RN106 Final

• Indus Valley Civilization


  Earliest South Asian Civilization, 4,000 years ago, in what is now India and Pakistan
• Indus Seals

  Thought to form the script of the Indus Valley Language
• Vedas


  First Known Scriptures of India, composed 1500 BCE - 400 BCE, "not made by man", divinely inspired
• Ritual Sacrifice


  Mode of communication with the divine
• Sramana


  Renouncer, movement of people seeking alternative, non-Vedic social and religious paths, emerged from at least 600 BCE
• Sramana had no fixed homes, few possessions, and were celibate
• Sramana explored sacrifice as a form of internal practice (by means of concentration and visualization techniques)
• Questions explored by Sramana

  • Can we free ourselves from the suffering of the human condition?
  • Can we perform the sacrifice "internally" i.e. practice it by means of concentration and visualization techniques?
  • Do we control our lives or are we controlled by fate or the gods?
  • What happens after we die?
• Samsara


  Repeating cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth in which all beings exist
• Moksha


  Liberation from the cycle of rebirth and the end of all suffering, characterized as bliss, truthfulness, and perfect awareness
• Samsara (Buddhist)


  Continuous cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth, we are stuck in this cycle because we're attached to a mistaken view of ourselves and the way things exist
• Nirvana (Buddhist)


  "Quenching" or "blowing out," the opposite of samsara
• Upanishads


  The "wisdom literature" of the Vedas, esoteric religious and philosophical texts, impart secret knowledge which can free one from the cycle of samsara
• Upanishads composed


  800 BCE - 400 BCE
• Katha Upanishad


  Reflects one Hindu school of sramana thought, composed around 450-500 BCE, centers on the story of a teen-age boy named Nachiketas and his encounter with Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death
• Katha Upanishad declares we are in a circle of birth and death (samsara), from which we can be freed by ethical action and realizing that our atman (soul) is non-different from the Divine
• Karma (Hindu)


  "Deed", law of cause and effect that drives a person's trajectory through samsara, the effects of one's actions create present and future experiences and incarnations, not a form of divine punishment or reward, but a law of causality
• Karma (Buddhist)


  "Action", samsara's law of cause and effect, every volitional action brings about a certain result in this or a future life, an action motivated by greed, hatred, or delusion yields suffering, an action motivated by generosity, love, or wisdom creates the karmic conditions for happiness and liberation
• Atman


  One's inmost soul or breath of life, is also Brahman, the ultimate reality that pervades the entire universe
• Siddhartha Gautama


  The Buddha, born a Hindu in either 563 BCE or 440 BCE, son of minor king in Northern India, joins Sramana movement, creates and disseminates new teachings, founds monasticism
• Wheel of Existence


  Symbolically represents samsara (or cyclic existence), Buddhism's Six Realms of Existence (3 higher realms, 3 lower): Gods, Demigods, Humans, Animals, Hungry Ghosts, Hell Beings
• An-Atman (Buddhism)


  "No-Self", fundamental insight needed to escape samsara, doctrine that there is no permanent, unchanging essence in humans that can be called "the soul", we have no fixed essence, the "self" is constantly changing, a process not a fixed thing
• Hinduism believes in Atman (self) while Buddhism believes in An-Atman (no-self)
• Kisagotami

  Woman whose baby son died, she carried the corpse around asking if anyone could bring him back to life, the Buddha told her to find a mustard seed from a house where no one had died, she then buried her son and became the Buddha's follower
• Ancestor Veneration

  Ritual practices which presume that death is not the end of a person's participation in the lives and activities of his family, there is a continued relationship between the living and the dead, reciprocity and interdependence
• Chinese Ghost Festival


  Buddhist and Daoist festival during which ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased relatives, come out of the lower realm, falls on the same day as a full moon, the fall harvest, Buddhist monastic holiday, the assembly of the local community, lasts a month, participants perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased
• Particular (Individual) Judgment


  Occurs at the time of death, decides the fate of each soul in the intermediate period, between death and the Last Judgment, a person can go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory
• Final (General) Judgment


  Occurs at the Second Coming at the end of this world, decides the fate of souls for all eternity, people will abide eternally in either Heaven or Hell
• The Divine Comedy


  Dante's journey through the three afterlives after Particular Judgment: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, each with 33 Cantos, epitomizes medieval world view of the Western Church
• Virgil


  Provided the pattern for the structure of Dante's Hell, Dante saw him as his master and inspiration for his poetic style, regarded as a sage and necromancer
• Contrapasso


  "Counter-Penalty", principle of justice that determines the precise form of one's suffering and punishment in Hell and Purgatory
• Organ Donation


  Removal of organs from the bodies of deceased and immediate transfer into the body of the recipient, must follow legal requirements, including the definition of death and consent
• Kidney was the first human organ to be transplanted successfully


  1954
• Liver, heart, and pancreas transplants were successfully performed


  Late 1960s
• Lung and intestinal organ transplants were begun


  1980s
• Determination of Death Act (1981)


  Drafted in 1981 President's Commission Study on Brain Death, offers two definitions where an individual may legally be declared dead: irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem
• Transhumanism


  Philosophical movement that presumes that modern technology ultimately offers humans the chance to live for eons, unshackled from the frailties of the human body, death is neither "natural" nor a part of human evolution, technology can improve the somatic body and make humans immortal
• Kim Suozzi


  Cancer claimed her at age 23, she chose to have her brain preserved with the dream that neuroscience might one day revive her mind
• Cryogenics


  The freezing of bodies/brains of the recently deceased with the hope that with the advancement of technology down the line they will be brought back to life and healed, attempting to transcend death, can be compared to the ideas of resurrection, separating the scientific and social aspects of death
• Nachiketas


  A teenage boy who was able to meet with Yama when he was still alive, protagonist of Katha Upanishad, a religious text in Hinduism that discusses what happens after death and how one should live accordingly