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Buddhism is one of the most ancient belief systems in the world. | 0:00:13 | 0:00:19 | |
Buddhism is both a religion and a philosophy. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
Only your own understanding saves you from suffering. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
It is practised by over 350 million people today. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:31 | |
There are many people who feel attracted to a religion | 0:00:31 | 0:00:36 | |
which empowers the human individual. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
I am going to travel to seven wonders of the Buddhist world. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:43 | |
Seven wonders that give an insight | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
to the long and rich history of Buddhism. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
At each location I'll meet Buddhists who will help me to understand | 0:00:49 | 0:00:53 | |
the different concepts that form the core of Buddhist belief. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:57 | |
I'm going to explore how it started, where it travelled | 0:00:57 | 0:01:03 | |
and some of the most spectacular monuments built by Buddhists | 0:01:03 | 0:01:08 | |
right across the globe. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
And to try to get to the bottom of the attraction of this philosophy for mankind | 0:01:13 | 0:01:19 | |
for close on 2,500 years. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
Buddhism's numbers grow year on year | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
and I'll be uncovering why | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
as I experience seven modern and ancient wonders of the Buddhist world. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:38 | |
This is north-eastern India, | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
where Buddhism began around 500 years before Christ. | 0:01:55 | 0:02:00 | |
Millions of pilgrims come to this country, and to the sacred city of Bodh Gaya, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:05 | |
to visit the place where a young Indian Prince underwent | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
a life-changing personal transformation | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
and came to be known as the Buddha. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
I've studied the period in history when the Buddha lived for over 20 years | 0:02:13 | 0:02:19 | |
and I just love it | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
because this was such a radical age. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
This was a time when men like the Buddha, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:27 | |
and Socrates in Ancient Greece, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
turned the world of belief upside down. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
Instead of focusing on tradition and convention and ritual, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:39 | |
they dealt with ethics and the possibilities of the human mind. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:45 | |
And I'm particularly fascinated to follow in the trail of Buddhism, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:53 | |
because as the philosophy has travelled through 25 centuries, | 0:02:53 | 0:02:57 | |
it's marked out a path that leads directly | 0:02:57 | 0:03:00 | |
from ancient society to the modern world. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:05 | |
This is Mahabodhi, | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
the "great awakening" temple in Bodh Gaya in north-eastern India, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
our first wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:16 | |
The reason Bodh Gaya is here at all | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
is because two and a half millennia ago, one man | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
had an internal, personal revelation | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
while he sat underneath a peepul tree. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:37 | |
It's a very quiet, simple beginning to end up with all of this. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:44 | |
That man was called Siddhartha Gautama, | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
and we're told he renounced his privileges and family | 0:03:50 | 0:03:54 | |
to embark on a rigorous quest. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
A journey to understand the inherent challenges of the human condition, | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
sparked by the suffering, sorrow and deprivation | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
that he saw all around him. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
It was a long and difficult journey. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
Siddhartha renounced the comforts of the material world. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
He meditated for weeks on end. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
He broke with the status quo | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
in a region that had been dominated by the old gods | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
for the previous thousand years. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:26 | |
Finally he achieved Nirvana, | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
what we loosely translate as Enlightenment, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
and became known as the Buddha or "the enlightened one". | 0:04:33 | 0:04:39 | |
The Buddha, according to Buddhist scriptures, | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
made his way to this spot, and determined not to move | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
until he found an answer to the world's suffering. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
So, it was here, on one warm spring evening, 2,500 years ago, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:57 | |
that the Buddha came to sit. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
We are told that all night he was tormented by demons | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
but then, as the sun began to rise in the East, he found enlightenment. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:11 | |
The Bodh Gaya temple is the Mecca of Buddhism. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
It is where the Buddha attained enlightenment | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
according to their belief | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
and the Bodhi tree, or a great- grandson of the Bodhi tree, | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
still grows there. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:29 | |
So, Buddhists go there to remember the great breakthrough | 0:05:29 | 0:05:32 | |
that was the Buddha's discovery of the true nature of the universe. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:35 | |
And inspired by the Buddha's example, | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
you'll find visitors here from every corner of the globe, | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
from the 90 or so countries where Buddhism still flourishes today. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
Bodh Gaya is one of those key sites | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
for all Buddhists worldwide. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
It serves as a magnet, as a centre point, for Buddhists from around the world. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:56 | |
You could say it's the place | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
exactly where Buddhism started. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
I'm not a Buddhist, but if you ask anyone who's involved in Buddhism, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:07 | |
they'll tell you that it's a very difficult philosophy | 0:06:07 | 0:06:11 | |
to teach or to explain, | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
and that the very best way to understand it is to experience it. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
And so, by experiencing Buddhism, | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
I'm going to try to get to the heart of a philosophy | 0:06:21 | 0:06:24 | |
that can sometimes seem complicated, out of reach. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:27 | |
I'll start with the three key principles of Buddhism - | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
what are known as its "Three Jewels". | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
The first is the life and example of Buddha himself. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:41 | |
All Buddhists are encouraged to model their approach to life on his. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:48 | |
The most important single point in the Buddha's teaching, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:56 | |
and one that distinguishes it very sharply from other religions, | 0:06:56 | 0:07:00 | |
is that the Buddha taught that each of us | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
is entirely and solely responsible | 0:07:04 | 0:07:09 | |
for our own lives and our own salvation. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
No-one else can be responsible. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
The Buddha didn't claim any divine status, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
nor did he profess to be a personal saviour. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
He called himself a guide and teacher. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
His message appealed to people of all social classes in ancient India, | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
to merchants, to farmers, and to the Untouchable caste. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
The Buddha, in the course of his spiritual awakening, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
rejected a good number of aspects of Hinduism. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
He rejected some philosophical components of Hindu beliefs, | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
he was very critical of the position of the Brahmins or priests | 0:07:46 | 0:07:51 | |
in society at that time, which was a very elitist position. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
He was similarly critical of the caste system. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
He positioned himself, as a result, outside of the caste system. | 0:07:57 | 0:08:02 | |
The Buddha spent his remaining years travelling through deep forests, | 0:08:02 | 0:08:07 | |
across mango groves, from village to village. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
The curious would bring food and clothing | 0:08:10 | 0:08:12 | |
for the philosopher and his band of followers. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
And, in turn, he encouraged them | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
to reconsider the purpose and point of life, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
to recalibrate their moral compass. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
Although the Buddha didn't establish a church or temple system as such, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:31 | |
over time, the significant locations in his life | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
were gradually turned into shrines. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
