1. Focus – Ethics – Enlightenment
buddhism
Focus – Ethics – Enlightenment

2. Prince Siddharta Gautama
Gautama Buddha =
Gautama the Awakened
Shakya (in Nepal)
6th-5th c. BCE

3. Seek enlightenment about Reality
Summary:
Life’s core reality is suffering,
caused by mistaking our “selves”
as independent and self-sufficient,
relieved/escaped by enlightenment
that transcends the self.

4. With enlightenment, comes release
- from suffering
- from the cycle of re-birth in suffering
- to Nirvana (“extinguishing” – of passion, aversion, and ignorance)

5. Some Buddhists emphasize achieving Nirvana personally
Some Buddhists emphasize achieving enlightenment as a “bodhisattva,” who aids others in their journeys toward Nirvana

6. Buddhists recognize no god,
so “worship” takes on a different meaning
Buddhist devotion is to:
Buddha
Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha)
Sangha (the community)

7. Discuss:
Buddhism recognizes no god, only the reality of suffering and the quest for enlightenment to escape it OR
Would it be more important for you to achieve Nirvana personally, or to help others?

8. Sutras – Teachings of the Buddha
“discourses”
~ 2,000 sutras on all manner of topics
Brahma Net Sutra – ethics
Flower Garland Sutra – community
Jewel Heap Sutra – the “Middle Way”

9. Discuss one of the sutra quotes
on the handout ….

10. Four Noble Truths:
1. Life has inevitable suffering
2. Our suffering has a cause
3. There is an end to suffering
4. The end to suffering is found in the 8-fold path

11. Ethics
Wisdom
Concentration

12. Summary:
Life’s core reality is suffering,
caused by mistaking our “selves”
as independent and self-sufficient,
relieved/escaped by enlightenment
that transcends the self.

13. Discuss:
What are one or two questions
you would ask of Joe Gauthier,
the resident teacher we will meet
at Lamrim Kadampa Buddhist Center?

14. Buddhism in America
From the East:
1850s – Gold Rush!, later Japanese arrivals
1950s – Shunryu Suzuki, D. T. Suzuki (Zen)
To the East:
1844 – Thoreau and the Transcendentalists
1880s – Theosophical Society
Helena Blavatsky & Henry Olcott

15. Lamrim Kadampa Buddhism
Tibetan renewal movement
Originates with Atisha (early 11th c. CE)
Lamrim – Atisha’s “stages to enlightenment”
Practical orientation
Opened in Davenport in 2009
Joe Gauthier – Resident Teacher

16. Lamrim Kadampa
Buddhist Center
in Peterson Paper Building
301 E. 2nd St, Davenport
Sunday, 14 July – 12:15 pm

17. Focus – Ethics – Enlightenment
buddhism
Focus – Ethics – Enlightenment