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Step into an infinite world of stories

Listen and read

Sarah Shaw

This lecture series looks at several texts in the Pali Canon from the Dīgha Nikāya, the “collection of long discourses”. Sarah explores the Buddha’s teachings on subjects including meditation, ethics, meditative states and conditionality. This series is an excellent foundation for understanding the underpinnings of all Buddhist philosophy.

The discourses are set within narratives of the Buddha’s life. These texts have varied genres designed to have different effects. They range from prescriptive ways to apply the practice, to evocative imagery that symbolises the teaching, to ethical recommendations about how to act in the world. This course explains the context and background of these timeless teachings.

1: • Course overview. The historical and cultural background for the early suttas and the key teachings in Buddhist philosophy including the four noble truths and the eightfold path
2: • 
Samaññaphala-Sutta • : The Fruits of the Contemplative Life, the stages of meditative absorption, the 
jhāna • s
3: • 
Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna-Sutta • : The Great Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness, the four foundations of mindfulness
4: • The 
Mahāsamāya-Sutta • and the 
Mahāsudassana-Sutta5: • The
 Sangīti-Sutta 6: • The 
Sigālovāda-Sutta • 
7: • The 
Mahānidāna-Sutta • – The Great Causes Discourse

Sarah Shaw received her Phd in English from Manchester University. After studying Pali and Sanskrit at Oxford, she began teaching and writing on Buddhist subjects. She has written several books on meditation theory and practice, and jātaka literature and is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies.

Wise Studies

Buddhist Scholars

The Early Teachings of the Buddha

Bee Scherer

This course introduces key concepts of Indian Buddhist thought. Over 5 lectures Bee explains the fundamental themes and problems of Buddhist Philosophy; from the early Buddhist teachings on ‘suffering’, ‘karma’ and ‘No-Self’, to the later scholasticism and the famous schools of thought around ‘emptiness’ and ‘mind-only’. Each chapter introduces another layer of Buddhist philosophical development and depth. The course forms a very clear and intriguing introduction to the wealth of Buddhist thought.

1: Introduction – Buddhism as religion, philosophy or psychology? Modernism and Buddhist thought; the Buddha and the Four Noble Truths

2: Understanding the Four Noble Truths – unsatisfactoriness, afflicting emotions, nirvana and the eightfold Path

3: Buddhist psychology of no-self – heaps of grasping, dependent arising and cause & effect (karma)

4: Buddhist ontology. Scholasticism and reality (Abhidharma); perfection of wisdom and emptiness (Madhyamaka)

5: Buddhist metaphysics. Mind and Buddha-Nature.

Professor Bee Scherer, PhD is a long-time practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and has been globally teaching as a Buddhist teacher. After the study of classics, Indic (Sanskrit, Pāli, Prakrits) and Tibetan philology in Germany and the United States, completed by a PhD (Groningen, The Netherlands 2002), Bee is chair (full professor) of Buddhism at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam.

Prof. Scherer has authored more than a dozen monographs and edited volumes in various languages, among which features the substantial Introduction to Buddhism (2005, in German) with a foreword by H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama.

Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy with Bee Scherer: Introducing the key concepts of Indian Buddhist thought

In this ten part lecture series Sarah Shaw explores several stories from the Jatakas, stories of the previous lives of the Gautama Buddha both in human and animal form. The stories are entertaining and allegorical. Sarah connects these tales from 4th and 5th century B.C.E. with their relevance for our lives today.

Session 1: Sarah discusses the Bodhisatta vow and the 10 perfections, The Dīpaṃkara Jātaka
Session 2: Sarah explains the structure of Jataka tales and explores why birth stories are important. She shares the story: Lost in the wilderness. Apaṇṇaka-jātaka: a True Story, Jātaka 1
Session 3: Sarah explains how Jātakas were heard and how to cope with moral dilemmas, the people of Kuru and their code: Kurudhamma-Jātaka (Jātaka 276) 
Session 4: The historical background of the Jātakas. Why are birth stories important?
Session 5: Protection and story of the golden peacock The Peacock Story, Mora Jātaka (Jātaka 159)
Session 6: Sarah discusses Jātaka 541: Nemi Jātaka about king Nemi
Session 7: Jataka 55: Pañcāvudha-jātaka, the five weapons story. 
Session 8: Jataka 385. Nandiyamiga-jātaka. The story of the Buddha’s life as Nandiya, the deer. 
Session 9: Mahosadha or Ummagga Jātaka , Jātaka 546
Session 10: Sarah concludes the course with the final life of the Buddha

Lives of the Buddha: The Buddha recalls his previous lives

John Danvers

In this series of 10 talks, an introduction to Zen Buddhism, with a particular emphasis on the Soto tradition, ideas and practices firmly located within the historical development of Buddhism in India, China and Japan, including the revision and revitalisation of Buddhist ideas and practices by interaction with Daoist teachers and practitioners

1. Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, the legends that surround his life. ‘Dharma,’ the insights of aniccā – impermanence; anattā – the absence of an independent self; and pratītyasamutpāda – ‘dependent origination’

2. How impermanence, the absence of an independent self, dependent-origination and causality informed the Buddha’s understanding of human suffering and how to deal with it. Introducing Theravada and Mahayana. The concepts of karma (causality), dukkha (suffering), karuna (compassion), metta (true friendliness) and ahimsa (non-violence)

3. How these concepts inform the ethical and social teachings of the Buddha

4. Śūnyatā (emptiness) and tathatā (suchness) in relation to Buddhism and Zen, how Zen teachers and poets have used these terms

5. The Daoist worldview and its connections to Zen

6. How Buddhist ideas migrated and converged with those of Daozism. ‘Satori,’ or awakening; Zen Buddhist views of the mind; the ideas of Huineng, the sixth Zen patriarch

7. Hongzhi, Eihei Dogen and Keizan Jokin's contributions to Soto Zen

8. Zen practice and the art of poetry

9. Practical guidance on how to practice zazen rooted in Dogen’s short essay on zazen, the Fukanzazengi 

10. Zen teachers, their writings and ideas, a variety of perspectives on the practice of zazen, and on the Zen view of the self and of mind

An Introduction to Buddhism, Zen and the Soto Tradition with John Danvers: How Zen ideas and practices assimilate into the historical development of Buddhism in India, China and Japan