Lesson video

Hello, and welcome back to another lesson on Buddhism.

My name is Ms Pauvaday.

We are going to be covering some big ideas, key terms that we've looked at so far in our lesson so far on Buddhism, Buddhist philosophy through revision and practise, so we'll be doing some quickfire drills questions and some exam questions.

So, I look forward to seeing you in a moment.

Okay, so for today's lesson, you're going to need a couple of things.

You're going to need two different coloured pens today for corrections.

We're going to need some paper and we need to have our minds switched on.

So again, you need to be somewhere nice and quiet so that you can focus.

Don't worry about making mistakes.

Mistakes is how we learn things.

It's the only possible way.

So, more mistakes, the more you can learn from which is even better, but I'm sure it's going to be a nice balance for you today.

So, make sure that you're in a nice quiet place, that you have everything you need, so go ahead and pause and join me when you're ready.

Okay, so we're going to be really pulling some ideas, consolidating ideas and key terms today, and we're going to separate it into four kind of different areas, so we're going to be looking at the Indian context and Vedic traditions.

This is where we started.

What was India like? How has Hinduism influenced the Buddha, or more correctly, Vedic traditions.

Then, we're going to look at the teachings of the historical Buddha.

What did he actually teach? We're then going to look at Buddhist practise, how do Buddhists actually practise their faith, and finally, we're going to be looking at Buddhist scripture.

So, that's what we're going to do today.

Let's start off with the Indian context and the Vedic traditions.

We're going to do a bit of quickfire, so what religion was Siddhartha Gautama, and I'm going to count to four.

Okay, he was Hindu, so this is a classic mistake that people think, oh, he must've been a Buddhist.

Buddhism didn't start until he became enlightened, and that's where the term came, comes from, after him, but actually he was born in a Hindu household.

What language is associated with Hinduism? So, have a look: Pali, Sanskrit, Hindi, or Welsh.

I'm going to give you the count to four.

And the answer is Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is an ancient Indian language associated with Hinduism.

Which ultimate energy or God do Hindus believe in.

Now, is it Brahman, Vishnu, Buddha, or Brahma.

So, have a quick think, four seconds.

Okay, right.

Let's have a look at the answer.

Brahman, with an n on the end, often gets confused with Brahma.

Siddhartha Gautama saw four things that really really shocked him.

What were they? Have a look.

I'm going to give you four seconds.

I gave you a bit longer because it's, you know, it takes a bit more time with this question.

Four marks, we're looking for four things here.

The first thing is Holy Man.

Sorry, that was a last thing he saw, but Holy Man is definitely there.

He saw old age.

He saw death and he saw sickness.

Now, the order that he saw these things, right, he started, first of all, he saw old age.

Then, he saw sickness.

Then, he saw death, and the final thing he saw was a Holy Man.

Remember, he hadn't experienced these things before, so they really shocked him.

He didn't know that they existed according to Buddhist tradition.

Which of these ideas existed in Hinduism and Buddhism.

So, we're looking at ideas that belong to both.

Old age, karma, illusion, violence, cycle of Samsara, or death.

So which of these belong to both religions? Four seconds to have an answer.

Okay, right, it's very quickfire.

Let's see what we have.

Cycle of Samsara, that belongs to both traditions, and karma, and finally, the idea of illusion.

So, three things.

Buddhists and Hindus believe that we start off in this idea of illusion.

We don't really see reality as it actually is.

They believe in the cycle of Samsara, being caught in birth, death, and then being reborn or reincarnated, and the way that happens is because of our karma.

Okay, which of these are Hindu deities? I'm going to give you more time.

I'm not going to count down because there's a bit, there's a few more for you to pick.

So if you want, go ahead and pause.

Which of these do you think are Hindu deities? Un-pause when you're ready.

Okay, let's have a look.

Brahma, that's the god, that's the deity, the symbol of creation.

Vishnu is the symbol of salvation or protection.

You might remember the pictures of him where he's got the universe, he's holding it in his hand, he's protecting the universe.

Shiva, Shiva's the God of destruction, which really often means reincarnation.

