CLASSICS 2K03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Soteriology, Impermanence, Five Precepts

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Classics
• Course: CLASSICS 2K03
• Professor: Professor James Benn

Document Summary

Topic one: overview of buddhism and how it works. It has not been spread by war and pain. It needs soil, water, sun, nitrogen and, photosynthesis. It is the first of the great universal religions. Buddhism survives and thrives in countries where the culture is completely different. As a set of tools for understanding reality. Everything you see, know, hear can all be traced back to causes. This makes the world complex and creates a world of randomness. Soteriology-> escaping/ fixing the way the world is. If you understand the process of cause and effect then you can undo the mess of the causes and effects. * we can change causes and conditions, so they do not govern us* If you purposefully do something bad-> you produced bad karma. If you purposefully do something bad but then talk yourself out of it-> you. Made manifest through an act of body, speech or mind.