Originally Bodh Gaya was just a pastoral sanctuary, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
marked out with a stone balustrade, | 0:08:43 | 0:08:45 | |
200 years or so after his death, but by the 6th century AD, | 0:08:45 | 0:08:49 | |
a full-blown temple, the Mahabodhi Temple, | 0:08:49 | 0:08:54 | |
marked the spot. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:55 | |
About 400 years after, the first temple, | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
that was built here for the worshiping of the Bodhi tree, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
was replaced by this kind of a temple, built to enshrine | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
the iconic image of Buddha, which had gained currency by that time. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:11 | |
The temple, particularly the Mahabodhi Temple, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:15 | |
is representative of how important Buddhist temples were, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:19 | |
and how, you know, this idea of building a temple to enshrine statues | 0:09:19 | 0:09:24 | |
started from here. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:25 | |
As Buddhism's travelled through the centuries, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
perhaps inevitably, it's taken on more the aspects of a religion, | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
with temples and pilgrims and a religious hierarchy. | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
You could be forgiven for mistaking Buddhism | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
as one of the great, god-driven faiths of the world, | 0:09:48 | 0:09:52 | |
but there is a key difference. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
By putting such an emphasis on a system of personal morality | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
and breaking with the conventions and traditions | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
and rituals of the past, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
in many ways, the Buddha was one of those men | 0:10:04 | 0:10:07 | |
who gave us the modern world. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:09 | |
And although he never denied that there were gods, | 0:10:09 | 0:10:13 | |
he simply said | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
you don't have to rely on the gods to make everything OK. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
According to Buddhist sources, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
having seeded a radical new world view, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
the Buddha died at the age of 84. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
His body was cremated but his bones remained unburned. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:34 | |
They were distributed amongst the various tribes, rulers and kingdoms, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:39 | |
who are now starting to follow the Buddhist way, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
and who honoured its founder by building monuments, or stupas, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
over his remains. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:48 | |
In Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, stands The Bodanath Stupa, | 0:10:49 | 0:10:55 | |
our second wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
It was first built in the 5th or early 6th centuries AD, | 0:11:00 | 0:11:03 | |
then rebuilt and restored a number of times, | 0:11:03 | 0:11:06 | |
finally as this giant, enclosed tomb in the 14th century. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:12 | |
It is the largest in the Indian subcontinent, | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
a sacred place for thousands of Buddhists throughout the world. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:21 | |
Here at Bodanath, I am going to find out more | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
about the three jewels of Buddhism. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
Buddhism consists, as far as Buddhists are concerned, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
in three things which they call the three jewels. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
Those three things are closely connected. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
The first is the Buddha, the founder of their religion. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
The second is called the Sangha, | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
and that is the community of monks and nuns. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
The third is called the Dharma. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
The Dharma refers to the preaching, the teaching of the Buddha. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:54 | |
In other words, it's what the Buddha discovered and it's also the truth. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:59 | |
As you walk around the Bodanath, here, you always have this sense | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
that you are being watched | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
and that's because the Buddha's all-seeing eyes | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
are always staring down at you. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
That squiggle in the middle of his face, incidentally, is not his nose, | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
it's actually the Sanskrit character for the number one, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
to represent a kind of unity in the Buddhist faith. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:19 | |
Something you won't find represented up there are the Buddha's ears, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:24 | |
and there is a particular reason for that. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
We are told that the Buddha said | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
he never wanted to hear that he was being worshipped. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
And of course, that is what is so unique about Buddhism - | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
this is a religion without a central authority figure. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:42 | |
Instead there's just this credo that man is his own lord and master, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:47 | |
that mankind itself can control humanity's destiny. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:52 | |
It's not atheistic, because they do believe in the existence | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
of, sort of, Gods and angels and so on, but they simply don't believe | 0:12:59 | 0:13:03 | |
that those beings have the universe under control | 0:13:03 | 0:13:06 | |
and therefore they cannot save us from suffering. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
They themselves need saving from suffering | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
from a future time when they cease being gods | 0:13:11 | 0:13:14 | |
and they become beings that are vulnerable to pain and suffering. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
At the Bodonath Stupa, one of the many people who come | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
to circumambulate and to pay their respects to the Buddha | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
is Ani Choying, a Buddhist nun | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
famous throughout Nepal for her sweet singing voice. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
She is, in fact, known as the singing nun. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:38 | |
This is a very highly spiritual place, we consider. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
It's a holy place, and we believe | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
that all the great relics of the Buddha's are in the stupa | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
and it holds a very special religious spot. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:53 | |
And every people who come around here | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
are always reciting mantras | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
and really focusing on meditation, | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
they do the circumambulation, prostration, | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
to keep the physical healthy | 0:14:03 | 0:14:06 | |
and the mind, to be energy clean, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
chanting mantras as well as doing prayers | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
so trying to put yourself in a very good, positive discipline. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:18 | |
This is a very, very highly blessed place. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
Ani is originally from Tibet. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
Thousands of Tibetan Buddhists now live in Nepal as refugees. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:30 | |
The brand of Buddhism is as much Tibetan as it is Nepalese. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
Flexibility and diversity has always been one of Buddhism's strengths. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
The Buddha himself said there should be no one official Buddhist language. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:44 | |
Instead, Buddhists are encouraged to focus on the universal relevance | 0:14:44 | 0:14:48 | |
of the Buddha's wisdom. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
There are some people here who will tell you that | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
buried deep in that stupa is a fragment of the Buddha's bone. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:59 | |
Now, I'm not certain that we're going to be able to prove that | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
but what is sure is that this is the biggest stupa | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
in the whole of Nepal and one of the largest in the world, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:11 | |
and it is immensely impressive, | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
but do you know what's significant about it, actually | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
is not how it looks but what it means | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
because this was built to represent something very special. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:24 | |
For the men who created this, | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
this was nothing less than incarnation of the Buddha's mind. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:31 | |
The symbolism of the stupa is very interesting because | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
it takes the elements of earth, water, fire, wind and space, | 0:15:40 | 0:15:45 | |
different shapes that represent those, | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
and they put them in an ideal aesthetic form, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
and so the idea is that the Buddha's mind is the awareness | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
that the universe is the ideal environment for the human being | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
to achieve freedom from suffering. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
Around the Buddha gathered men who shared with him a common vision and goal. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
