Buddhism

Rare manuscripts dubbed the 'Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism' are indeed from the 1st and 5th centuries AD, carbon dating shows. The manuscripts, which were written on fragile birch bark, provide an important insight into the development of Buddhist literature and help fill the gaps in some areas of Buddhist history.Buddhism was traditionally a spoken tradition and until now, little has been known about how it developed from the spoken to the written word. While Buddhism flourished throughout Asia, it disappeared from India, Central Asia and the Indonesianarchipelago, taking with it many literary traditions."When we first learnt about these manuscripts we looked at the scripts and the language and made a rough estimate of their approximate age," says Dr Mark Allon, from the University of Sydney, an Australian researcher who is translating the text. Carbon dating, conducted by researchers from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, confirmed the assessment. The scientists used the process of accelerator mass spectrometry to radiocarbon date the bark on which the manuscipts were written. This process counts the rare carbon-14 isotopes in a sample and uses this to calculate the sample's approximate age based on the radioactive decay over time. Two manuscripts from the Senior collection,which is named after the scrolls' British owner, date to between 130 and 250AD And three manuscripts from the Schøyen text, named after the scrolls' Norwegian owner, date to between the 1st and 5th century AD. Allon says the Senior collection dating is particularly important because it makes a major contribution to Indian Buddhism chronology. "One of the manuscripts we studied was found in a pot with an inscription on it indicating that it was donated in the year 12.

While it didn't say what era that was, the characteristics of the inscription tell us that it must refer to the Kanishka era." Kanishka was a very important king in northern India in about the 1st or 2nd century AD, but the dates he lived and ruled have been debated for a century or more. "What the......

The 14th incarnation of the Living Buddha of Compassion approaches the podium, clears his throat, and blows his nose loudly. "So now I am releasing my stress," he says. The audience dissolves into laughter.The Dalai Lama is here to give a speech titled "The Neuroscience of Meditation." Over the past few years, he has supplied about a dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks to Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains.The professor thought the Dalai Lama would make an interesting guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting, and the program committee jumped at the chance.

The speech also gives the Tibetan leader an opportunity to promote one of his cherished goals: an alliance between Buddhism and science. But the invitation has sparked a noisy row within the neuroscience community. To protest the talk, some scientists set up an online petition, which was immediately hacked by the pro-Dalai Lama faction. Others are boycotting the event or withholding their conference papers. Still others have demanded - unsuccessfully - time for a rebuttal. All of which may explain the lama's ailment. "His Holiness' cold is a manifestation of the opposition of some scientists to his coming to theconference," a young Chinese Buddhist explains to me.The protesters complain that the Tibetan leader isn't qualified to speak about brain science. They fret that he'll draw media attention away from important findings presented at the conference. Worst of all, his presence muddles the distinction between objective inquiry and faith. "We don't want to mix science and religion in our children's classrooms," says Bai Lu, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, "and we don't want it at a scientific meeting."

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At first sight nothing seems more alien to the oldest form of Buddhism, Theravada, than Tantric Buddhism. Where Theravada urges us to reflect on the repulsiveness of the body, Tantric Buddhism tells us to revere it as a temple and to indulge its most sensual impulses. Theravada preaches the renunciation of all desires: Tantric Buddhism their over-fulfillment.

These are very real and significant differences. If we regard nirvana as an ultimate reality which is revered as virtually divine, then most Mahayana schools of Buddhism are pantheisms of the world-rejecting and world-denying varieties. Tantric Buddhism is a pantheism of the world-accepting variety which sees nirvana in the midst of sense-phenomena.Tantric Buddhism also laid great emphasis on mantras (incantations), on mudras (symbolic gestures) and on mandalas (symbolic diagrams of deities and cosmic forces), as well as on magic and a multiplicity of deities.

Yet it has two major points in common with its parent. The first is that it aims at the abandonment or transcendence of the self. Once again, its favoured method - the ecstasy of ritual sexual intercourse and orgasm - is quite foreign to Theravada Buddhism. The Buddha scolded his pupil Ananda for giving in to female attractions.

The sexual aspect of Tantric Buddhism has attracted a great deal of attention, sometimes puritanical, sometimes prurient. Some of the Tantric sutras, such as the Guhyasamaja-tantra, describe elaborate rituals for group orgies. Many scholars claim that these passages are not to be taken literally. They are said to be symbolic of the union of wisdom (symbolized by the female) and means (the male).However, some groups did practise the rituals literally and in the flesh. These are likely to have been primarily males of the higher classes, who could buy lower-caste women or high-class prostitutes to do what they liked with, or landless castes, who had no property to pass on, and for whom female virginity was less critical.

Tantric Buddhism shares another factor with many schools of Mahayana Buddhism. It claims that the existence of the physical world is illusory, and therefore there is no difference between samsara (the world of transmigration and shifting appearances) and nirvana.If this is true, then all we need to be liberated is to realize it. As long as we do so, it makes no difference how we act. We can rape, murder, commit incest - as some of the more extreme Tantric texts encourage - and we will remain undefiled by the world of illusion. In this amoral position Tantric teachings resembled those of the Nicolaitan Gnostics and the Brethren of the Free Spirit.

If the Buddha had lived in today's world, he would have simply written a self-help guide and called it "How to End Suffering". He would have written it in the vernacular and wanted it to be translated into as many languages as possible.Well, my point is that Buddha Shakyamuni was most concerned about the subject of suffering. Based on his assessment of our plight as humans, he laid down the essence of his wisdom in The Four Noble Truths that can be summarized as such: that life is suffering; desire is the cause of suffering; that the cause of suffering can be eliminated; and this can be done by following the eight-fold path.It is true that our ancestors have been very successful in preserving theteachings of the Buddha.

According to most Tibetans, this is the “only thing that we can boast of”, as His Holiness himself put it. But it is important to know the kind of preservatives that have been used to preserve Tibetan Buddhism and that have given it its distinctive flavor. Tibetan Buddhism has been acknowledged to be a combination of three distinct religious traditions - the divine dharma (lha chos) or Buddhism; Bon dharma (bon chos) or the indigenous religious tradition of Tibet characterized by shamanistic and animistic rituals performed by priests; and the dharma of human beings (mi chos) or folk religion. A man bade farewell to his wife as he embarked on a long journey, not knowing when he would return. A few months later, his wife gave birth to a boy. Two score and five years later, the man returned and his wife introduced theboy to him as his son. In spite of the sincerity in their faces, the man was hard-pressed to believe this – after all, the boy bore scant resemblance to him, and his mannerisms were different. Indeed, so much had changed in his absence … Similarly, imagine if the Buddha were to return today, what would he make of our marked piety as expressed in the spinning of prayer wheels, circumambulation, prostrations, recitation of texts, chanting of mantras, and performing rituals? Would he be impressed or smile in compassionate disagreement? Would he be like the man in the story, and not recognize Tibetan Buddhism as representative of his teachings? Religion is defined as “a set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader” (The American Heritage Dictionary). Therefore, in evaluating Tibetan Buddhism, one must look not only......