Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College.

For a general introduction of the Hindu history of Buddhist religion, we can see the biography of the historical Buddha as Buddhism 1.0, Nikaya Buddhism as Buddhism 2.0, and Mahayana Buddhism as Buddhism 3.0. These were three stages of the development of the Buddhist religion in the ancient Hindu world before it migrated to other parts of Asia, such as to China, Korea, Japan, the area of Tibet and other areas of South and South Eastern Asia.

Texts of Mahayana Buddhism call itself as a “great vehicle” to help sufferers to reach the ultimate goal of the painless state of Nirvana, while calling its predecessor, the Nikaya form of Buddhism as “Hinayana,” viz., small vehicle, which, literally, is not great enough to reach the ultimate goal. Although today’s Buddhist learners do not need to buy into this apparently very sectarian nomenclature, it is indeed of significance to comprehend how Buddhism evolved before its migration to the non-Hindu world.

We once termed Nikaya Buddhism as a conservative sort of Buddhism in our previous lectures mainly because the following several reasons. Firstly, its philosophy still holds on to, quite strictly, the teaching of Four Noble Truths as the first sermon given by Gautama after his enlightenment, and tries to use organized arguments to reaffirm the sermon’s key concepts such as “no-self,” “co-dependent origination,” “suffering,” etc. In other words, Nikaya Buddhism still sees Buddhist teaching as somewhat a “thing,” and if one wants to reach enlightenment, she must seek this thing of Buddhist teaching at first, which means to read, meditate and practice the “thing,” and then, she can get what she aspires. Secondly, sociologically, this would imply the rigid boundary between religious professionals, viz., those monks and nuns in varying monasteries and religious orders, and lay people. According to the thought of Nikaya Buddhism, the enlightenment of lay people relies upon their rapport with the elite circle of Buddhist monks and nuns. Thirdly, since Buddhist teaching, as it was passed down in varying texts and other material evidences, were treated as a solid thing by Nikaya Buddhism, there was not too much a need for anyone to deify the Buddha so as to evoke his divine aid for the sake of reaching enlightenment. In this stage of Buddhist practice, if one wants to be a Buddhist, either, she needs to support a monastery to seek guidance; or she needs to become a nun herself to be trained of reading Buddhist texts and venerating the historical Buddha as her supreme teacher.

However, if one religion is organized as such, we can anticipate possibilities of new development from within it, since the power of human creativity on religious matters never ceases. To all the three mentioned aspects of Nikaya Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism made significant renovations, and once the renovations done, we would find the potentiality of Buddhism to metamorphose to other forms almost becomes infinite. Starting from around the common era until its migration into the non-Indian world, unique characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism can be summarized as follows.

Firstly, if the teaching of Sunyata (emptiness) based upon the nature of “no-self” (anatman) of things is thought of consistently, there is no reason not to employ it to the Buddhist teaching itself. If Buddhist teaching has no independent self either, then, there is really no legitimacy to prioritize any material evidence (which may include oral and written records of Buddha’s teaching, later commentaries on that, statues, relics, temples, ritual performances, etc.) so as to claim any absolutely necessary means to the Buddhist enlightenment. In other words, any means can be equally adequate to help individuals step on the path of enlightenment, which path to choose would all depends upon how individuals utilize these means for a convenient and practical sake. Therefore, in the most chanted Mahayana text, the Heart Sutra, it says: “There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, up to and including no aging and death and no distinction of aging and death. In the same way, there is no suffering, no source of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no non-attainment.” (assigned reading, p. 127) Read carefully, this text would mean that there is no “four noble truths,” since there is no such a selfed-thing called “four noble truths”; however, there is no “non-four noble truths” either, since the opposite of “four noble truths” has no self too. Hence, whether to take “four noble truths” as one’s target of learning and path of enlightenment will become a secondary and dependent question. According to the Heart Sutra, by merely chanting the mantra of the “perfection of wisdom” – Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhir svaha, one would maintain to be in the state of great spiritual fulfillment, and “thoroughly pacifies all suffering.” By the same token, the same word can be said virtually to any other chosen path as long as it works.