Gradually, this group came to be a formalized community, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
a body that took its name | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
from the old aristocratic councils of the day. The Sangha. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
The Buddhist Sangha became a monastic tradition, | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
comprising ordained monks and nuns | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
and it's one of the three jewels of Buddhism. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
My first experience of the Sangha | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
came at what felt like an ungodly hour. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
At Bodanath every morning, just after dawn, monks of all ages | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
gather to perform the first of many rituals of the day. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
The Sangha is one of the oldest continuously active | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
spiritual organizations in the world. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
LOW CHANTING | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
What's being recited here is a Tara Puja, | 0:17:02 | 0:17:06 | |
it's a chant that aims to ensure a kind of liberation from suffering. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:10 | |
And it's really interesting because "Tara" is thought to be | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
a female manifestation of Buddha's wisdom, | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
something which is incredibly potent. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
I mean, this isn't just an abstract idea of wisdom | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
this is thought to be healing, | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
to actually be stronger than medicine itself. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
DRUM BOOMS AND BELLS RING | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
The Sangha includes women and was set up | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
to allow those who wish to practise Buddha's teachings | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
a disciplined environment and maximum time | 0:17:38 | 0:17:41 | |
to focus on the philosopher's ideas, | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
free from the responsibilities and distractions | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
of a domestic or conventional lifestyle. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
A few miles outside Kathmandu, | 0:17:52 | 0:17:56 | |
Ani, the singing nun, runs her own nunnery. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
It's a refuge for girls, many as young as ten, | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
the age both sexes can embark on the life of a Buddhist novice. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
SINGING | 0:18:08 | 0:18:10 | |
I have here mostly | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
girls from families who are facing some difficulties, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:24 | |
obviously poverty, and the other thing is | 0:18:24 | 0:18:27 | |
the fathers are often very ignorant. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:30 | |
They get carried away with the alcoholic behaviour, as well. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:34 | |
Very abusive behaviours, and they do not think that it is good | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
to send their girls to school, | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
so I try to collect them here, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
and give them a much as I can give them. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
Controversial for its time was the inclusion of women | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
among the ranks of the Sangha. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:50 | |
The Buddha allowed women to become nuns, | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
to lead a life devoted to spiritual development. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
Like Buddhist monks, nuns are expected to remain celibate, | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
pure, since they are one of the three jewels of Buddhism, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:04 | |
not just Buddha's foot-soldiers | 0:19:04 | 0:19:06 | |
but an incarnation of the belief system itself. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
So, I've learnt about two of the three jewels of Buddhism. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
The Sangha and the life of the Buddha. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
But what about the third jewel, the Dharma, or teachings? | 0:19:19 | 0:19:24 | |
You can, perhaps, help me out a bit. How do you describe Dharma? | 0:19:24 | 0:19:29 | |
What does Dharma mean to you? | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
According to my understanding, | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
what Dharma is to do whatever you do, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
very practically, skilfully, for the benefit of all beings, | 0:19:40 | 0:19:47 | |
without causing any harm, and for their wellbeing, | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
including oneself and all, is Dharma. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:56 | |
SHE SINGS: | 0:19:59 | 0:20:03 | |
Dharma means the purity of heart. Dharma means peace, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:22 | |
and Dharma means wellbeing of all human society. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
Are there special ways that you can achieve Dharma? | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
Are there rules and regulations that show you what to do? | 0:20:30 | 0:20:34 | |
We are taught what causes suffering and what can cause suffering, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:39 | |
and how to avoid causing suffering in life, one's own life. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:46 | |
And when you implement those teachings | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
I think that is what really contributes towards | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
one's own wellbeing and others' wellbeing, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
and I think that is considered Dharma. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:59 | |
In the Buddhist context, the word Dharma refers, above all, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:06 | |
to the teachings of the Buddha as he rediscovered them | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
in the process of his progress towards enlightenment. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:14 | |
The reality of the Dharma which holds you free from suffering, | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
is what they take, the root of the word Dharma, which means to hold, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:24 | |
and the Buddha said Dharma holds a being free from suffering. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:28 | |
Coming here to Nepal, it has been relatively straightforward | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
to identify two of the jewels of the triple jewels of Buddhism. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:43 | |
The Buddha himself, both ideas about him and his image, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
are absolutely everywhere, as is the Sangha, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
and here in Kathmandu, there are monks and nuns at every street corner, | 0:21:50 | 0:21:55 | |
but what has been harder to pin down is the Dharma itself, | 0:21:55 | 0:22:00 | |
the belief system, the philosophy, the religion, | 0:22:00 | 0:22:03 | |
whatever you want to call it, of Buddhism. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
Maybe it's unrealistic of me to expect there to be | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
one single definition for such a broad concept. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:12 | |
The Buddha himself said the Dharma was like | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
the salt of the oceans of the world, a universal taste. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:20 | |
So, the Buddha implied the Dharma could be tasted anywhere, by anyone, | 0:22:20 | 0:22:26 | |
but the question for me, as a historian, | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
is how that "taste" of the Buddhist Dharma could become "universal", | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
practically, how Buddhism established itself as a global belief-system. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:40 | |
Buddha's teachings were charismatic and radical for their time, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
but, as with all big new ideas, | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
they needed a groundswell of popular support or a patron, or both, | 0:22:46 | 0:22:50 | |
to gain a firm foothold and to really fly. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
While there was grassroots interest in what he had to say, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
it was about 200 years after the Buddha's death that Buddhism got a major boost. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:02 | |
In 250BC, the ruthless, all-powerful emperor Ashoka, | 0:23:02 | 0:23:08 | |
who controlled most of ancient India, | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
proved Buddhism's greatest ally. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
Ashoka was haunted by the memory of the blood that he'd acquired | 0:23:15 | 0:23:20 | |
on his hands as a result of the cut and thrust of his rise to power | 0:23:20 | 0:23:25 | |
and he decided to turn to "the good" | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
and in order to realize that ambition | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
he vigorously promoted Buddhist ideals | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
right across the Indian subcontinent. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:38 | |
According to Buddhist tradition, | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
in the centuries following Ashoka's | 0:23:40 | 0:23:42 | |
sponsorship of Buddha's ideas, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:43 | |
the philosophy evolved into | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
at least 18 different schools. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
One of these, the Theravada, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:49 | |
still survives today | 0:23:49 | 0:23:51 | |
and is mainly associated | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
with south and southeast Asia. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:55 | |
Another came to be called | 0:23:55 | 0:23:56 | |
the Mahayana, | 0:23:56 | 0:23:57 | |
the "Great Vehicle" or "Way", | 0:23:57 | 0:23:59 | |
now most often found in north and east Asia. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
Ashoka, by embracing Buddhism, | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
put a particular emphasis on the consequences of his actions, | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
on what he thought and how he lived in the world. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
On his Karma. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:15 | |
Karma is a word well known in the west today. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:20 | |
