462 Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism The Noble Eightfold Path is a set of personal qualities that must be developed It is not a sequence of steps along a linear path The Noble Eightfold Path is the right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration The development of the right view and right resolve, wisdom, and discernment facilitate the movement of right speech, right action, and right livelihood, the three factors associated with virtue As virtue develops, it is thought that the factors associated with awareness, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration are further developed Buddha taught that the practitioner is then lifted in an upward spiral of spiritual maturity that eventually leads to enlightenment As the practitioner begins the Noble Eightfold Path, an individual’s well-being is not predestined by fate, nor is it left to the whims of a divine being or by random chance Responsibility for happiness is only dependent on the individual With this realization it is taught that habitual ignorance is replaced with awareness The practitioner is then mindful of his or her actions and chooses them with care At this point some followers make the personal commitment to become enlightened and become a Buddha Buddha died at around the age of 80 His last words were “Impermanent are all created things; strive on with awareness.” Naming the religion and philosophy he founded the Dharma-vinaya, the doctrine and discipline, Buddha created a social structure supportive of his practice The monks and nuns who followed his teachings organized and preserved his teachings for prosperity, although none of his teachings were recorded until hundreds of years after his death Buddhism is sometimes criticized as a negative, or pessimistic, religion and philosophy in its assertion that life is suffering and disappointment The Buddha based his teaching on what is considered a frank assessment of the plight of human life Practitioners believe that the Buddha offered hope for an end to suffering His teachings were thought to offer the reward of true happiness and the cycle of rebirth Although release from the cycle of rebirth means to become extinct after death, this extinguishing is considered the ultimate freedom from suffering Assimilating Hindu, Persian, and Greco-Roman influences, Buddhism grew across India, Central Asia, and Eastern Asia into the first century b.c.e In the third century c.e the emperor Ashoka of India converted to Buddhism, sponsored several monasteries, and sent missionaries into neighboring countries During this period the practice spread across India and into Sri Lanka As Buddhism spread, differing interpretations of the Buddha’s original teachings emerged, which led to the differing schools of Buddhism One of these gave birth to a sect called Mahayana (the Greater Vehicle), and from it emerged Theravada (the Lesser Vehicle, also the Teaching of the Elders) Due to the pejorative nature of the terms and the historical regions in which the two branches became popular, the two sects are often called northern Buddhism and southern Buddhism THERAVADA BUDDHISM Theravada Buddhists believe that they practice the original form of Buddhism as it was handed down by the teachings of Buddha The doctrine of Theravada Buddhism corresponds with the recorded teachings of Buddha and is based on the Four Noble Truths Through the practice of the Eightfold Noble Path, an individual can eventually achieve nirvana However, Theravada Buddhism primarily focused on meditation, the eighth of the Eightfold Noble Path, and emphasized a monastic life removed from society In addition, Theravada Buddhism required an extremely large amount of time to meditate These strict ideas were not practical for the majority of people The Theravada texts are written in a language called Pali, which literally means “text” and is based on a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect probably spoken in central India during Buddha’s lifetime Pali was originally a spoken language with no alphabet It is thought that Ananda, Buddha’s cousin and personal attendant, committed the Buddha’s teachings to memory After the Buddha’s death, Ananda and 500 senior monks recited and verified the sermons they heard Because the teachings were committed to memory, the teachings begin with the words “Thus I have heard ” Teachings were passed down orally within the monastic community The body of classical Theravada literature consists of Buddha’s teachings arranged and compiled into three divisions The Vinaya Pitaka, “basket of discipline,” concerns rules and customs The Sutta Pitaka, “basket of discourses,” is a collection of sermons and utterances by the Buddha and his disciples The Abhidharma Pitaka, “basket of higher doctrine,” is a detailed psychological and philosophical analysis of the dharma Together, these are known as the Tripitaka, “three baskets.” By the third century c.e monks in Sri Lanka created a series of commentaries on the Tripitaka, and by the fifth century they were translated into Pali as the Tipitaka Since then the Tripitaka has been translated into many different languages However, many Theravada students commit to learning Pali in order to deepen their understanding of the Tripitaka and related commentaries