Secondly, using the same logic, the religious goal of Buddhism, nirvana, cannot be treated as a selfed-thing either. In other words, there is really no such an enlightened place with such an enlightened state of mind, which can be separated from the everyday moments of the mundane world, the world of samsara. Therefore, the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (first or second century C.E ?) used a logic of tetralemma to deny four possibilities of characterizing Nirvana: Nirvana is not a thing; Nirvana is not a non-thing; Nirvana is not both a thing and a non-thing; Nirvana is not neither a thing nor a non-thing. Why so? This is because since Nirvana is not a thing according to the consistent logic of the original Buddhist idea of Anatman, every other possibility of the tetralemma cannot be seen as a selfed thing either, since they all depend upon the first statement “nirvana is not a thing.” The conclusion reached by Nagarjuna is that “There is no distinction whatsoever between nirvana and samsara.” (p.130) In other words, one can achieve nirvana at any time and in any place of one’s mundane life as long as she chooses the right path fit for her situation. Together with the first renovation we explained above, this non-solidification of both the nirvana and the Buddhist teaching about nirvana, so-to-speak, makes the boundary between religious professionals and lay people completely unnecessary. In other words, lay people have no less chance than those professionals of reaching nirvana, and they can indeed achieve nirvana in any fashion conceivable to their own unique situations.

After this upgrade of Buddhist thought from its original 1.0 and 2.0 versions to this very radical 3.0 version, two major trends can be discerned before Buddhism’s migration:

Firstly, intellectuals, who like to engage Buddhist teaching in a more sophisticated way, would like to manifest the more intricate conceptual tendency of Mahayana Buddhism in a variety of ways. For instance, the school of “consciousness only” which was initiated by the philosopher Vasabandhu (320-400) developed a very sophisticated theory of human consciousness to serve their needs of Buddhist enlightenment. According to this theory, beyond the normal modes of human consciousness: vision, sound, odor, taste, touch, and the underlying perception of all of them, there is the seventh consciousness called manas which would attach the idea of “self” to both the perceiver and the perceived. Eventually, all these perceptions will be stored as seeds in the eighth consciousness called alayna, or granary consciousness, which will be furthermore reincarnated into the form of individual consciousness in one’s next life. Understood as such, this Buddhist theory of “consciousness only” furnishes an understanding of reincarnation more consistent with the Buddhist commitment to no-self, since what is reincarnated is not any individual self, but a stream of consciousness which contains seeds of perceptions of one’s previous life. For intellectuals who practice this type of consciousness-only Buddhism, the goal of nirvana is reached in the form of realizing the pure form of alayna consciousness which is not affected by any other mode of consciousness contaminated by the seventh one of manas, and this also means that they can eventually abandon the consciousness of self.

However, obviously, people with a favor towards intellectual sophistication merely belong to the minority of humanity. In tandem with this intellectual development of Mahayana Buddhism, we witness a very robust Buddhist movement similar to the development of devotional Hinduism out of its previous ascetic tradition. Namely, lay people believed they can choose their own forms of incarnated Buddha as deities to worship, and hence, to almost seamlessly embed their Buddhist practices with varying mundane concerns of their everyday life. For instance, in order to have a child, a lay person can go to a temple, pray to a Buddha who took charge, and wait for a good result in her household. To get a good afterlife, people can repeat the name of Amida Buddha for ten times with their sincere faith so as to be eventually transferred to a Buddhist paradise called the Pure Land where everything is so perfectly arranged, and no one would be reborn into suffered beings. At the same time, the image of Bodhisattvas became increasingly popular because a Bodhisattvas is an enlightened being who can achieve Buddhahood; however, in order to save other beings from suffering, the Bodhisattvas would simply delay his or her enlightenment, and re-dedicate his or her energy into the mundane world so as to save more and more people from suffering. In comparison, the image of accomplished monks and nuns in Nikaya Buddhism was perceived by this new Buddhist movement as an inferior arhat, who merely selfishly focused upon her own enlightenment without regard to the suffering of ordinary people.