It has its roots in early Indian belief systems, | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
but the value of Karma became | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
a fundamentally important | 0:24:25 | 0:24:27 | |
Buddhist concept, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:29 | |
and one that I am going to explore | 0:24:29 | 0:24:31 | |
at... | 0:24:31 | 0:24:32 | |
..our next wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
Sri Lankan Buddhists believe that the tooth relic | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
was brought to their country around 300 BC. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:01 | |
Safeguarding the relic became the responsibility of kings | 0:25:01 | 0:25:04 | |
and over the years, the custodianship of the relic | 0:25:04 | 0:25:08 | |
came to symbolize the right to rule. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
The Buddha is said to have given two legacies to future generations - | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
the body of his teachings, the Dharma, | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
and also relics of his physical body itself, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
which are now scattered in shrines right across the globe, | 0:25:26 | 0:25:30 | |
and one of the most precious is kept in here, in the Temple of the Tooth. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:37 | |
That relic makes the presence of the Buddha more graphic to people, | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
so it gives them a power. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
Actually, many Buddhist temples around the world have relics, | 0:25:45 | 0:25:49 | |
a piece of bone or something, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
just as in Europe, you have relics of saints, | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
so it's a way of making the person's presence feel more immediate. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
That gives the temple more power, as a magnet to draw the worshipper. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
The shrine stands right at the centre of a paved courtyard. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
The ceiling is decorated with moonstones and floral designs. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:13 | |
There are ivory reliefs on the doorways. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
The inner chamber contains the tooth relic and other sacred objects | 0:26:21 | 0:26:26 | |
and all around there is a brightly painted corridor. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:30 | |
DRUMMING AND WIND INSTRUMENT | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
Monks conduct daily worship in the inner chamber of the temple. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:55 | |
Rituals are performed at dawn, at noon and in the evening. | 0:26:55 | 0:27:00 | |
The tooth is in this upper chamber in a casket of gold | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
and is only revealed to a chosen few. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:09 | |
The sacred relic is symbolically bathed | 0:27:10 | 0:27:13 | |
with an herbal preparation made from scented water and fragrant flowers. | 0:27:13 | 0:27:18 | |
This holy water is believed to contain healing properties | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
and is distributed among those present. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
Once a week, mothers gather at the temple with their babies. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:34 | |
All these little babies are waiting to be taken in to be blessed by the priests | 0:27:35 | 0:27:40 | |
so that they have Buddha's power with them for the rest of their lives. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
They're given a white piece of string to wrap around their wrist | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
which shows that the Buddha is with them from now until they die. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
It's thought incredibly important that they get the blessing at this early stage | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
because everything that they do from now on, | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
all their intentional actions, | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
what they think, what they say and what they do, their karma, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:04 | |
will affect how they are then reborn in the next life. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
Karma is one of the main concepts of Buddhism. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
It is the belief that any of our intentional actions, both thought and deed, | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
will be mirrored by something similar happening to us in future. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
So, if you harm someone, someone will harm you. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:25 | |
This principle of cause and effect can bring consequences | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
that are either good or bad depending on what it is you've done. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:32 | |
Because Buddhists believe we have many lives, this good and bad karma | 0:28:32 | 0:28:37 | |
can generate consequences both throughout this life and long into the next. | 0:28:37 | 0:28:43 | |
Karma is what you do. The word literally means deed or action. | 0:28:44 | 0:28:49 | |
But the Buddha said | 0:28:51 | 0:28:53 | |
that all Karma that matters | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
is what is morally good or morally bad, | 0:28:55 | 0:28:59 | |
and you decide what to do. | 0:28:59 | 0:29:03 | |
Now, we must remember that for Buddhists, | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
your life goes on beyond what we normally think of as this life. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:11 | |
In fact, you are reborn an infinite number of times | 0:29:11 | 0:29:17 | |
until you manage to bring that to an end. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:19 | |
Buddhists use a metaphor to help explain what karma is. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:27 | |
They say that if you sow thistle seed, | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
then you can't expect apple trees to grow, | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
and that is very clear. It's a basic principle of cause and effect | 0:29:33 | 0:29:38 | |
and as a historian, I know that that principle has real validity. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:43 | |
We are all affected by our past | 0:29:43 | 0:29:46 | |
and our past and our present together informs our future | 0:29:46 | 0:29:50 | |
so when the Buddha said | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
that we should be mindful of our intentional actions, of our karma | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
and that our highest authority is our conscience, | 0:29:56 | 0:30:00 | |
than he was making real sense | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
and he was also clarifying something about what it is to be human. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:07 | |
Of course, the issue is that karma can be both good and bad. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:18 | |
And in Sri Lanka, the fallout of action and reaction, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
of cause and effect, has been brutally tested in recent years. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:26 | |
For nearly three decades, | 0:30:26 | 0:30:28 | |
the country has been locked in a violent civil war, | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
in which close on 100,000 people have been killed. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
Sri Lanka is only now emerging from this debilitating conflict | 0:30:36 | 0:30:40 | |
between the Hindu Tamil minority and a Buddhist Singhalese majority. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:46 | |
The Temple of the Tooth was badly hit | 0:30:46 | 0:30:48 | |
and partially destroyed during the war. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:50 | |
It has now been fully restored. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:52 | |
Buddhists believe this cycle of death and destruction can be broken. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:59 | |
They assert that by following a certain path, it is possible | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
to break out of a continuous round of life and death and rebirth, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:08 | |
which in Buddhism has a name. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:10 | |
Samsara. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:12 | |
And Samsara is the concept I am going to investigate now | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
as I move to the next wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:19 | |
Once Buddhist ideas had flourished in Sri Lanka, | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
Sri Lankan monarchs sent emissaries to adjoining kingdoms | 0:31:30 | 0:31:33 | |
in southeast Asia to carry | 0:31:33 | 0:31:35 | |
the Buddhist message. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
By the 11th century, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
Theravadin Buddhism was well established in Thailand | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
and here in Bangkok, close on 90% of Thais are now Buddhist. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:47 | |
The reason that Buddhism has thrived so vigorously | 0:31:47 | 0:31:51 | |
and tenaciously here is because right from its very outset, | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
it's had the support of the Thai kings. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
A king here can aspire to be a Buddha himself | 0:31:58 | 0:32:02 | |
and there is one king who was actually a monk for 25 years | 0:32:02 | 0:32:05 | |
before he came to the throne. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:07 | |
Every time the royal family builds a new palace for itself, | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
it will also constructs next door a monastery and a temple complex | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
as a kind of outward sign of its righteousness | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
and commitment to the Buddhist cause | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
and here in Bangkok, the temple complex is certainly fit for a king. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:26 | |
This is Wat Pho, our next wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
It's the largest and oldest temple complex in Bangkok. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:39 | |
It's home to more than 1,000 Buddha images. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:43 | |
The complex includes a temple, a working monastery | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
and a large courtyard with a forest of stupas, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:49 | |
thick with exquisite hand-made lotus motifs. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
And hidden within its own palatial hall... | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
the golden reclining Buddha. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:02 | |
The gold Buddha is 141ft long | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
and 49ft high. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
