RELI 160D3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Mahayana, Shang Dynasty, Eternal Buddha

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Religious Studies Main
• Course: RELI 160D3
• Professor: Eric Steinschneider

Document Summary

Buddah used skillful means" to go beyond hinayana" buddhism. Eternal buddha": buddhahood as the universal principle of enlightened awareness. Three bodies of the buddha: wisdom, bliss, emanation body. Evidence of ancestor woship dates back at least to 2000 bce. Rites (li) performed for family"s founding ancestors and the recently deceased. Kings divine the future with oracle bones, interpreted by specialists. 1600-146 bce), kings worshipped the lord-on-high (shangdi) as the highest deity among many others. During the zhou dynasty (1046-221 bce), religious focus shifts to the more impersonal heaven (tian), which bestows its mandate on various emperors. Cosmos thought to be the manifestation of self-generating energy (qi) Qi consists of two aspects: the dark, receptive, female one (yin), and the bright assertive, masculine one (yang) They creative, rhythmic, balanced interplay called the way (dao) The book of changes (yjing) uses a system of divination based on the interpretation of hexagrams to harmonize with the comic process.