Buddhist Practices

• Puja (worship) can occur anywhere with a shrine

  Places of worship:

  • Temples - Buddhists come together and practice
  • Stupa - Small building with relics
  • Gompa - Where Tibetan Buddhists meditate
  • Vihara - Monastery
• Aim of worship - gratitude towards, understanding the, and getting closer to: the Buddha

  Buddhists can practice puja using mala (prayer beads) to count the number of times they have repeated a mantra
• Meditation


  Samatha

  • focus on one object
  • Aim of concentration and calm

  Vipassana

  • focus can change and be on different things including personal things
  • Aim is to understand something's true nature and link to 3 marks of existence

  Zazen - a type of Vipassana

  • Seated meditation

  Deity Visualisation

  • Focus on spiritual nature of an image of a Buddha
  • Helps awaken Buddha-nature

  Metta Meditation

  • imagining, in series, yourself; a good friend; a "neutral" person; someone you dislike; then all of these at once plus all the world
  • Imagine as happy and reflect on positive qualities
• Death and Mourning

  Kammic energy leaves the body and is reborn in a new one - death is a transition

  Theravada Funeral:

  • little money spent
  • Merit making (good karma) - transferred to deceased

  Tibetan Funeral:

  • could be sky burial
  • May be ceremonies every 7 days for 49 days - period of Bardo - stage between life and death

  Japanese Funeral:

  • Pure Land - Amitabha Buddha name recited. Body faced west - towards Sukhavati
  • Others - pick bones from ashes with chopsticks
• Festivals

  Wesak:

  • Theravada Buddhists - celebration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death
  • Mahayana Buddhists - celebration of the Buddha's birth

  Activities:

  • Bathing of the Buddha - water poured over Buddha statues (purifying mind of 3 poisons)
  • Merit making activities
  • Lighting lanterns
• Festivals

  Parinirvana Day - Mahayanan

  • Celebrates the Buddha's death and passing into Parinirvana
  • Celebrating the Buddha's escape from the cycle of Samsara
  • People remember loved ones who have died and reflect and meditate
• Four Sublime States


  Loving kindness (metta)

  Compassion (karuna)

  Sympathetic joy

  Equanimity
• 5 moral precepts


  Followed voluntarily but must be applied sensitively - lesser of two evils

  1. To abstain from taking life
  2. To abstain from taking what is not freely given
  3. To abstain from misuse of the sense or sexual misconduct
  4. To abstain from wrong speech
  5. To abstain from intoxicants that cloud the mind
• 6 perfections


  Followed by Mahayana Buddhists to become Bodhisattvas

  • Generosity - including giving the Dharma
  • Morality - 5 moral precepts
  • Patience - including compassion to those who anger
  • Energy - effort into studies
  • Meditation
  • Wisdom - obtained via the culmination of above 5