Started in 1788, it took over five years to build. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
This one of the most stunning, gobsmacking | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
works of monumental art I have ever seen. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:41 | |
I have to say I love its audacity, | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
I love the fact that it says, | 0:33:44 | 0:33:46 | |
"Look at me, look at what mankind can do | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
"when he manipulates raw materials to create a thing of beauty," | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
because here there are thousands of fragments of mother-of-pearl used | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
and a 153 plates of gold, | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
but what it doesn't seem to me to say | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
is that this is an incarnation of the Middle Path, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
that essential Buddhist notion that extremes and excesses | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
should be avoided at all costs | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
because there is no doubt that this is a thing of opulence. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
It's enormous, it's gorgeous | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
and it's very sensuous. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:22 | |
In history of Thailand there are a lot of large-scale | 0:34:25 | 0:34:30 | |
reclining Buddhas built all over central part of Thailand, | 0:34:30 | 0:34:36 | |
because to build a reclining Buddha, it's not a very easy process | 0:34:36 | 0:34:43 | |
because most of the reclining Buddha is not made from casting | 0:34:43 | 0:34:49 | |
it's made from bricks, plaster, or cement. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:54 | |
It's considered very respectful image, | 0:34:54 | 0:34:59 | |
so it must be decorated with very valuable materials | 0:34:59 | 0:35:05 | |
and, of course, the most valuable materials | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
for decorating the image of Lord Buddha should be gold. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:13 | |
Gold in Buddhism symbolizes the sun, or fire. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:18 | |
The most valuable of metals, it is accorded a sacred status | 0:35:18 | 0:35:22 | |
through its association with Surya, the sun god of the Hindu pantheon. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:27 | |
For Buddhists in Thailand, and other South Asian countries, | 0:35:27 | 0:35:31 | |
gold is an element that signifies homage. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
A gift of gold is the ultimate demonstration of one's piety. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:39 | |
The meritorious act of putting gold leaf | 0:35:40 | 0:35:43 | |
on the surface of a Buddha's skin | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
is to commemorate the living Buddha, | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
who had a golden-like aura, a radiance, they believe. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
But gold and its association with wealth and might | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
is also the way Thai monarchs have used a showy form of piety | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
to forge a strong relationship between Buddha's ideas | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
and the power of the state. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
It was King Rama III | 0:36:08 | 0:36:10 | |
who had the statue of the reclining Buddha opulently restored | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
at the height of his reign in the mid-19th century. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
It's called the Lion Pose, | 0:36:17 | 0:36:19 | |
so, as he lay there in the lion pose as he was preparing to die. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
It's described that he lay down on his right side | 0:36:24 | 0:36:28 | |
and he rested his head on his right hand. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
There is a reason that this Buddha has got such a serene smile - | 0:36:34 | 0:36:37 | |
it's because he has achieved enlightenment, Nirvana. | 0:36:37 | 0:36:41 | |
It means that he has escaped what Buddhists call Samsara, | 0:36:41 | 0:36:45 | |
an endless cycle of life, of birth and death, | 0:36:45 | 0:36:49 | |
of passion and desire and delusion, | 0:36:49 | 0:36:52 | |
that can only lead to pain and suffering. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:56 | |
Samsara effectively constitutes a cycle of birth and re-birth, | 0:37:00 | 0:37:05 | |
and as long as we are in Samsara we are born innumerable times | 0:37:05 | 0:37:10 | |
and moving from one existence to the next. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
We can be re-born as a human being, as a divinity, | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
or you can be re-born as an animal, etc. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
'Tell me what you think Samsara is?' | 0:37:23 | 0:37:25 | |
For me it's not just a physical picture | 0:37:25 | 0:37:30 | |
of, you know, the circle of being born and ageing and dying, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
for me it has something to do with the state of mind as well. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
That you have to deal with your bad emotions if you have problems, | 0:37:39 | 0:37:45 | |
if you're suffering, you have... feel frustrated, | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
you don't know how to deal with it, | 0:37:48 | 0:37:50 | |
but this is just a small sample of bad things that happen to you, | 0:37:50 | 0:37:53 | |
just keep go on and on and on, can find a real peace or happiness. | 0:37:53 | 0:37:57 | |
The wheel of life is a common visual depiction in Buddhism. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
At the time Buddha started to teach, | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
many understood life as a relentless cycle, | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
where all were born, grew old, died and were re-born in another life. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:13 | |
It was an eternal morass, from which there was no release, | 0:38:13 | 0:38:17 | |
but Buddha felt that an escape was possible. | 0:38:18 | 0:38:22 | |
He taught that through one's actions, karma, and through a way of life | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
that was characterized by wisdom, morality and compassion, | 0:38:26 | 0:38:30 | |
via meditation and the triumph of the mind over craving, desire and excess, | 0:38:30 | 0:38:34 | |
it was possible to achieve enlightenment, Nirvana. | 0:38:34 | 0:38:39 | |
He believed that this enlightenment would empower ordinary people | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
to break free from Samsara. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:47 | |
THEY CHANT | 0:38:47 | 0:38:48 | |
This idea gives Buddhist funerals a distinctive character. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
Those present mourn their loss, | 0:38:53 | 0:38:56 | |
but also hope that, thanks to their beloved's good karma, | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
the dead are at least one step closer to enlightenment, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
that they have the chance of a re-birth as a better being | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
who one day can escape Samsara. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
What goes around comes around, and that's what I believe, | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
this body is just like a house that we rent for a while. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
After we die we have to find a new place to live, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:25 | |
it's impermanent, it's just temporary. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
So, good Buddhists believe that we should do our best in this life | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
to guarantee a better place after we die. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:35 | |
Buddhists say that there is only one certain way | 0:39:53 | 0:39:57 | |
to break free from Samsara, | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
to eliminate the desires, and the passions, | 0:39:59 | 0:40:03 | |
and the distractions of everyday life. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:07 | |
Now, of course, that is very easy to say and it's very hard to do, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:11 | |
so over the centuries Buddhists have employed specific rigorous methods | 0:40:11 | 0:40:15 | |
to break free from all of this, | 0:40:15 | 0:40:18 | |
from the troubles and the temptations of the real world, | 0:40:18 | 0:40:21 | |
and to set themselves on the path to enlightenment, to Nirvana, | 0:40:21 | 0:40:25 | |
and that is the truly radical thing about the Buddha's example, | 0:40:25 | 0:40:31 | |
his belief that each and every one of us | 0:40:31 | 0:40:34 | |
has the capacity to achieve liberation, | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
to achieve our own enlightenment. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
It took the Buddha years to arrive at this radical belief. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:47 | |
Ideas he developed through his own personal experience - | 0:40:47 | 0:40:51 | |
in particular, an intense form of meditation. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
And it is Buddhist meditation that I'm now going to experience | 0:40:54 | 0:40:59 | |
in our next wonder of the Buddhist world. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:01 | |
Buddhism continued to spread throughout the Mediaeval period. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
Come the 13th century | 0:41:07 | 0:41:08 | |
and Buddhism was flourishing in the Khmer Kingdom... | 0:41:08 | 0:41:12 | |
modern-day Cambodia. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:13 | |
The temple complexes here at Angkor are our fifth wonder. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:19 | |
Angkor Wat began life as the sacred palace complex | 0:41:21 | 0:41:25 | |
of a Khmer Emperor who, in fact, favoured Hinduism | 0:41:25 | 0:41:28 | |
over Buddhist ideas. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:30 | |
These aren't just buildings, but have a grand ambition. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
The whole complex is said to be a symbolic representation | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
of Hindu cosmology. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
The original temple honoured the Hindu god Vishnu | 0:41:48 | 0:41:51 | |
and incarnates the centre of the physical and spiritual universe, | 0:41:51 | 0:41:56 | |
a mythical mountain. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:57 | |
A series of five rectangular walls represent other mountains | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
and the moats here evoke the cosmic ocean. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
This place reeks of a combination of earthly and divine power, | 0:42:20 | 0:42:27 | |
and of the close-knit relationship between gods and kings. | 0:42:27 | 0:42:31 | |
And, of course, it was a belief in that relationship | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
that inspired the creation of this complex in the first place, | 0:42:34 | 0:42:38 | |
but for some people it was just TOO exclusive, | 0:42:38 | 0:42:42 | |