That's why often you see him with a snake because a snake sheds its skin, doesn't mean that it's died, it's just taken on a new form effectively, so they're all kind of symbols of these gods.

Well, of these ideas in Hinduism.

And remember Brahman is not a deity.

Brahman is this one universal energy.

It's the one God or energy from which everything comes from according to Hinduism or the Vedic traditions.

Right okay, let's have a moment.

Pause the video, take your pen out and your paper out, write out the question, underline the question.

Underline most important parts, and the important parts the important verb here is explain.

Then, you need to underline the other bits of important information, so here you need to underline, explain, and the Buddha and the influence of Hinduism.

So, you need to tell me two ways that he was influenced by Hinduism.

So, off you go.

Pause, answer your question, and then come back, and let's have a look at your answers together.

So, okay, you've had a moment or two, you've paused the video.

Hopefully, you've got an answer down.

What we're going to do is we're going to just look at a possible answer.

This is an answer that I have had in the past.

So, let's just have a quick look at it.

So, you need another pen for corrections, just to see how you've got on.

Now, remember it's a four-mark question, so you need, you get one mark for stating a point and then another mark for explaining that point, and you need to do this twice to get your four marks.

So, the first point is the Buddha was influenced by Hinduism because he himself was a Hindu, so that's a fair point.

It's true, you get a tick for that.

This person has also said he was already aware of ideas, such as the cycle of Samsara, but he experienced some slightly differently, which is why his teaching is slightly different.

So that's another tick because they've correctly shown it was a cycle of Samsara that he was influenced and that he took from Hinduism, even though he saw it slightly differently.

The second point is he was aware of the idea of karma because it already existed in Hinduism, so that's three marks so far.

One for the first point, another one for the second, for the first explanation, and now we've got the third point.

He was already aware of karma because he was a Hindu, and the second explanation is he knew of karma and then experienced it during his search for truth.

There's your four marks, so the most important thing here that you need to remember is make sure that you're answering the question and make sure that you're including four parts to your question.

That's how you're going to nail and get each mark, okay? Now go ahead, correct them.

I'm sure that you did really, really well.

It doesn't have to be exactly like my answer.

What I want to see is that you have got the four different, distinctive, the point, the explanation, and then the point and the explanation again.

Make sure you've done that, and that's how you're going to get four marks.

Right, let's move on to the teachings of the historical Buddha, so what does Buddha mean? And I'm going to give you four seconds.

It means awakened.

Buddha is not a name.

It's a title, a term, and it means awakened being.

Right, what is a term for a seeker that uses extreme methods to become self aware? Slightly tricky question, see what we remember, and you've got four seconds.

Is it an Ascetic, a Buddha, a Brahman or an Aryan.

Okay, let's see.

An Ascetic, quite a tricky term, so well done if you've got it correct, but don't worry if you haven't, because it's quite tricky.

Now, you will know for the future Right, the Buddha is often compared to what in the Four Noble Truths.

Let me just move myself over here.

So is he compared to a nurse? Is he compared to a builder? Is he compared to a doctor or a priest? When he said the Four Noble Truths, which of these might he be compared to? So again, four seconds.

Okay, so often he's seen as diagnosing the causes of suffering.

He finds out what the problem is.

He finds the cause of it.

He asks if there's a solution and then he says, here's the solution, the eightfold path.

That's why he's likened to a doctor.

Right, what does karma mean? Karma means action.

So, it's referred to, it's likened to the ideas of all the actions or things that we do in our lives, including our thoughts, and they have consequences as well.

I'm not going to count down for this because there's a lot words on the screen, so have a good, take your time, pause the screen.

Which of these are the three marks of existence? So, go ahead and pause.

Okay, let's have a look, so we've got Dukkha, which means suffering.

Anatta, which is the mark of existence that shows that humans don't have a permanent self.

It's a constant stream of information, desires, thoughts, that kind of thing.

Finally, Annica, the idea that nothing is permanent, nothing is permanent.

Okay, again go ahead and pause.

