[Music] continuing our survey of non Vedic darshanas we will now take up the bahut darshana a very very important darshana the founder of this darshana is Gautama Buddha he's a very historical figure lived somewhere in the 6th or fifth century BCE and he focused on the means of ending suffering of all individuals so the story of the Buddha most of us know he was raised as a prince but then he saw some sufferings when he accidentally or intentionally stepped out of the palace he saw some sickness and some death old age Etc and then that inculcated him in him the quest to find out an answer to remove all the suffering and the end product was the teachings of the Buddha and the Buddhism so modern Buddhism there are two forms of Buddhism the northern Farm or the Mahayana tradition it is prevalent in Parts like Nepal Tibet China Etc in this Parts this Mahayana Buddhism there and the thiravada or the southern form of Buddhism it is prevalent in Sri Lanka and other parts of Southeast Asia like Cambodia Laos Etc ah just like the China tradition this also is a non Vedic darshana but that doesn't mean that they don't have any Scripture they also have some canonical works and it is called the tipitaka this is a Pali word uh Orthopedic the three baskets uh the first one is which is the discipline of the Sangha that is what sort of uh conduct the monks the above the monks must follow that is there in vinaya pitaka the sutta pitaka which is the compilation of the actual utterances of the Buddha himself these fall under the sutta or Sutra and then the abidhama pitaka or it contains the philosophical discussion so these form the core of their canonical Works apart from this there are several other works but this is the equivalent let us say of the way the the for them uh the most important utterance of the Buddha if you want to summarize Buddhism in four sentences it would be with these four noble truths what are called the chatwara satyani of Buddhism the four noble truths are as follows first is that there is suffering the second is that there is a cause for that suffering the third is that there is an end to that suffering and the last one is that there is a means to that end so we will see a little bit more about each of these Noble Truths the first one is that there is suffering so this is the first step to solving any problem that is to identify what the problem is so the Buddha identified what the problem was and the problem was that all of us suffer there is something called suffering it is common to all the things the second Noble Truth or the second thing that he observed is that there is a cause for that suffering things don't happen just out of random simply like that they don't happen there is a cause why we undergo this suffering why we have pain why we are born again and again there is a cause for that thing what it is we will see when we see the cycle ah of but the second Noble Truth is that there is a cause for that suffering the third Noble Truth is that if you stop only till the two Noble Truths is it may seem very pessimistic array what is this he's telling suffering there is a cause for suffering Etc but then the Buddha also gives a positive spin he says that there is an end to that suffering so the cessation of suffering will be possible with a complete cessation of the thirst thirst for what for engaging in the various activities of the world and he also sets out in the fourth Noble Truth that there is a there is a path which leads to the end of this suffering so the Eightfold Path which the Buddha set out will enable one to lead a holy moral life and that will lead one to final goal of Liberation so the four noble truths just to recapitulate are firstly that there is suffering there is a cause to that suffering there is a cessation of that suffering and there is a path to that cessation so these are the Four Noble Truths and the most important aspect of this Four Noble Truths is the identification of the root cause of this suffering this is described in this cycle of suffering or the bhava chakra as it is called so the first thing that the Buddha did was to notice that there is old age and there is death Etc it is there in this world this suffering is there in this world the Suffering The whatever is there is because of old age and suffering disease Etc all of these things but that does not stop over there why is there old age why is there death the reason is the reason is that there is rebirth because of rebirth there is old age and there is death Etc but then the question is why is there rebirth there is a rebirth because there is a tendency in our self to be born right but then the question comes why is there a tendency for us to be one because there is a clinging for enjoyment there is a innate tendency or a disposition in us for enjoying us why because there is a thirst for enjoyment or Krishna there is an in thirst for enjoyment but why is there a thirst for enjoyment because of sense experience see if I didn't have senses for example if I have never eaten a cake or a pastry or some pizza or something like that before I would never have had the thirst for pizza and I would never have the clinging for enjoying more and more pizzas isn't it it is because of the sense of taste and the sense of smell that I have that I got that the thirst for more and more pizzas or coffee or whatever it is that you want to say so it is the sense experience that leads to The Thirst but no why do we have the sense experience because our senses come into contact with objects from the time I open my eye to seeing various messages on various social media