too strictly hierarchical... | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
and Buddhism offered a solution. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
It was the Khmer Emperor Jayavarman VII who converted to Buddhism | 0:42:48 | 0:42:54 | |
and his regime marked a clear dividing line | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
with the old Hindu past. | 0:42:56 | 0:42:58 | |
Before 1200, art in the temples mostly portrayed scenes from the Hindu pantheon. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:04 | |
After his conversion, Buddhist scenes began to appear as standard motifs. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:09 | |
During his reign, there was a focus on building libraries, | 0:43:09 | 0:43:13 | |
monastic dwellings, public works, and more "earthly" projects, | 0:43:13 | 0:43:17 | |
accessible to the common people. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
So history in Cambodia takes a humanist turn | 0:43:19 | 0:43:24 | |
and as Buddhism rises in popularity, | 0:43:24 | 0:43:26 | |
you find images of the Buddha and his followers emerging everywhere in the architecture... | 0:43:26 | 0:43:32 | |
in gates, in walls and in temples. | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
So now Angkor is showing the world a more human face. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
The Angkor complex is a prime example of the classical style of Khmer architecture. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:48 | |
By the 12th century, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:50 | |
Khmer architects had become skilled and confident in masonry, | 0:43:50 | 0:43:54 | |
facing the monuments with intricate sandstone blocks. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
Angkor Wat is famous for the harmony of its world-class design. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
Architecturally, towers shaped like lotus buds are characteristic. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:09 | |
Half-galleries broaden the passageways, | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
other galleries connect enclosures | 0:44:12 | 0:44:15 | |
and terraces appear along the main pathways of the temple. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:18 | |
The walls are decorated with bas-reliefs | 0:44:19 | 0:44:22 | |
showing Hindu mythological figures and detailed narrative scenes. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:26 | |
This one depicts the churning of the oceans. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
Other elements of the design have been destroyed by looting | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
and the passage of time. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:40 | |
They included gilded stucco, gold on some figures, | 0:44:40 | 0:44:44 | |
and elaborate carved ceiling panels and doors. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
This was the largest sacred building in the world. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
Although there is an eerie, crumbling beauty to this place now, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:58 | |
you have to imagine it in its heyday. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
All this stonework would have been brightly painted | 0:45:02 | 0:45:05 | |
and in this corridor there would have been many hundreds of statues of the Buddha, | 0:45:05 | 0:45:09 | |
wrought out of precious gold. | 0:45:09 | 0:45:11 | |
The light from the statues would have been reflected back from the walls, | 0:45:11 | 0:45:15 | |
which would have been studded with emeralds and sapphires and rubies, | 0:45:15 | 0:45:20 | |
and outside there would have been crowds of monks, | 0:45:20 | 0:45:24 | |
their eyes closed in meditation, | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
their faces lit by the glow of torches made out of jungle resin. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
Since Buddhism is primarily an educational system, | 0:45:34 | 0:45:38 | |
meditation is a key component of that educational system. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
Meditation is the way you become viscerally and directly aware | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
of all these deep connections and connectivenesses to the universe, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
and you have to become directly aware of it | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
to become free of being controlled by unconscious processes. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
And that freedom is liberation, that freedom is Nirvana. | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
I'd been invited by a group of trainee Buddhist monks | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
to experience meditation for myself. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:07 | |
Members of the Sangha can spend hours each day meditating. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
The way they sit, the position of their hands, | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
is copied from the practice of the Buddha himself. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
They are still and concentrate on their breathing... | 0:46:22 | 0:46:26 | |
not doing anything to alter the way they breathe, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
not worrying about whether they're doing it right or wrong, | 0:46:29 | 0:46:33 | |
clearing their minds of thoughts, of feelings, of fear and anger... | 0:46:33 | 0:46:38 | |
of the distractions of the outside world. | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
Just following the breathing and becoming one with each breath. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:46 | |
I can't say I've managed to completely block out the sound of the world going on | 0:46:52 | 0:46:56 | |
and it feels hard to stay this still for so long, | 0:46:56 | 0:47:00 | |
but if someone were to ask me if I had any anger in my head or my heart right now, | 0:47:00 | 0:47:08 | |
I would have to say there is none. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
The Pali Canon advises that there are particularly good places to meditate - | 0:47:20 | 0:47:25 | |
a mountain, a hillside, a rock cave, a cemetery, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:30 | |
an open field, an open forest, | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
the root of a tree, | 0:47:33 | 0:47:35 | |
deep in the jungle. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
And this place certainly fits some of those criteria, | 0:47:37 | 0:47:40 | |
but I have to say, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:41 | |
I'm probably going to carry on meditating in my own sweet way for a while. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:46 | |
I am not quite ready yet to do the deep breathing | 0:47:46 | 0:47:48 | |
and the lotus position. | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
But still I have huge respect for the practice of meditation, | 0:47:51 | 0:47:55 | |
not least because it is a firm vote of confidence | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
in the power of the human mind. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
It suggests that in order to transcend the difficulties of this world, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:05 | |
we don't just need to appeal to a higher, divine authority... | 0:48:05 | 0:48:10 | |
but to look to our own consciousness. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:14 | |
Well, certainly the people of Cambodia have had more cause than most | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
to find internal resources to deal with the troubles that the world has thrown at them. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:24 | |
Cambodia has suffered some of the worst violence and genocide of the last century. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:30 | |
Between 1968 and 1976, over 3 million Cambodians were killed | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
in the war that engulfed Vietnam and other countries of southeast Asia. | 0:48:36 | 0:48:42 | |
This was then followed by the terror and genocide | 0:48:42 | 0:48:45 | |
unleashed by the Khmer Rouge, | 0:48:45 | 0:48:47 | |
a communist movement that ruled Cambodia for four years. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
The Khmer Rouge dealt particularly viciously with Buddhism. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:58 | |
Thousands of monks were slaughtered and monasteries were destroyed | 0:48:58 | 0:49:03 | |
and if people tried to hold on to their beliefs, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:05 | |
they were often tortured and killed. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:09 | |
But gradually, as the nightmare is beginning to fade, | 0:49:09 | 0:49:13 | |
Buddhism is finding its feet here again and when you come to Angkor, | 0:49:13 | 0:49:17 | |
you'll find little active shrines like this tucked away into corners. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:22 | |
In Cambodia, Buddhism is slowly reasserting itself. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
This country, which had experienced such horrors, is now peaceful | 0:49:28 | 0:49:33 | |
and Angkor, which had been brutalized | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
by the Khmer Rouge regime, | 0:49:35 | 0:49:37 | |
is now a world tourist site once again. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
It's been very moving coming here to Cambodia | 0:49:41 | 0:49:44 | |
because this place has been the home | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
to the most dramatic twists and turns in the fortunes of Buddhism. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:52 | |
For centuries, Buddhism was the philosophy of choice, | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
for both the kings and the people, | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
and then thanks to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
there was a chance that it was going to be eradicated | 0:50:01 | 0:50:04 | |
virtually overnight. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:05 | |
But gradually, gently, it is now making a comeback | 0:50:06 | 0:50:11 | |
and there's even a possibility that this place, | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
which was once the biggest and most active Buddhist complex in the world, | 0:50:14 | 0:50:19 | |
could be that again, some time in the future. | 0:50:19 | 0:50:23 | |
While in Cambodia Buddhism is emerging out of the darkness of the Khmer Rouge regime, | 0:50:27 | 0:50:33 | |
Buddhism in mainland China, and here in Hong Kong, | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
is also reasserting itself, | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
an ancient tradition reappearing in modern society. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
Buddhism is on the rise once again, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:47 | |
partly perhaps because its positive attitude feels well-suited to an emerging superpower. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:53 | |
Particularly popular is the Zen form of Buddhism. | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
Little surprise given that Zen, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
although now typically associated with Japan, | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
started off life in China. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
And I'm going to explore Zen | 0:51:06 | 0:51:08 | |
in one of the places in the world where it is most vigorous... | 0:51:08 | 0:51:12 | |
Hong Kong. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:14 | |
