Lesson video

Hello, welcome back.

I'm Ms. Pauvaday and today we are going to look back at some of the things that we studied so far in our lessons on Buddhism.

Today is a recap and practise lesson.

So far, we've covered quite a few things, quite a lot actually.

Big philosophical ideas, lots of key terms and we just want to kind of revisit them.

So lots of learning so far, and what we're also going to do is we're going to have a quick look at some exam questions and how we answer those effectively.

So let's make sure that we're nice and ready and let's go.

So, before we start the lesson, let's make sure that we're nice and ready.

For today's lesson you will need, two coloured pens, because we're going to be doing some corrections.

You'll definitely need some paper and we need a curious mind, a mind that's going to be okay with making some corrections.

Remember, it's very important to make mistakes.

You know, the kind of example I always give to my students is the analogy that Edison invented the light bulb.

He must've made over 500 light bulbs until he actually got the right filament, correct? So, and he famously said he didn't fail every single light bulb taught him something new.

And it's the same with a recap and practise exam practise.

We're just practising , the mistakes you make are really valuable because it will teach you something.

And the things that you get correct are also valuable because it's reaffirming that you're doing the right thing.

Okay? So, as usual make sure that you're in a position where you are, there's no distractions, TV's off, no music, you're away from people so that you can focus nicely, and let's get ready.

So today's lesson, we're going to be revisiting some of the key ideas from lessons one to five.

So we'll be looking at some of the, big philosophical ideas in India, the kind of context that the Buddha grew up, then maybe some things about the Buddha, but mostly his philosophical ideas.

That's what we're mostly interested in.

And we're going to be looking at keywords and some exam practise, so that we know how do we actually answer some of these questions? So, let's start with some Keyword Recall.

Let's get ready.

Okay.

So which of these means suffering? Okay, hopefully you have your answer, dukkha means suffering.

We've covered that fair amount because it's quite a central teaching to the Buddha.

Suffering, lots of different types of suffering, but it's crucial.

Excuse me.

Okay, which of these is an ancient Indian language associated with Buddhism? So have a moment to think about that.

And the answer is Pali.

Pali is an ancient Indian language.

It comes from another language Sanskrit and it was used by the Buddha and the earliest texts of Buddhism were written in this language.

Now, which of these is the ancient Indian language associated with Hinduism? Have a think.

Okay, the answer is Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is a very old language.

Pali came from it actually and many of the ancient Hindu texts were written in this language.

Right, what name is given to the holy texts of Hinduism? Is it the Vedas, Bible, Karma, or Dhammapada.

Have a think.

And the answer is, the Vedas.

Sometimes I think in previous lessons, we kind of talked about how Hinduism, doesn't really exist as a religion.

What happened was the British, when they came to India, when they invaded, I suppose.

They saw all these different practises all across India.

India is massive and they were so different and they kind of grouped them all together under the term Hinduism.

But actually, India has lots and lots and lots of different types of religions, that are based on these books called the Vedas and sometimes it's known as the Vedic religions.

Okay, what name is given to the prehistoric people that travelled to the Indus Valley and settled there? Were they, the Kshatriyas, where they the Aryans, the Hindus or the Minions, what do you think? They were the Aryans.

Okay, which term describes a false or misconception about reality? Is it an illusion, a dream, a miracle or enlightenment.

What do you think? An illusion and the term is very important, particularly in the Hindu Vedic tradition and in Buddhism because of this concept of not really seeing reality as it actually is.

And that being a kind of root cause for suffering, it was important that we kind of link those two things together.

Right, okay.

Which holy symbol referring to dharma was misused by the Nazi's? Was it the Om, was it the Swastika, was it a Smiley face or was it Sanskrit? What do you think? It was the Swastika.

So many times when I teach Hinduism and Buddhism and students suddenly become really alarmed and they say to me, "Miss there's a Swastika on the Buddha, or there's a Swastika on that temple, were they Nazi's?" It's a very interesting way to say, well, actually Hitler really misunderstood it.

