditation practice. Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, on purpose and without judgment.

Analogy: It's like being a security guard at the gate of your mind, simply watching what comes and goes (thoughts, feelings, sensations) without getting involved in the drama.

The four foundations are four areas to focus your attention on:

  1. Body: Paying attention to physical sensations, like the breath, walking, or posture.
  2. Feelings: Noticing whether a feeling is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, without getting carried away by it.
  3. State of Mind: Observing the mind itself – is it angry, happy, tired, focused?
  4. Dharma: Observing all phenomena (mental objects) as they arise and pass away, understanding them through Buddhist teachings.

Realising the Truths of Existence

Through mindfulness, practitioners gain direct insight into four fundamental truths:

  • Impermanence: Everything is in a constant state of change. Nothing lasts forever.
  • Suffering (Dukkha): Understanding the three types of suffering: the suffering of pain, the suffering of change (losing what is pleasant), and the all-pervasive suffering of being a conditioned being.
  • Emptiness (Sunyata): Don't worry if this seems tricky! It doesn't mean nothing exists. It means things lack a fixed, independent, permanent self. A table is 'empty' of being a table on its own; it depends on wood, a carpenter, nails, etc.
  • Non-self (Anatman): Closely related to emptiness, this is the realisation that there is no permanent, unchanging 'soul' or 'me' at our core. We are a dynamic process of changing physical and mental components.

Practising the Eightfold Path

This is the famous step-by-step guide to ending suffering. The eight parts are practiced simultaneously and support each other. They fall perfectly into the Tripod we learned about earlier!

Quick Review Box: The Eightfold Path and the Tripod

Wisdom (Prajna)

  1. Right View: Understanding the Four Noble Truths.
  2. Right Thought: Cultivating thoughts of kindness, compassion, and renunciation.

Discipline (Sila)

  1. Right Speech: Avoiding lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, and idle chatter.
  2. Right Action: Following the Five Precepts (not killing, stealing, etc.).
  3. Right Livelihood: Earning a living in a way that doesn't harm others.

Concentration (Samadhi)

  1. Right Effort: Making a consistent effort to abandon negative states and cultivate positive ones.
  2. Right Mindfulness: Practising the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
  3. Right Concentration: Developing deep states of meditation (jhana).

Attaining Enlightenment and Nirvana

As one practices, they pass through four stages of enlightenment (or 'four fruits'), from 'stream-enterer' (srota-apanna-phala) to the final stage of Arhat (arhat-phala). The Arhat has achieved the final goal: Nirvana. Nirvana literally means 'to extinguish' or 'to blow out' the fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance, resulting in the complete end of suffering and rebirth.

Key Takeaway

The path to personal liberation involves intense mental training through mindfulness and the Eightfold Path. The goal is to gain wisdom into the nature of reality (impermanence, non-self) and attain Nirvana, the ultimate state of peace and freedom.


The Hero's Journey: Practices of the Bodhisattva

This path is considered the "Great Vehicle" (Mahayana) because its aim is vast: the liberation of all beings. The key ingredient is Great Compassion.

A Bodhisattva is an 'enlightenment-being' who vows not to enter final Nirvana until every other being is saved from suffering.

Analogy: A Bodhisattva is like a brave firefighter who runs back into a burning building again and again to save everyone inside, even though they could easily escape to safety themselves.

The Mind of Great Compassion and Bodhicitta

  • The mind of great compassion (Karuna): The deep, heartfelt wish for all beings, without exception, to be free from their suffering.
  • Bodhicitta: This is the engine of the Bodhisattva path. It is the aspiration to achieve full enlightenment (Buddhahood) in order to be able to liberate all others. It is a combination of compassion for others and the wisdom that knows enlightenment is the ultimate way to help them.

The Bodhisattva's Toolkit: Perfections and Virtues

A Bodhisattva trains in specific qualities to become a perfect guide for others.

The Six Perfections (Paramitas):

  1. Charity/Generosity: Giving material things, protection from fear, and the Dharma.
  2. Discipline: Perfected ethical conduct.
  3. Forbearance/Patience: Patiently enduring hardship and the harm done by others.
  4. Effort/Diligence: Joyful perseverance on the path.
  5. Concentration: Meditative stability.
  6. Wisdom: The deep understanding of emptiness.

The Four All-Embracing Virtues:

These are skillful ways a Bodhisattva interacts with others to guide them.

  1. Charity: Giving what others need to create a positive connection.
  2. Kind Words: Speaking pleasantly and meaningfully to win their trust.
  3. Beneficial Acts: Acting in ways that benefit others and lead them to the Dharma.
  4. Adaptation of oneself to others: Working alongside others and sharing their circumstances to guide them.

The Ultimate Goal: Buddhahood

The Bodhisattva's journey culminates in the highest possible attainment.

  • The Great Bodhicitta: The ultimate and perfect state of the mind of enlightenment.
  • The Great Nirvana: Not a withdrawal from the world, but a state of perfect freedom from all defilements and rebirth, while still remaining active in the world to help beings.
  • Buddhahood and the Three Bodies (Trikaya): This explains the different ways a Buddha exists.
    • Dharma-body (Dharmakaya): The body of ultimate truth; formless, limitless, like the sky. The true nature of a Buddha.
    • Retribution-body (Sambhogakaya): A radiant, blissful body of light that appears to high-level Bodhisattvas in pure realms to teach them.
    • Transformation-body (Nirmanakaya): The physical body a Buddha manifests in the world to teach ordinary beings, like Siddhartha Gautama.
Key Takeaway

The Bodhisattva path is motivated by immense compassion for all. Through developing Bodhicitta and practicing the Six Perfections, a Bodhisattva aims for full Buddhahood, not for themselves, but to gain the perfect ability to liberate every single being from suffering.