AQA GCSE Religious Studies A

The Dhamma

The Dhamma (Sanskrit dharma) is the Buddha's teaching and, more widely, the truth about the way things are. It is one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism, with the Buddha and the Sangha (the community), and Buddhists treat it as a practical teaching to be tested in experience, a raft for crossing to the far shore and not something to cling to for its own sake. The Dhamma rests on the observation that life is marked by change and suffering, and that suffering has causes which can be ended.

Dependent arising

Dependent arising (paticcasamuppada, also called dependent origination) is the teaching that nothing exists on its own: every thing and every experience comes into being because of conditions, and ends when those conditions end. A chain of conditions, often set out as twelve links, explains how ignorance leads to craving, craving to clinging, clinging to becoming, and becoming to birth, ageing and death. Rebirth and suffering are therefore not caused by a creator or a soul but by a chain of causes that can be interrupted. If ignorance is removed, the chain loses its first link and the whole sequence stops.

The three marks of existence

All conditioned things, in Buddhist teaching, share three characteristics.

The marks are linked. Because everything is impermanent and nothing has a fixed self to hold on to, clinging to things as though they would last produces suffering. Understanding anicca and anatta is therefore part of seeing the world as it is, which is what Buddhists call wisdom.

The human personality

Theravada: the five aggregates

Theravada Buddhism analyses a person into five aggregates (khandhas in Pali, skandhas in Sanskrit). They are:

1. form, the physical body and senses;
2. sensation (feeling), the pleasant, unpleasant or neutral quality of an experience;
3. perception, recognising and labelling what is experienced;
4. mental formations, the habits, intentions and reactions that shape what a person does;
5. consciousness, awareness of what is seen, heard, thought and so on.

None of these is the self and the five together are not a self either. They are constantly changing and depend on conditions, which is why Buddhists say a person is a process and not a fixed thing. This is the teaching of anatta applied to human beings.

Mahayana: sunyata and Buddha-nature

Mahayana Buddhism develops the same insight through sunyata, usually translated as emptiness. Things are empty in the sense that they have no independent, self-contained existence: they exist only in relation to causes and to other things. Emptiness does not mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists apart from everything else.

Mahayana teaching also holds that every being has Buddha-nature, the potential to become a Buddha. Enlightenment is therefore possible for everyone, and not only for monks or for those who spend lifetimes training. Different Mahayana schools understand Buddha-nature in different ways, and Zen in particular stresses that it can be realised directly in this life.

Rebirth

Buddhists believe in rebirth and not in the passing of a soul from one body to the next, because there is no fixed self to pass on. The traditional picture is of a flame lighting a second candle: the second flame depends on the first but is not the same flame. What links one life to the next is the energy of past intentional action (kamma) and of craving. Rebirth can take place in different realms, and the cycle of birth, death and rebirth is called samsara. It continues until craving and ignorance are ended.

Human destiny

Traditions differ over the goal of the path.

The Arhat ideal belongs to Theravada. An Arhat (a "perfected person") is a person who has followed the Buddha's path, ended craving and ignorance by their own effort and reached nibbana (nirvana), so that they are not reborn.

The Bodhisattva ideal belongs to Mahayana. A Bodhisattva is a being who has taken a vow to attain full Buddhahood for the sake of all beings, and who delays final release in order to help others become free. Compassion (karuna) is as important to the Bodhisattva as wisdom. Mahayana Buddhists sometimes argue that the Arhat ideal is narrower, because it concerns one's own release, while Theravada Buddhists reply that the Arhat follows the Buddha's own example and that ending craving also ends harm to others.

Buddhahood is the state of a fully awakened being, who has understood the truth and can teach it. Mahayana Buddhism holds that this is the goal for all beings.

The Pure Land is a particular Mahayana hope. In Pure Land Buddhism, which is widespread in China and Japan, Amitabha (Amida in Japan) is a Buddha who made vows to welcome into his Pure Land all who trust him. The Pure Land is not the final goal but a realm where conditions for practice are ideal, so that enlightenment can be reached there more easily. Entering it depends on faith in Amitabha and calling on his name, and not on years of meditation, which is why this form of Buddhism appeals to many lay people.

Traditions within Buddhism

Buddhism has spread through different countries and has divided into traditions with common roots.

In Great Britain, all of these traditions are practised, alongside Buddhist groups that draw on more than one of them. They agree on the Three Marks, dependent arising and the Four Noble Truths, and differ over the nature of the goal, the importance of texts and monastic life, and how many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are venerated.