Which of these are the types of suffering? Have a moment to think, pause, and then come back in a moment.

So, the first one is Dukkha is a type of suffering, Dukkha Dukkha, and then you've got Viparinama, which has the suffering associated with pain, and Sankhara, which is the pain associated with mental distortion, the way that our minds kind of distort things and we suffer, so we misread things, we misunderstand things.

We, our own emotions kind of get in the way, and then we don't see reality as it actually is.

Which of these are Skandhas? These mental formulations, which of these are, so pause for a moment, have a good look.

Which of these are Skandhas? And then come back when you're ready.

Okay, so we've got Vinjana, which is the awareness of the physical.

We've got Rupa, which is just the physical, so that's just the sense organ meeting with the physical object or the experience Samjna, which is how we can start grouping ideas and concepts together.

We start looking for familiarities.

We experienced something, we start to try and link our familiar experiences to make sense to ourselves.

Vedana, which is a feeling or an emotion, so we attach feelings to whatever we're experiencing, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, and Sankhara is when we experienced something, and we start to think, is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? It's linked to our karma in terms of how we think about what we're perceiving and how we act, most importantly.

How we act in reaction to what we've just seen or experienced.

Okay, right.

Question now, this is 12 marks.

We had some practise earlier on a few lessons back.

What I want you to do is pause the video.

You probably need a good 15, 20 minutes for this.

Keep the screen so that you can see the support box.

The question is, remember in RE you start with a statement, and then you need to kind of agree, disagree, and then have your conclusion.

So, this is the statement.

The Three Marks of Existence were the Buddha's most important teaching.

It's worth 12 marks.

You might see at score at often as 15 marks because you get three marks for SPaG, but normally the question itself is just worth around 12 marks.

Okay, and remember in the support box, what you need to do is you need to bullet point three, what are the three marks, and why they're vital to the Buddha's teaching, and then you need to think, okay, what other teachings might be more important? So, have a look at the support box, have a read through it.

Remember, you are aiming for about, about four or five arguments, so a couple of arguments that agree with this statement, a couple that disagree, and then finally your conclusions, and un-pause when you're ready.

Okay, so you might have said something like, you disagree with the statement because the most important teaching has to be the Four Noble Truths because it teaches, it taught a way out of suffering.

You might say that it's the first thing Buddha taught, and is the most widely known teaching.

You might say actually no, it's the Eightfold Path because the Eightfold path has got actual specific ways to come out of suffering and a guide to achieving the middle way.

Another way you can disagree with this as you can say, well actually the Skandhas are the most important because it shows how our minds create suffering.

It shows how we start to create suffering in our minds and illusion in our minds, so there's a couple of things that you can say, couple of arguments that you can say to disagree with the Buddha.

I'm sure you've come up with your own as well.

To agree, you might say, well actually without understanding of Anicca, seekers, Buddhists, people who are trying to find a way out, they just wouldn't be aware that they're still in illusion.

So you might say, well, actually, so therefore it is a really important teaching.

You could say without Anatta people, seekers would not understand, you know, what it means to be human, that we're not these permanent beings, and therefore they won't understand this kind of distortion of the self and how that creates suffering, so therefore Anatta is really really an important teaching.

You might have argued that point.

You might've said without the teaching on suffering itself, the former Four Noble Truths wouldn't have come about at all.

Even for the Buddha.

If the Buddha hadn't realised that these were the three marks of existence, that there's impermanence, that there is no such thing as a self, and that leads us to Dukkha suffering, without that he wouldn't have arrived at the Four Noble Truths, and you could argue that as well.

So those are some of the things that you might have included.

I'm sure you've got other ideas as well.

Just make sure that you've got a couple of arguments for and a couple of arguments against, and don't forget your conclusion.

Your conclusion is really important.

That's where you start to say, what do you think, what's your opinion on this.

It's really important in Aryan philosophy that you are thinking about these things and that you can show that you are critically thinking about these ideas.

That is a really good critical thinking skill that you are going to use for the rest of your life, thinking.

How can we live our lives without being able to think? Let's move on to some Buddhist practise.