Our sixth wonder is the giant Buddha that overlooks | 0:51:15 | 0:51:19 | |
this great Asian city. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:22 | |
This mammoth bronze statue was completed in 1993. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:27 | |
It symbolises the relationship between man and nature, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
people and religion. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:33 | |
The building of the giant Buddha in Hong Kong | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
was a reassertion of an old Buddhist tradition | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
of constructing massive Buddhist images. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:42 | |
And the monks who initiated the project in Hong Kong | 0:51:42 | 0:51:46 | |
had visited Japan, and they'd visited various sites in mainland China | 0:51:46 | 0:51:50 | |
and seen medieval massive images of Buddhas, | 0:51:50 | 0:51:54 | |
and this was something they were trying to re-create in Lantan. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
It's the only statue of Buddha to face north towards Beijing, | 0:51:57 | 0:52:03 | |
and is named Tian Tan after the Temple of Heaven in that city. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:08 | |
When Buddhism first starts out, it seems that people actively | 0:52:10 | 0:52:15 | |
choose not to represent the Buddha figuratively. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
But then as the philosophy passes through regions like Afghanistan, | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
which had a really strong Greek influence | 0:52:23 | 0:52:25 | |
thanks to the invasion of Alexander the Great, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
it becomes the done thing to represent the Buddha in human form. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:34 | |
Now, once the belief system enters China, | 0:52:34 | 0:52:37 | |
a new tradition gains popularity. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:40 | |
Not just to represent the Buddha in human form, | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
but to do so on a monumental scale. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:47 | |
And that's an art form that's now being revived here in Hong Kong. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:52 | |
Everything about this statue means something. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:03 | |
The Buddha is sitting in a lotus position, | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
which shows that he was like the beauty of a lotus flower | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
emerging from the muddy waters of a pond. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:13 | |
His face is that beautiful round shape, which is supposed to be a reflection | 0:53:13 | 0:53:17 | |
of the perfection of the moon. | 0:53:17 | 0:53:20 | |
And his head is domed, which tells us just how wise he is. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:24 | |
His hands are interesting | 0:53:24 | 0:53:26 | |
because the right hand is raised in a gesture of blessing. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
This is the Buddha's vow that he will release the entire world from its suffering. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:34 | |
And on his chest he's got that so-called Swastika symbol. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:39 | |
Of course the Swastika was unfortunately appropriated by the Nazis, | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
even though they got it the wrong way round. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
But what it actually means is the power of the universe, | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
so this tells us that the Buddha's compassion and wisdom | 0:53:49 | 0:53:53 | |
is available to all. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
The Buddha statue sits on a lotus throne | 0:53:59 | 0:54:04 | |
on top of an altar. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:06 | |
It's surrounded by six smaller bronze statues. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
They're shown offering gifts like fruit and incense, | 0:54:09 | 0:54:13 | |
gifts that symbolise different aspects of Buddhist philosophy, | 0:54:13 | 0:54:16 | |
all virtues which are necessary to achieve enlightenment. | 0:54:16 | 0:54:20 | |
The giant Buddha is part of the Po Lin monastery and temple complex | 0:54:30 | 0:54:35 | |
set up nearly 100 years ago by three Zen masters. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:40 | |
Zen has developed as a part of Mahayana Buddhism, | 0:54:40 | 0:54:44 | |
the school of Buddhism practised in China | 0:54:44 | 0:54:47 | |
and other northern Asian countries. | 0:54:47 | 0:54:49 | |
Zen Buddhists believe that all people have the qualities that the Buddha had, | 0:54:49 | 0:54:54 | |
and emphasise that these can be developed and were not unique to the Buddha only. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
The aim of Zen is to discover this quality within each person, | 0:55:11 | 0:55:15 | |
through meditation and practice of the Buddha's teachings. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
The ultimate goal is to become a completely enlightened Buddha. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:27 | |
Meditation has always been central to Buddhism, | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
but here in China a new brand of meditation was born, | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
and it took its name from a Sanskrit word Dhyana which is actually very hard to translate, | 0:55:36 | 0:55:43 | |
but it means a kind of alert, productive state of mind. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:48 | |
In China it was called Chan | 0:55:48 | 0:55:49 | |
and when it travels to Japan it becomes Zen. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:55 | |
It's a school of Buddhism which lays enormous emphasis on certain kinds of meditative practice. | 0:55:55 | 0:56:03 | |
What you try to do is purely to empty your mind. | 0:56:03 | 0:56:09 | |
It has an ideology that rational thought is not going to get you to enlightenment or Nirvana. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:15 | |
It's practised here in a small secluded monastery, minutes away from the giant Buddha. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:24 | |
Formal silent meditation is central to Zen | 0:56:26 | 0:56:30 | |
and is practised by both the laity and the ordained together. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:35 | |
Some people find the concept of Zen quite difficult to grasp. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:43 | |
How would you define it? | 0:56:43 | 0:56:45 | |
So Zen means we never separate our life and our practice. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:49 | |
Zen is like 24 hours when you are standing, | 0:56:49 | 0:56:54 | |
sitting, walking, lying down, so never separate. | 0:56:54 | 0:57:00 | |
You know, our everyday life and our practice cannot separate, it's not two things. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:04 | |
Zen also means inside, inside, you know, our mind, | 0:57:04 | 0:57:09 | |
and outside objects, inside and outside both become one, that's Zen. | 0:57:09 | 0:57:13 | |
So if you're not making that separation between Zen practice and everyday life, | 0:57:20 | 0:57:25 | |
does that mean that when you do everything, when you sweep the floor | 0:57:25 | 0:57:29 | |
or prepare food or clean something, that is an act of Zen itself? | 0:57:29 | 0:57:35 | |
Zen means what are you doing now, you know. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:39 | |
So somebody might get enlightenment while they are eating meal, | 0:57:39 | 0:57:43 | |
washing bowl, all these were designed to help people be in the moment | 0:57:43 | 0:57:49 | |
and maybe at that moment your mind becomes clear and your life becomes clear. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:55 | |
THUNDER RUMBLES | 0:57:55 | 0:57:58 | |
This is called water bowl meditation | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
and the purpose is to carry the water without spilling a drop. | 0:58:39 | 0:58:42 | |
The idea is that you can do this through the application of Zen, | 0:58:42 | 0:58:45 | |
because if you think you're carrying a bowl of water, you're bound to shake and lose some | 0:58:45 | 0:58:51 | |
but if you clear your mind completely, you will complete the task successfully. | 0:58:51 | 0:58:57 | |
In the West a lot of people have heard of Zen. It's something that is quite popular. | 0:59:02 | 0:59:06 | |
Do you think that's partly because people's lives are so demanding | 0:59:06 | 0:59:11 | |
and Zen offers a way out from that? | 0:59:11 | 0:59:14 | |
-Not only the West are very busy, now Asia is more busy! -It's true! | 0:59:14 | 0:59:19 | |
It's very money-oriented, everybody worry about the living, | 0:59:19 | 0:59:25 | |
so it's very important our mind know how to relax | 0:59:25 | 0:59:29 | |
and to be living at this moment and to keep clear. | 0:59:29 | 0:59:33 | |
If you can live in this present, even if some problem appear, it's OK. | 0:59:33 | 0:59:38 | |
You have this clear mind and you are not agitated. | 0:59:38 | 0:59:42 | |
I think these are very important practice for everybody. | 0:59:42 | 0:59:47 | |
Zen practitioners today don't like to use specific words to limit what Zen is, | 0:59:56 | 1:00:01 | |
but if you want to find a definition for the practice, probably as close as you'll get | 1:00:01 | 1:00:06 | |
is that this is something that really believes in the power of intuition | 1:00:06 | 1:00:11 | |
and in a productive simplicity. | 1:00:11 | 1:00:14 | |
I can see that cherishing intuition, living for the moment, living day by day, | 1:00:14 | 1:00:20 | |
with a clear mind, is a very productive way to spend your time. | 1:00:20 | 1:00:25 | |
Perhaps it explains why of all brands of Buddhism, Zen has become particularly attractive | 1:00:25 | 1:00:31 | |
to those who live in our demanding 21st century. | 1:00:31 | 1:00:35 | |
Zen, and its ancestor Chan, | 1:00:45 | 1:00:48 | |
is a very practical form of Buddhist wisdom. | 1:00:48 | 1:00:51 | |
It encourages a process of rediscovery by living simply. | 1:00:51 | 1:00:56 | |
The Zen tradition emphasises that enlightenment is possible here and now. | 1:00:58 | 1:01:02 | |
Is it then very different from other forms of Buddhism? | 1:01:05 | 1:01:09 | |
Zen means pointing directly to our mind, it means right now wake up, | 1:01:09 | 1:01:16 | |
and be clear, what are you doing now. | 1:01:16 | 1:01:18 | |
Actually, our mind is not complicated. | 1:01:18 | 1:01:21 | |
It is our thinking with our life that is very complicated. | 1:01:21 | 1:01:25 | |
So Zen is a tool to help us to bring back our mind to our everyday life and be simple. | 1:01:25 | 1:01:33 | |
Zen, like all Buddhist practice, turns philosophy into a tool to help in day-to-day life. | 1:01:34 | 1:01:42 | |
Meditation is also used to bring about a tangible outcome, | 1:01:42 | 1:01:45 | |
either in the understanding of the world or in our ability to deal with it, | 1:01:45 | 1:01:48 | |
and with the suffering we see all around and feel within us. | 1:01:48 | 1:01:53 | |
One thing that struck me was that whatever the regional variations of Buddhism, | 1:01:53 | 1:01:57 | |
issues of suffering are right at the core of the philosophy. | 1:01:57 | 1:02:02 | |
Now that is really interesting because in general over the last 2,500 years | 1:02:02 | 1:02:07 | |
the cultures of the East have been very unabashed about suffering, | 1:02:07 | 1:02:11 | |
they don't mind putting it centre stage. | 1:02:11 | 1:02:14 | |