He followed the misinterpretations of the Vedas by another scholar who kind of got it wrong really.

And really misunderstood who the Aryans were and where they were and what they were doing.

But I mean, he thought they were a pure race and that kind of fed into his ideology.

So he took the Swastika from the Aryans, thinking it was their special symbol, but he just didn't really understand it to be fair.

Okay, let's have a look at the next one.

We can look at a word jumble, this time you are going to find the correct terms. A bit tricky this one, because we were actually looking at the Pali terms now, and the Sanskrit terms. So have a go, I'm sure you're going to get most of them correct.

But don't worry if you don't, remember everything in learning is a pathway and the more mistakes we can learn from, the better.

So have a go and if you're not quite happy with how you did just go back and have another go.

So let's start, which of these are the three marks of existence? So go ahead and you can write them down or just pick them out in your mind, it's up to you.

I'm going to give you a few moments to think about it.

Okay.

So the three marks we've got Dukkha which means suffering, Anatta which means concept of no self.

The idea that you don't really exist as a concrete being, but where this kind of collection of thoughts and desires and that kind of processes that's happening.

Annica is the idea of impermanence.

Everything is important, there is nothing that is permanent in the world.

So Anatta and Annica can lead to suffering.

Right? Okay.

So we're still on the theme of suffering, which of these are types of suffering? So again, have a good look.

And this is really to just kind of jog your memory, to try and bring the memory back.

That's always good practise.

Have a good look, have a few moments, think about it and write your answers down now.

Okay, a little bit longer on that one, because it was a bit tricky.

Let's have a look.

So the first one is, Dukkha which is physical or obvious suffering pain.

The second one is Viparinama refers to suffering or pain that's associated with change.

So changes that we're not quite ready for, or, things that we don't want to change.

You know, you're at a party and you're having a really good time, and then your parents, okay, it's time to go.

Maybe you're not quite ready for that.

So there's some suffering or, I get so sad when Christmas is over.

Even by new year's Eve, I'm quite sad because I know it's all over and I have to wait a whole year.

So it's that kind of sadness that Viparinama is associated with.

Sankhara is mental distortion or it's kind of a ground pain and suffering that we live in.

So this is the pain and suffering that is associated with just existing, the pain and suffering of illusion, mental distortion.

So this distortion is mental distortion of thinking that things are the same, everything's going to stay the same and nothing changes.

All of that can cause pain and suffering.

Okay, so we're going back a little bit, and we're going to think about the Hindu deities, but we have a trick question here, so be careful.

Which of these are Hindu deities? Okay, so we have Brahma.

Brahma is the deity of creation.

So if we remember back to the first lesson, the deity isn't really a god, in the kind of traditional sense that we think about it.

It's more of a symbol.

So most Hindus don't believe that these gods actually physically exist, some of them do, because like I said, there's lots of different types of Vedic, Hindu religions, but philosophically, the idea of deities is this view that it's kind of a symbol, and Brahma represents a symbol of creation when things are born, things are created.

And then Vishnu represents the idea of protection or preservation.

So something is created and then it needs to be protected in order to kind of grow and flourish and fulfil its purpose, that kind of thing.

And finally, Shiva.

Shiva is the God of destruction.

Okay, and not a negative thing at all, because if you think about the, you know, the seasons, if you think, you know, over in the UK, we had this kind of paganistic idea of the seasons would end around August.

So things start dying by Christmas, everything, all the plants, you know, all the flowers are gone, the leaves are gone, but then by spring, everything is starting to be reborn.

And remember, Hinduism is a tradition where they believe in reincarnation.

This whole system is going round and round and round and round, from birth to life and preservation, to death, to reincarnations.

It goes round and round.

So without Shiva, nothing can be born again.

Now I did say there was a slight trick here.

Often students get confused with Brahma, the God of creation, and Brahman which is not a deity.

Brahman is the one universal energy in Hinduism.

