George's Teachings on Buddhism -- 30 - 31 October 1998

Here goes trying to summarize George's teachings about the four different schools of Buddhism. My apologies to him for all the things I've gotten anything wrong, I take full responsibility as I knew very little about Buddhism when I attended, and George's teachings were directed at students of Buddhism at the Center who already had some background. I also apologize up front for all the atrocious spelling errors.

First of all, there are two vehicles of Buddhism, the mahayana and the hinayana. Yana means vehicle. The mahayana path is the greater vehicle, the hinayana, the lesser vehicle. But this does not imply that the mahayana is the better path. They are just two different philosophies with two different slants. The Buddha gave different people different teachings because of their differing aptitudes and various stages of spiritual development.

The destination for the lesser vehicle is nirvana, which is often described as emptiness, but really seems to mean the absence of misperceptions and projections of the physical world. Most of what we see in the physical world is not real, it seems to be the way it is because of our negative thoughts about things. Nirvana means you've snuffed out all your sorrows and eliminated all the hindrances to true happiness.

George gave us an interesting and hilarious parable about true happiness. He told us about two little boys who are both trying to beat the other one to an old and dirty piece of candy behind the couch. They're fighting so much over this little bit of dirty sweetness that they don't even hear their mother calling them to a delicious dinner that will nourish and satisfy them even more. The piece of candy is the happiness you experience in the physical world, and it's pretty good, but if you attain true happiness, it will be as much more glorious as the mother's delicious dinner, and your physical happiness will seem trivial.

George also likened physical happiness to the absence of suffering. If you are hot, you become happier if you go sit in the shade. But as you cool down, the shade becomes too cold, and you become miserable again. Physical happiness is really just the fleeting elimination of suffering.

The destination for the mahayana is also nirvana, but there is the extra added intention of helping everyone else in the world also get there. You defer your own entry into nirvana to help others get in too. Many lamas are able to consciously choose the time and place where they will be reincarnated in order to help specific groups of people.

Each vehicle has two main tenets. For each tenet, George discussed its basis, path, and goal. Basis is how you explain your reality, your cosmology. The path is what you tread to attain spiritual actualization, e.g., meditation or practices or prayer. The goal is the fruit of actualization, nirvana, bodhi (enlightenment), etc.

The first tenet of the hinayana is vaibhashika. Its basis says that our problem is that we believe ourselves to be substantially existant, and we're not. Instead we're imputedly existent. Examples of substantially existant things are a cup, vase or tree. Persons, armies, and forests are imputedly existent. I'm afraid I don't quite get the distinction so I can't add any more.

The theraveda is one of the 18 schools of the vaibhashika, and the only widespread one. Thera means elder in Pali, which the theravedans believe the Buddha spoke. It's a local dialect of Sanskrit. Veda means proponent. So theraveda means one who follows the teachings of the elders.

The first tenet of the mahayana is madjamika, or the middle way, which is not the same as moderation or half-way. It is to cause the cloud-like emotions to dissipate, to look at reality in a different way, to use wisdom to cause the emotions to disappear, to see through misperceptions. You do this three ways:

• by seeing that the problem or annoyance is not eternal or permanent
• by seeing the problem or annoyance as your guru
• by seeing that generating compassion for the person who seems to be causing you the problem or annoyance is good, that the person doesn't deserve whatever treatment you might like to give

Now we get into murky territory. The way that Paul exists is a construct that is beyond us. For madjanika, there is nothing bindable, so we can't know what Paul is. We feel like there is a controller or an experiencer of things, who is Paul, but that is an error. For simplicity's sake, we can break Paul down into five parts: body (form), consciousness (primary), feelings, emotions, and one other thing (which I didn't catch). We can also divide him into 18 elements, but we can never know what he truly is.

You will probably have noticed that I don't seem to have two tenets for each of the vehicles. I don't know why not. I must have spaced somewhere. I can only say in my defense that it was all new material and that I was quite lost, and that it's a miracle I took in as much as I did. If you want to know the real truth, George recommends reading Theory and Practice of Tibetan Buddhism from Snow Lion Press or Cutting Through Appearances. These are actually the same book, by Jeffrey Hopkins. The latter is the new, jazzier title which the publishers probably used for the new edition in an attempt to sell more books.