Before concluding this lecture of early Mahayana Buddhism, I hope that you now get a better understanding on why later Buddhism, when it migrated to other parts of the world, can become so diverse and colorful. Since every individual is allowed to choose their own path to get rid of suffering and achieve nirvana, and not any path is prioritized over another, then, you can imagine the growing and diversifying potential of Buddhist thought. In next meeting, we’ll start to discuss the Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen Buddhism, where you will find an abundance of unexpected, “unorthodox,” and indescribable ways of Buddhist enlightenment.

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College!

After discussing the varying yogas in the Bhagavad Gita, it is a perfect occasion for us to start reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. The Lord Krishna taught Arjuna to achieve his total inner equanimity while performing his vital duties in the battlefield, whereas, in the Yoga Sutras, what Patanjali accomplished is that after learning the contemplative Hindu practices as they were indicated by varying classical Hindu writings, for the first time of Hinduism, Patanjali furnishes a systematic elaboration about the philosophy, experience and technique of meditation per its Hindu bent. Since meditation would be such an important, generic theme of our course on Eastern Religions (I do think meditation is the most important religious practice for individuals in the traditions of the so-called “Eastern Religions”), let me explain my approach of teaching meditation.

Firstly, I need to emphasize that meditation is ubiquitous to all major world religious traditions. Nowadays, people normally think of the lotus position in Buddhism whenever the term “meditation” is mentioned; also, whenever the term “yoga” is mentioned, people normally have the idea of the varying stretching postures without particularly thinking of the lotus position of Buddhist meditation. However, all these popular notions about “meditation” are actually quite misleading. If we understand “meditation” as essentially a training of attention, and hence, as being an intensive inner work of human mind while the mind is pursuing varying causes, there is no world religious tradition which does not practice meditation. Accordingly, not only the lotus sitting of Buddhism or the stretching yoga postures of Hinduism [which is called hatha (force) yoga among varying yogas practiced by Hinduism] is meditation, prayers, ritual-performances, sleeping, walking, running, artwork, and a gazillion other aspects of human life can also be considered to be meditative.

Because of the variety of meditative activities that are practiced by human beings in varying religious traditions, I would lay out three major approaches to learn any of them, and these three approaches are technical, experiential, and philosophical.

Technically, we need to pay attention to how religions present their techniques of meditation, viz., how one starts and deepens their meditation in concrete ways. In the Yoga Sutras, we find the “eight limbs of Yogic practice,” starting from moral disciplines which urge meditators to be a good human being in their daily life at the first hand, and then, going through “posture, breath control and withdrawal of senses,” and eventually culminating on how to refine one’s mental state regarding an object in such steps as “concentration (dharana), meditative absorption (dhyana) , and integration (samadhi)”(Yoga Sutras, III.4, translated by Chip Hartranft). The latter three are further called a “perfect discipline,” and with a deepening training of this perfect discipline, meditators can eventually realize their “pure awareness” which remains unmoved, unperturbed, and perfectly peaceful regardless of the changing phenomenal world.

Experientially, which can also be called phenomenologically, we need to study how the experience of meditation in its varying states is described by meditators. This description is an important material for beginning learners to grasp so as to confirm whether they themselves get there or not. For instance, when the Yoga Sutras describes the “steady and easy” posture of yoga, it states poetically “It (the posture) is realized by relaxing one’s effort and resting like the cosmic serpent on the waters of infinity” (Kessler, pp. 75); Also, each of the three steps of the perfect discipline is specified by phenomenological descriptions about what happens to human mind if it is trained as such: “Concentration locks consciousness on a single area” (III.1); “In meditative absorption, the entire perceptual flow is aligned with that object” (III. 2); and “When only the essential nature of the object shines forth, as if formless, integration has arisen” (III, 3). Here, the three steps of perfect discipline of human consciousness is depicted experientially as a process starting from human mind’s endeavor of concentrating on one object, proceeding through steadily and uninterruptedly focusing upon the object, and eventually, letting the object occupy the entire mind so that no split between subject and object avails. Obviously, all these phenomenological descriptions are quite helpful if a reader of the text tries not only to intellectually understand it, but also starts to practice meditation.