So in Hinduism, it is monotheistic.

Hindus believe in one, one being or one type of it's like an energy or an unknown reality.

And from that, everything in existence, including thoughts, ideas, things from the past, things from the present, things from the future, everything is going to be produced from this energy.

So it's not a deity, it's an ultimate being or an ultimate energy, ultimate god, that kind of idea.

Okay, which of these are the Skandhas? So these are the mental formulations.

The way that mental thoughts kind of arise in the mind.

Remember the Buddha kind of deconstructed this process, which of these are the Skandhas? Have a few moments and have a go.

Okay, so hopefully you've unpaused now, let's have a look.

So the first one is the Vinjana, which is the awareness of the physical.

So it's actually not the first one, sorry.

Excuse me, it's the second one.

But the Vinjana is when the mind becomes aware of physical things basically.

Rupa is the physical sense, that's the physical senses, your organs like your, your ears, your nose, your sense of taste your eyes.

These are all physical, and when they connect with something physical.

So the Rupa is happening right now because I've got the organ of skin, which is now touching this pen, it's connecting.

And with Vinjana, once that happens, it means I'm aware of having this object in my hand, Samjna is when you start to group all these kinds of concepts together.

So I start to think about different pens.

If this was a funny looking pen, maybe it had a weird rubber on it.

I might not recognise it immediately.

But then I might be thinking about other pens that I've seen in my previous experience, and then start grouping them together.

It helps me organise information.

Vedana is the Skandha, the aggregate that attaches emotion to things.

So, for me, a pen might be something positive, you know, I might associate it with learning.

I'm someone that particularly likes learning and I'm sure many of you are.

So a pen might give me a sense of pleasure.

And I'm also one of those funny people where I like lots of different types of pen.

And I get very excited about buying a new type of pen or colours, that kind of thing.

For someone else, they might be indifferent.

They might just be like, well, a pen is a pen, but the point here is, you have the physical object, you become aware of it, and then you start to attach certain emotions to it.

Either it's a pleasurable thing or it's, or even different, or it's an unpleasant thing.

Then Sankhara is the final aggregate Skandha where we start to attach kind of rightness and wrongness to things.

So, experiences that we have in the world.

I gave the example in the lesson of seeing someone dropping 20 pounds.

My reaction of that was to see this person drop 20 pounds, and then to think, really he needs to have his money back, but I wasn't close enough to give it back to him.

But if I had been, then my reaction would be bringing in the morals and the karma that actually, I should probably give him the money back because that's the right thing to do, because those are my personal morals.

Someone else might think otherwise.

It's worth bearing in mind in Buddhism, you don't really have this creator God that's going to tell you what's right or wrong.

It's really down to your own mind and your own karma.

So how you behave, determines the kind of life you lead effectively.

Okay, all right, So we did some tricky, tricky keywords I threw at you.

How did you do? I'm sure you did very, very well.

If you think, "okay, I missed a few" then do go back, have another go, and try it again.

I'm sure you're going to get all of them correct, okay? Now let's move on.

We're going to do a little bit of exam practise now.

We're going to look at a four mark question and a 12 mark question.

These are kind of common questions across all the examination boards.

I'm sure some of you will be thinking about doing GCSE already.

So it's good practise anyway, just in general, because being able to write effectively is a lifelong skill.

You will need it, so this is good practise, no matter what.

Let's have a look at the first question.

On the first question, explain two stages of thought, these are the Skandhas, we've just been talking about this, and it's worth, four marks.

So in this question, you need to make sure that you are making two points, and you need to make sure that for each point you are explaining your point.

The classic thing that happens, I've been a teacher for quite a long time now, I see students who write down the point but they don't explain it and you lose a mark and it's a simple mark.

So, make sure you do that.

So go ahead and pause, and then resume once you're done.

Okay, so I'm sure you've had a good go.

This is a time for you to go and grab your other colour pen for you to do some corrections.

Now this is just the way that I would answer it, the way that I've seen it answered before.

