The first module will introduce students to the study of Buddhism by focusing on the Buddha’s life and cultural context. What did the world look like to someone living in 500 BCE India? How might such a person have imagined the “good life,” and what did they think were the obstacles to living that good life? As we will see, the Buddha accepted some parts of this picture and rejected others, outlining a new vision of how people should live in the world. We will focus in particular on the life of the Buddha, including his past lives, in order to understand who the Buddha was, how he became the Buddha, and how his life experiences led to the realizations that would inform his central teachings.

In this module we will delve into the Buddha’s central teachings. How did the Buddha understand the origin of suffering and evil? What was his account of the good? How did he understand human psychology? How did he use this account to propose a path through which people can transform themselves in order to reduce suffering and attain the good life? Key topics will include the Wheel of Life, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, karma and rebirth, the Four Immeasurables, and the notion of the “gradual path” of mental transformation. This module will help students understand how all of these topics fit together to provide an account of human suffering and the possibility of its elimination. 

The third module will focus on the Buddhist community of monks and nuns, and on the practices of moral discipline and meditation that they adopt. Why did people form these kinds of communities? What practices did they adopt, and how were these thought to help people move along the Buddhist path towards enlightenment? What sort of lifestyles did monks and nuns lead? How did some monks and nuns use meditation to advance their practice, and what was the theory behind these meditation practices? As we will see, early Buddhist meditation practices were often quite different than modern meditation and mindfulness practices, and so we will seek to understand these early practices in order to trace their development in the rest of the course.

In this module, we will look at one of the major developments in Buddhist thought and practice: the emergence of the so-called “Great Vehicle,” or Mahayana forms of Buddhism. These forms of Buddhism developed in India in the centuries after the Buddha’s death, and eventually became the dominant forms of Buddhism in Tibet, China, and Japan. How did the Mahayana reinterpret some of the central ideas of mainstream Buddhism? Why did followers of the Mahayana think that such developments were necessary? What are some of the key texts, ideas, and practices associated with the Mahayana? We will explore the Lotus Sutra, Heart Sutra, Pure Land Sutra, and Shantideva’s famous treatise How to Be a Bodhisattva, in order to explore the Mahayana’s reimagination of Buddhist philosophy and the path to enlightenment.

In the fifth module, we will explore two more important developments in Buddhist thought and practice: the emergence of Chan/Zen Buddhism in China and Japan and Tantric Buddhism in India and Tibet. Both of these schools of thought drew on Mahayana philosophy, but proposed new and more rapid pathways to enlightenment. We will ask how these traditions reimagined the status of the ordinary person, the goal of enlightenment, and the pathway to transforming the mind and ultimately attaining enlightenment. Stepping back, we will appreciate the diversity of Buddhist thought and practice, and ask how all of these different interpretations developed from the Buddha’s earliest teachings.

In this final module, we will turn to the topic of Buddhism in the modern world. How has Buddhism changed as it has entered modernity and spread to places like America? How have practitioners balanced adherence to tradition with the need for new forms of practice? What is the landscape of Buddhist practice in America today? How do Buddhists address questions of interest to us in the modern world, such as human rights, environmentalism, and social justice? What do we think the relevance of Buddhism is to the modern day?