Move myself over here.

So there, which these is the final of the Four Noble Truths? So, we suffer, there's no permanent itself, Eightfold path, or be kind.

So, which of these is the final of the Four Noble Truths? you've got four seconds.

Okay, the answer is the Eightfold path, Which karma are Buddhists trying to get rid of.

Are they trying to get rid of all karma? Are they trying to get rid of good karma? Are they trying to get rid of bad karma? Are they trying to get rid of animal karma? So what do you think? Four seconds.

All karma.

Okay, slightly tricky question.

I think many people would have said bad karma.

Effectively yes, that's where you start off with, as a Buddhist you start off trying to create good karma, but eventually you get to a state where actually you don't want any karma anymore because it's karma that keeps you in this cycle of rebirth, so you start acting in a way that you will produce virtually no karma to the point where you're actually not producing any at all.

Okay, so now, in a moment go ahead and pause.

Which of these are paths in the Eightfold path? So have a good look, pause, and then come back when you're ready.

Okay, so we've got right livelihood, so that's making sure that you're doing a job, whether you make money, it's not going to harm or hurt anyone or any being.

Right speech, making sure that the words that you use, the way that you speak to people aren't going to cause any harm, so the obvious example is hate speech, So people saying very nasty things about people because of their gender or they're racist or they're homophobic, so they've got problem with different sexualities, but it could be things like even bullying someone, or saying unkind things, so, and it happens, of course it happens, but remember Buddhists are trying to just be aware of what's in their mind and the causes of what's in their mind, so, and they don't want to create any negative karma by the way they speak.

Right view, this is making sure that you kind of get rid of any unconscious bias, so ideas that might be prejudicial, so negative ideas about people or events or places, or kind of judgements that you have already, making sure that you know why you have those judgments and that they are justified, that you've got really good cause, really good reason to have those views.

Right concentration is the idea of really making sure that if you're going to meditate or if you're going to be mindful, that you are doing that, so that your mind isn't everywhere, that you put the time and effort into concentrating and being mindful.

This one's really linked with meditation, and right action, again, is making sure that you act correctly for, with the right intention, so you do it for the right reasons.

You're going to act, do it for the right reasons, effectively.

Okay, right, so have a go at this question.

It's another four-mark question.

Pause the video.

Explain two ways that the Eightfold path can help seekers.

This could be Buddhists or anyone who is trying to find a way out of suffering.

How can the Eightfold Path help these people become happy? Four marks, pause the video, have a good think.

Remember the way that we've kind of broken it down in the question prior to this and have another go.

Okay, so this again is another way of answering it.

Grab your pen for, your second pen for corrections.

The first point is the right view can help a person become happier because they are aware of the truth of their view, so some people hold onto a lot of anger, for example, and this might help them just be aware of where that, where their views come from.

So, the explanation is thinking carefully about why you have certain fears or stereotypes against certain objects, animals, or people can help you determine if those reasons are valid or not.

It may help people let go of anger and fear and therefore be happier.

Okay, so we've got our point and then we've got our explanation, so that's two marks.

The second point is right concentration can help you understand if your experiences are being distorted, changed by the way that you feel, so, if someone is hungry, for example, this feeling might make them feel grumpy, and they might be less patient or a bit cross.

Being aware of this helps a person not let these feelings interfere with how they treat people on the basis of their own experiences.

Okay, so we've got a point and we've got our explanation.

Together, that makes four marks.

It's a really good way, if you can nail these small questions, particularly, when you get to kind of GCSE that area, you can really start to increase your grade average, the level that you can achieve, just by doing really well in these two marker, four marker, six marker questions.

Right, okay, let's move on to Buddhist Scripture.

Go ahead and in a minute, pause.

Which of these are Buddhist scriptures? Okay, the first one is Dhammapada, which we've come across already.

Then we have the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which is a part of the Buddhist tradition, which has to do with kind of deep philosophical thinking from monks and nuns, serious people who are really seriously trying to break the cycle of Samsara.

There's the Jataka Tales, which are counts of the Buddha's previous lives, all the lives that he had prior to becoming the Buddha.