And you might answer it in a different way, but the thing that's really important here is have you got your points? Cause as you can see in the green that's the point, and then in the pink there we have the explanation.

So make sure that you have both of those for each one.

So here I've put point one, "the Buddha showed that the first stage of thought was Rupa." So that's my point, I'm stating what it is and now I need to explain it.

So my explanation is, "this is a part of thinking that connects with physical things.

We use our sense organs, such as eyes, nose, ears, which are physical, to sense other physical things in the world, such as a person, and the food that we might be tasting." And you can see, you get a mark for each one.

Point two, "the second stage is Vijana." So there's my point, and now I'm going to explain it by saying, "this is pure awareness when Rupa and Vinjana meet." Okay, so you have had some time hopefully to go and have a look at that question.

Now let's try marking it and seeing how we might respond to it.

Now I've responded in the way that I would or the way that I've seen other students do in the past.

You might have completely different answers, that's fine, as long as they are Skandhas.

So go back and look at the previous slide on which of the Skandhas, make sure that you have those correct, and how they manifest.

Right, you do need to have a pen for corrections.

So go through your work and just make sure that you can correct it.

The thing that we're mostly interested in here is the point and the explanation.

So you would have seen this a lot with PEE, you know, point evidence explanation, that kind of thing, and linking, and it's effectively the same thing here.

So in the green, you can see that I've got my point.

And what I've said is the Buddha showed the first stage of a thought was a Rupa.

So all I'm doing is I'm stating my point, now I need to explain it.

And classically students what they do is they forget that part and they lose out on a very easy mark.

So you must make sure that you, you state your point and then you explain it.

So you can see where it says E1 that's my explanation one for that point.

And I've said, this is the part of thinking that connects with physical things.

We use our sense organs, such as eyes, nose, which are physical to sense other physical things in the world, such as a person or food that we're tasting.

Then my second point is the second stage is Vijana.

And you can say underneath in pink, I've got my second explanation.

So this second explanation is this is pure awareness when Rupa and Vijana meet, visual consciousness comes into the mind.

And this is where we are just aware of something physical.

So an examiner would definitely give me a mark for my point and then another mark for my explanation.

And actually in the second explanation, I've also got a key term in there as well.

So, it depends on the example that you use, some questions might be six marks and it might be similar kind of question or five marks, similar kind of question, but what they're looking for is key terms. So just bear that in mind and that hopefully you've done a great job, I'm sure you have.

Let's have a look at the second question.

So take a moment and go ahead and pause to complete this task.

This is a 12 Mark question, and it's kind of like a mini essay.

These are the kinds of questions that get you prepared for college or A-level kind of writing where you have to write extended writing.

Once you know the building blocks of how to put this together, it's not so scary.

It's pretty straightforward.

So we're going to go over that in a moment.

First of all, let's have a look at the question.

Typically in RA philosophy questions, you're given a statement.

So here is a statement.

The four sights had no influence on the Buddha.

You can see it's not actually a question and it does confuse students, but it's a statement.

And now your job is to present arguments and evidence that agrees with the statement and arguments or evidence that disagrees with the statement.

And then most importantly, at the end, you're going to produce a conclusion.

That again, the bit that gets missed by so many, you end up with a line at the end.

A conclusion has to be a paragraph, it has to tie back in all your arguements.

So go ahead and pause.

Have a good look at the question.

Look at the support box as you go along and in a moment we're going to look at the answers.

Okay, so hopefully you've had some time to have a good look at that question and written something down.

Let's have a look at some possible answers.

I haven't written out a complete answer because I think it just, in this sense, it makes sense just to kind of look at how you might answer, because you might answer it in a completely different way.

So let's just look at some of the points that would be relevant, and that would give you marks on your paper and a possible conclusion.

So, okay.

So remember, you've got the question and then you need to think of things that disagree with the statement and then things that agree with the statement.

So let's start with disagree.