platforms Etc our senses are continuously coming into contact with their corresponding objects but then why is this the case why is why does the contact with the sensors and the objects happen because we have sense organs that's all it's as simple as that it is because I have eyes I have a working nose and ears Etc my sense organs are there which is the reason why it is their job to go and get attached to their corresponding objects so because of the presence of sense organs I have contact with the objects no but why do I have sense organs to begin with it is because I am born in in this particular way I have a particular body and I have a particular mind so it is because of this constitution physical Constitution that I have a sense organs that I have sense organs but then why do I have this kind of a mind and this kind of a body it is because I am the product or this is the manifestation of some sort of a Consciousness so it my Consciousness has to take some sort of a physical form and this is the physical form that I have taken so it is the existence of the Consciousness or the initial Consciousness which gives rise to the existence of the mind and the body but then why is there this initial Consciousness the initial Consciousness is because of some Impressions which are left by the previous birth every experience that we have leaves a stamp on our Consciousness it may be a very faint stamp and if it is a little more powerful experience it leaves a deeper stamp but every experience that we have leaves a stamp on our Consciousness that stamp is called the samskara but then the question comes why do we have these samskaras the Buddha's answer was that it is because of ignorance so this was the root cause of all the problems so you can see that Buddhism shares some very important things with the other Traditions though it is classified under the non Vedic Traditions it also shares something with let us say vedanta or some some other vedantas that it is the ignorance of the true nature of what we are that causes this entire cycle of suffering so it is because of avidya it is that we have samskara it is because of samskaras we have Consciousness it's because of Consciousness we have body and so on till we get finally to suffering so the Buddha realized this that the ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance and if we remove ignorance we can break the entire cycle and we can end suffering so this ending of suffering and finally reaching Moksha in the Buddhist literature we find the word Nirvana which is used to describe the state of Moksha where complete suffering is gone and it is the not only realizing the nature of the self but part of realizing the nature of the self is to realize the momentary nature of reality there is a very famous saying that you cannot step into the same river twice because as soon as you have stepped the waters have gone so you are in a completely different Waters now so it is to realize the momentary nature of everything so at one point The Entity is in state a immediately it has changed into something else so the nature of reality is Shanika in every moment it changes and the only way we can get away from this is cessation of all activities so the Buddhist root recommends a somewhat radical separation from the worldly activities so this Nirvana consists in freeing ourselves from the five skandas what we call the body or what we call the self Etc is nothing but an aggregate of five things so what are these five things the first one is Rupa which is matter the second one is vedana which is emotion or feelings the third one is which is perceptions or percepts and the fourth one is samskara which is our dispositions and the last one is vignana or Consciousness so what we call the self or the Atman Etc is nothing but the combination of these five things ah it is for us to rid ourselves of all of these five things we have to get rid of the material aspect of ourselves the emotional aspect of ourselves the perceptual or cognitive aspect of ourselves then we have to get rid of the samskaras which cause further perceptions and finally we have to get rid of the initial Consciousness also and this final state of Nirvana is described both as a positive States in some places and as a negative states where there is no activity there is no pain or suffering Etc the Buddha is very famous to have been very silent about these kinds of questions if somebody asked what is nirvana is it a happy state or is it test ad State Etc he would be very famous an answer with Mauna or silence you would not answer such questions why he inside his head maybe he was thinking why should you know what Nirvana is you do it you yourself experiences what is the point of me explaining all of these things you just figure it out on your own you just experience it on your own that is what the Buddha may have thought so what is the path to this Nirvana the Eightfold Path which is the fourth Noble Truth was that there is a path to this cessation this is the famous eight-fold path so the Eightfold Path which is uh there on your screen constitutes of samyak drishti or right faith sankalpa that you have to resolve yourself that yeah I am going to get liberated samyakwak speech which is right action which is right living that is right effort here the word does not mean exercise here it means efforti or right thought and samyak samadhi that is right concentration so you can see this word samadhi overlaps with the word yoga so you can see some sort of similarity over there so by following this eight-fold path one can attain the state of Nirvana [Music] foreign