Topics Include: 1). The four chapters in the life of the Buddha: His early life, his period of training, the period of attaining enlightenment, and the period of his ministry. 2). The difference between the historical and scriptural versions of the Buddha’s life ane their importance in describing his enlightenment process. 3). The vision of Gotama as a child under the Rose Apple tree. 4). What happens to the brain during meditation. 5). The Buddha’s memory of his childhood experience and how it changed his attitude toward happiness and pleasure and the nature of Nibbana as something inherent in all of us….The Middle Way. 6). Gotama’s search for the means to cultivate meditative bliss…avoiding all mental states that impede enlightenment. 7). Cultivating the opposites of the five prohibitions: killing, lying, stealing, taking intoxicants, and sexual misconduct. 8). The cultivation of skillful action as the basis for the Noble Eightfold Path. 9). The taking of nutriment and leaving the ascetic life. 10). The Buddha’s questioning of the teachings of Vedanta and Samkhya of his time. The rejection of theism. 11). The ways in which Gotama developed what we know today as Mindfulness. His deepening understanding of the nature of suffering. 12). The pervasive nature of desire, craving, and hatred. 13). Understanding the Dharma in the context of Darwinian Natural Selection.
13 May, 2023
61 Minutes