The statement is, "the four sights had no influence on the Buddha." So it's saying that the four sights had no impact, it was not important.

And if you want to disagree with this statement, you might say things like, well, actually he was kept away from pain and death by his father.

So his backstory has something to do with it, which obviously led to the four sights and being so shocked about the four sights.

When he actually saw one of the four sights, he saw ageing for the very first time because he hadn't experienced it in the first place and therefore the concept of ageing was brand new to him and it really shocked him.

It must've influenced him.

Similarly with death, he hadn't seen death before because it had been kept away from him as he was growing up in the palace.

So this must've had a profound effect on him and must have, you know, really kind of helped him on his way to becoming the man that he was.

And you could even say that, well, he saw a Holy Man.

And even though he hadn't experienced these terrible, terrible things about life, by seeing the Holy Man, it might have influenced him into following that path because effectively he did, after he saw the four sights, he left the palace, he left his wife, he left his child.

He had a newborn baby that he left because he just thought, "I need to find out the truth of my being and everyone's being." So he saw that as a really important thing and off he went.

So those are things that you can say, look, the four sights where the kind of impetus, the motivation that led him onto his path.

Now, if you want to agree with the statement, you might say, well, actually the four sights didn't really have a big impact because he was already prophesized to be a great man.

Remember right at the beginning of his story, the Sage is the Holy Man had said, "look, he's either going to become a great king or he's going to become a spiritual leader." So it was going to happen anyway.

You could argue this idea about death.

How could he have not known about death? His own mother died, wouldn't he have asked those questions and maybe he was aware of death.

And that he started asking questions long time before the four sights.

And the same way you could say, what about ageing? Surely he would have seen his own body age and the people around him, his father, surely he would have known that they were ageing as well.

And therefore he must've had some kind of insight into death and ageing.

And the four sights might not have had such a massive impact.

It might be something that was brewing already.

So you can, you can do that now.

Good answer kind of ping pongs between the two.

So you make your point, you explain it and then you have another point, like a converse point, which you make, and then you explain it and you kind of go back and forward.

And I suppose a good answer would have maybe three or four different points, depending on how well you explain it and how much evidence and key terms you use.

Because that's what the examiner does and the examiner looks, your teacher will kind of scan through your work and look for key terms, look for good explanations, and that's how you're going to get your marks.

Don't forget the conclusion, don't forget it, cause you get easy marks on it.

And that's what we call your kind of AO2, AO3 skills.

These are the kind of analysis, evaluation skills, very, very important that you get lots of marks for them.

So here is a conclusion that I've written.

You can see, it's not very big.

It only has to be like a paragraph, but you're drawing back all the ideas.

And this is the part where you say what you think about the statement.

So here's my conclusion.

I've written, "whilst Siddhartha might eventually have experienced ageing and suffering in his own personal experiences, it was the four sights that had such a deep effect on him because he discovered all of these things about life in one go, and this shocked into the core.

The effect was enough to make him leave the palace and look for answers.

The four marks have had a really, really big impact on him.

So, that should say the four sights.

So it did have a very, very big impact on him.

And the examiner is going to look at that, your teacher is going to look at that and they're going to say, okay, "it's very clear what this student thinks about this statement" and that's what you want.

Okay, so go ahead, have a take, maybe go back and see if you can correct your answers and improve your work.

It's always good to improve your work and see how you get on.

And I just want to say, thank you for joining me for the lesson today Now go and have a look at the quiz and see what you've learned.

And I will see you again next time.

So well done for another great lesson.

I'm sure you worked really hard and hopefully you found that really interesting and helpful.

Hopefully you feel a bit more confident with the key terms, you know we're going back and we're revisiting them and the big philosophical ideas, maybe it's starting to really make sense to you now.

That's what we hope.

And hopefully you feel like you can answer an exam question effectively and you know exactly how you need to format it and get the marks that you need, so well done.

Don't forget to do the quiz at the end, and I will see you again next time.

Bye for now.