Whereas in the West, these are issues that we can sometimes try to brush under the carpet. | 1:02:14 | 1:02:19 | |
In the modern age, for instance, we've been accused of trying to cheat death itself. | 1:02:19 | 1:02:25 | |
But just look at that statue, | 1:02:25 | 1:02:28 | |
there's the Buddha promising to deal with all the suffering in the world. | 1:02:28 | 1:02:32 | |
So it does make you wonder what future Buddhism has as a global belief system. | 1:02:32 | 1:02:37 | |
What's going to happen when ideas of the East, | 1:02:37 | 1:02:40 | |
which put suffering to the fore, start to take root in the West? | 1:02:40 | 1:02:44 | |
Buddhist ideas and philosophy have become increasingly popular | 1:02:53 | 1:02:57 | |
in the fast-paced and highly competitive world of California. | 1:02:57 | 1:03:02 | |
New Age concepts mixed with the counterculture of the hippies in the 1970s | 1:03:03 | 1:03:08 | |
have made words like Karma and Nirvana commonplace. | 1:03:08 | 1:03:13 | |
Buddhism offered a spiritual life and an emphasis on morality without being too authoritarian. | 1:03:13 | 1:03:19 | |
Buddhism initially spread into the West and especially the West Coast of the United States | 1:03:19 | 1:03:24 | |
in the 19th century, thanks to Japanese and Chinese labourers brought in to work on the railways. | 1:03:24 | 1:03:30 | |
In Los Angeles, the first Buddhist temples were set up at the turn of the century. | 1:03:30 | 1:03:35 | |
Today, the city is home | 1:03:36 | 1:03:38 | |
to one of the largest Buddhist temples in the West. | 1:03:38 | 1:03:40 | |
Hsi Lai Temple at Hacienda Heights, | 1:03:40 | 1:03:44 | |
our seventh wonder of the Buddhist world. | 1:03:44 | 1:03:48 | |
Here I am going to try to understand what has to be the most important Buddhist concept, | 1:03:52 | 1:03:57 | |
the ultimate goal for Buddhists, Nirvana. | 1:03:57 | 1:04:01 | |
The planning and construction of the temple in the 1980s | 1:04:07 | 1:04:10 | |
was met with suspicion and resistance from local communities. | 1:04:10 | 1:04:15 | |
The building of the temple at its current location survived six public hearings | 1:04:15 | 1:04:20 | |
and 165 explanatory sessions. | 1:04:20 | 1:04:22 | |
Finally, in 1985, the temple was granted a building permit. | 1:04:22 | 1:04:28 | |
It was completed in 1988. | 1:04:28 | 1:04:32 | |
I tell you what there is definitely a wealth of here, and that is Buddhas. | 1:04:34 | 1:04:38 | |
I have never seen so many. There must be 10,000 or something. | 1:04:38 | 1:04:43 | |
Yeah, there are over 10,000 Buddhas here, big and small. | 1:04:43 | 1:04:46 | |
And if you look at all the Buddhas, you may find some names there. | 1:04:46 | 1:04:50 | |
It's a Chinese practice that people make an offering | 1:04:50 | 1:04:55 | |
and then to have the name of the family. It's their Buddha. | 1:04:55 | 1:04:58 | |
And it's also a form of supporting the temple, | 1:04:58 | 1:05:02 | |
they come in and say "I have a Buddha in there". | 1:05:02 | 1:05:05 | |
It's like the connection between the Buddha outside and the Buddha inside. | 1:05:05 | 1:05:10 | |
One of the many American Buddhists who come to the temple is Mario Cee. | 1:05:10 | 1:05:15 | |
He became a Buddhist six years ago. | 1:05:15 | 1:05:17 | |
There are some who'd say that the attraction of Buddhism for many Americans | 1:05:21 | 1:05:25 | |
is that it's pleasingly mystical, it comes from the East | 1:05:25 | 1:05:28 | |
but at the same time it ties in with an "anything goes" materialist lifestyle. | 1:05:28 | 1:05:33 | |
How do you speak to that? | 1:05:33 | 1:05:35 | |
I don't mean any disrespect by this, but I have some friends | 1:05:35 | 1:05:38 | |
who use Buddhism and Eastern religion, | 1:05:38 | 1:05:41 | |
Eastern philosophy, and they mix it up with New Age, | 1:05:41 | 1:05:43 | |
and that's OK, if it works for them, but my concern is that it is that sort of anything goes, | 1:05:43 | 1:05:50 | |
you know, it's a free market in spirituality. Whatever I'm saying and thinking today is fine. | 1:05:50 | 1:05:56 | |
Because we have these core teachings in Buddhism, it keeps us in check, | 1:05:56 | 1:06:00 | |
so we don't go into anything, "If it feels good, it's OK." | 1:06:00 | 1:06:04 | |
We're really trying to avoid that. | 1:06:04 | 1:06:06 | |
Buddhism gave me a discipline without a necessity of a God | 1:06:06 | 1:06:10 | |
to reward me or punish me. | 1:06:10 | 1:06:13 | |
There has been a tenfold increase in the number of Buddhists | 1:06:13 | 1:06:17 | |
in Europe and America over the last 40 years. | 1:06:17 | 1:06:20 | |
Most observers put the figure at between two to three million practising Buddhists in America, | 1:06:20 | 1:06:26 | |
with the number of Buddhist "sympathisers" estimated at over 10 million. | 1:06:26 | 1:06:30 | |
The His Lai temple is one example of the modern expansionism of Buddhism. | 1:06:32 | 1:06:37 | |
BUDDHIST CHANTING | 1:06:37 | 1:06:40 | |
Many Buddhists come to the His Lai temple for worship... | 1:06:44 | 1:06:48 | |
..others come to practise meditation. | 1:06:48 | 1:06:53 | |
In the West, there's recently been great interest in yoga, | 1:06:56 | 1:06:59 | |
simply as a way to keep fit and as a form of meditation. | 1:06:59 | 1:07:02 | |
Yoga has its roots in Indian traditions that predate both Hinduism and Buddhism | 1:07:02 | 1:07:08 | |
and it's sometimes used by Hindus to assert mind over matter. | 1:07:08 | 1:07:14 | |
For Buddhists, yoga's key purpose is to achieve personal enlightenment. | 1:07:14 | 1:07:19 | |
It is a very ancient philosophy, Buddhism, | 1:07:22 | 1:07:24 | |
but in some ways do you think it is very suited to American life, | 1:07:24 | 1:07:29 | |
because it does have this kind of can-do attitude. | 1:07:29 | 1:07:32 | |
It's very suited to America. | 1:07:32 | 1:07:35 | |
One reason is that we've been materialistic, we're known for it, | 1:07:35 | 1:07:42 | |
and I've found in my experience, it doesn't get you where you want to be. | 1:07:42 | 1:07:46 | |
I can't believe that I'm alone in that, I can't believe that. | 1:07:46 | 1:07:50 | |
It offers reasons why that is. | 1:07:52 | 1:07:56 | |
I'm sure other people, like me, | 1:07:57 | 1:08:00 | |
who can't understand why all this stuff didn't make them happy | 1:08:00 | 1:08:04 | |
would be looking for something else. | 1:08:04 | 1:08:07 | |
I'm not surprised that it is popular. | 1:08:07 | 1:08:13 | |
It's not against any other religion and it's not against science. | 1:08:13 | 1:08:19 | |
It's very in line with everything. | 1:08:19 | 1:08:20 | |
The temple then offers American Buddhists lots of reasons to visit. | 1:08:22 | 1:08:26 | |
But if you're a devotee of Buddhism, then one of your main motivations for coming here | 1:08:26 | 1:08:32 | |
is to seek enlightenment... | 1:08:32 | 1:08:35 | |
..Nirvana. | 1:08:35 | 1:08:37 | |
I'd love to be able to tell you that I've got a textbook definition for what Nirvana is, | 1:08:37 | 1:08:42 | |
but considering the Buddha himself said it was beyond words, beyond logic, | 1:08:42 | 1:08:47 | |
I suspect it is going to be quite a tricky concept to pin down. | 1:08:47 | 1:08:51 | |
Nirvana certainly is a state of mind, | 1:08:53 | 1:08:55 | |
and it's a state of mind | 1:08:55 | 1:08:57 | |
in which you have abolished strong emotions | 1:08:57 | 1:09:01 | |
of very much wanting things | 1:09:01 | 1:09:04 | |
or very much hating things or being confused. | 1:09:04 | 1:09:08 | |
It's a state of mind which you attain, and, at that moment, and thereafter, | 1:09:08 | 1:09:15 | |
you will enjoy a kind of blissful calm. | 1:09:15 | 1:09:19 | |
And that path, is the end of that path, Nirvana, is that your goal? | 1:09:20 | 1:09:25 | |
Yes, Nirvana, enlightenment, full understanding, awakening. | 1:09:25 | 1:09:31 | |
Those are all terms that are very similar and, to me, it's understanding the truth, | 1:09:31 | 1:09:36 | |
understanding what this is, what it really is. | 1:09:36 | 1:09:40 | |
How confident are you that Nirvana is a goal you are going to attain? | 1:09:40 | 1:09:44 | |
I am cautiously optimistic - how about that? | 1:09:44 | 1:09:47 | |
There are people that say that it's very possible, | 1:09:48 | 1:09:53 | |
and these are people that are very smart people and I'm following their advice | 1:09:53 | 1:09:57 | |
and I think it can be done. I think it can be done. | 1:09:57 | 1:10:05 | |
Like so much in Buddhism, Nirvana clearly has to be experienced, not explained. | 1:10:06 | 1:10:13 | |
But for Buddhists, the journey to get there, the path you take, | 1:10:13 | 1:10:17 | |
seems to be as important as the arriving. | 1:10:17 | 1:10:21 | |
Buddhists will tell you that Nirvana has no fixed point in time or space. | 1:10:22 | 1:10:29 | |
That's actually a little ironic because one of the few accepted fixtures of the Buddhist story | 1:10:29 | 1:10:34 | |
is where the Buddha himself found enlightenment. | 1:10:34 | 1:10:38 | |
We're told that that took place in Northern India | 1:10:38 | 1:10:40 | |
under the spreading branches of a peepul tree. | 1:10:40 | 1:10:45 | |
Which is where my quest had started, at Bodhgaya, at this spot | 1:10:48 | 1:10:53 | |
where it's said Buddhist philosophy really began 2,500 years ago. | 1:10:53 | 1:10:59 | |
In this journey I have explored key facets of Buddhist belief | 1:10:59 | 1:11:02 | |
and got a little closer to understanding something vital | 1:11:02 | 1:11:05 | |
about the core of Buddhist philosophy, the Dharma. | 1:11:05 | 1:11:10 | |
The Dharma is simply the way the world is. | 1:11:10 | 1:11:13 | |
We can all best live our lives if we follow a path | 1:11:13 | 1:11:16 | |
that allows us to deal with the world as passionately, as compassionately, | 1:11:16 | 1:11:21 | |
as positively and as wisely as possible. | 1:11:21 | 1:11:26 | |
Now, whatever the permutations and interpretations of Buddhism, | 1:11:26 | 1:11:30 | |
that seems to me to be pretty simple and pretty enlightened. | 1:11:30 | 1:11:36 | |
I've learnt about Karma, how mindful actions impact on our lives, | 1:11:36 | 1:11:41 | |
about Samsara, the cycle of life, birth and death, | 1:11:41 | 1:11:45 | |
about meditation, about Zen, | 1:11:45 | 1:11:49 | |
and the final goal for all Buddhists, Nirvana. | 1:11:49 | 1:11:53 | |
I have seen some of the most beautiful architecture inspired by Buddhist ideas | 1:11:53 | 1:11:58 | |
and how, after 25 centuries, Buddhism still attracts millions across the globe. | 1:11:58 | 1:12:04 | |
A philosophy that is rooted in its ancient past and yet gives character to the modern world. | 1:12:04 | 1:12:10 | |
How Buddhism places the responsibility to realise the truth on all of us. | 1:12:10 | 1:12:17 | |
As Buddhism travelled, it transformed the cultures it came into contact with, | 1:12:17 | 1:12:22 | |
just as it too was transformed. | 1:12:22 | 1:12:25 | |
You wonder if Buddha could ever possibly have imagined the impact | 1:12:25 | 1:12:30 | |
that his ideas would have on human history, | 1:12:30 | 1:12:32 | |
particularly given the one thing he was certain about, | 1:12:32 | 1:12:36 | |
was that impermanence and change were the only things that were definite in this world. | 1:12:36 | 1:12:42 | |
Just listen to this - it's one of his most poetic epithets. | 1:12:42 | 1:12:47 | |
"So shall you think of all this fleeting world. | 1:12:47 | 1:12:50 | |
"A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, | 1:12:50 | 1:12:54 | |
"a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, | 1:12:54 | 1:12:57 | |
"a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream." | 1:12:57 | 1:13:02 | |
Well, the Buddha's dreams of 2,500 years ago are still with us | 1:13:02 | 1:13:09 | |
and they've been made incarnate in one of the most tenacious belief systems of all time | 1:13:09 | 1:13:14 | |
and in some of the most iconic and beautiful monuments in the world. | 1:13:14 | 1:13:21 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 1:13:38 | 1:13:41 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 1:13:41 | 1:13:43 |