The Sutta Pitaka, which is the scriptures are all about the Buddha and his sermons, his teachings, that kind of thing, the Dharma, basically.

And then you've got Vinaya Pitaka, which is the rules and regulations for monks and nuns, the guidance for them, really.

Okay, which is the term for a collection of Buddhist scripture? Four seconds, is it Vinaya Pitaka, Tripitaka, Vedas, or Sutta Pitaka? Four, three, two, one.

And it's the Tripitaka.

Three, remember tri means three and then pitaka means basket, so the three scriptures, the three baskets.

What are Sutta Pitaka texts about? Are they the teachings of the Buddha? Rules for monks and nuns? Tells you what Nirvana is like? Or what Brahman is like? Four, three, two, one.

And yeah, the teachings of the Buddha, Dhamma.

Another quickfire, what are Vinaya Pitaka texts about? Teachings of the Buddha? Rules for monks and nuns? Complex teachings on the nature of reality? Or is it about how to speak Pali? So have a look, four seconds.

Four, three, two, one Rules for monks and nun.

Okay, so the last question that we have for you today is outline how Buddhist scriptures are organised, so this is, sorry I'm on the wrong slide.

Outline how Buddhist scriptures are organised.

You've got three marks for this, very, very simple question that does come up a lot in quite a few different GCSE specifications, not all of them, but it's just good practise anyway.

And in this question you need, it's worth three marks, so here you need to really say three things.

So go ahead and pause, and come back when you're ready.

Okay, so grab your pen for any corrections.

The main thing that you need to make sure is, are you outlining how the Buddhist scriptures are organised and have you got three very distinctive points, so the first point is the first way the scriptures are organised is by the Vinaya Pitaka, which is for monks and nuns.

The second basket is called the Sutta Pitaka, which is a collection of books on the teachings of the Buddha, and the third basket is called the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which are teachings on the complex nature of reality.

So in each statement, we're saying exactly what the name of the basket or the scriptures are and what they're for, and we're doing that three times, and that's how you're going to get your three marks, and just think, all of that kind of builds up together.

If you've got lots of, if you're nailing all the three-mark questions, the four-mark questions, the five-mark questions, that actually builds up quite a lot, so you'll very quickly find yourself getting a very, very good grade.

Okay, and I'm going to leave you with this task for today.

Lots of information that you've had over the series of lessons and today as well.

So, go ahead and create a recall and revision map, because I'm sure that you are ace at this so far and you're remembering loads, and it's really making sense to you, but in a month's time, you know, it's just, it's, our memory, is it's anicca, it's impermanence.

Our memories will start to wane.

So, what you could do now is create a revision map, use pictures and colour if you can.

I would put it under four headings, so you've got Indian context, teachings of the Buddha, practical advice, Buddhist scripture, so go back to this, go back through this lesson if you need to, and just collect all the main ideas and the main key points, the main key terms under each of those headings.

Highlight any Pali and Sanskrit terms and make sure that you've got the definition in English highlighted.

It's a good idea to use two different colours because it will help you remember.

We are more likely to remember colour and pictures.

That's just the way our brains work.

So, do your brain a favour, make life easier for yourself.

When you put this together, make sure you're using pictures and colour.

Make sure you add definitions and, and yeah, if you can use pictures, that would be great.

And if you can share it with us, we'd love to see it.

Make sure that you get permission from your guardians, though.

And thank you for joining us, and we will see you again next time.

Don't forget to do the summary quiz.

So well done on some excellent learning today.

We covered some big ideas.

I'm sure you retained most of it.

I'm sure you did brilliantly in the quickfire questions, and I'm sure you did really, really well in the exam questions.

So again, as usual, two things you need to do.

You need to go and do the revision quiz.

It sounds strange because we've already done some revision, but this is just extra consolidation.

Really make sure that it's there quite firmly in your mind.

And again, go and explain, talk to people about what you've learned.

This is all great for just reminding yourself, really kind of clarifying the ideas in your mind, and I will see you again next time.

Bye bye.