Philosophically, we need to attend to how meditators in their writings weave every piece of their meditative experiences together, so as to articulate the truth or the broad meaning of such experiences. Patanjali was influenced by a Hindu philosophical school called Sankhya, and believes that the world of “pure awareness” is separated from and ultimately unperturbed by the material, natural world. Varying patterns of human consciousness such as desires, memory , latent impressions and intelligence for Patanjali also evolves from the natural world, and hence, Patanjali defines the goal of meditation is to “still the patterning of consciousness,” and describes the final state of yoga as such: “Freedom is at hand when the fundamental qualifies of nature, each of their transformations witnessed at the moment of its inception, are recognized as irrelevant to pure awareness; it stands alone, grounded in its very nature, the pure seeing. That is all.” (IV. 34). It is quite obvious that Patanjali’s yoga practice is grounded in an elaborate philosophy, and this philosophy states both its ethical ways of human living and also its ultimate soteriological goal of achieving ultimate freedom.

These three aspects of meditation are normally intertwined in given contemplative traditions. Techniques affect how meditators experience, the experiences inform their philosophies, while their philosophies also color and fashion how they report their experiences. If we look at these three aspects cross-traditionally, we’ll find a fascinating phenomenon that each of these aspects can be borrowed, revised, and accommodated within a new tradition so as to form a new relatively stable pattern of meditative style. For instance, Buddhists may use the same techniques of posture and breath control as articulated by Patanjali, but practice them using a different philosophy. For Buddhists, they do not typically think of the goal of meditation as discovering one’s genuine self since they believe nothing has a self, and accordingly, their vision about the position and destiny of human beings in the ever-changing karmic world is also different from the Yoga Sutras’ Hindu view. So, the question is: as beginning learners, what shall we do in face of this vast and complex body of meditation literature accumulated by so many religious traditions so far?

Two suggestions from me at this beginning stage of your learning and practice of meditation:

• (1) Whenever learning meditation from a given tradition or an established teacher, practitioners should broadly and critically examine all the three major aspects of meditation, and on the basis of this, form their own way of contemplative practice fit for their own lifestyle. This implies that you may borrow techniques from a certain tradition without necessarily buying into its philosophy; also, it may imply that you can feel differently from the established meditators in a given tradition during your meditating process, but as long as you have your own philosophy to coherently and positively connect your practice with other aspects of human life, the difference is warranted. In other words, while practicing meditation, we need to dedicatedly practice it while critically thinking over it.
• (2) For major meditative traditions in the world, they normally have their established ways to solidify the three major aspects into a coherent whole. This means that in order to reach a certain goal, it would be more practical for beginning learners to focus upon such an established way for a certain period of time. Therefore, it will do a disservice to beginning learners of meditation to delve into varying traditions superficially, and then, to hastily try to form their own meditative style. More ideally, beginning learners should find a teacher fit for their initial preference, practice that particular style for a while, and see whether it works and to what extent it works before deciding to change the approach or starting to create synthetically one’s own. After all, as similar to learning any other subject, a certain degree of dedication is still necessary for learning meditation.

Finally, in order to facilitate your learning and practice of meditation, I made a series of youtube videos with attached scripts about how to meditate in a Confucian approach. Some of these videos contain concrete guidance about how to breathe, sit, walk, etc. So hopefully, while pursuing the course, you can start to practice physically what you have learned intellectually. But please do not forget, while teaching meditation, my hope is not to promote any religion, but to have you critically study meditation in an integrative way so as to form your own unique contemplative lifestyle.

Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

As a Ru scholar, when I pursue inter-religious studies, I tend to favor worldviews which focus on humans’ individual and social life here and now, no matter how sublime or even mystical that worldview’s metaphysical framework could look like. Unfortunately, it is not the case that all religions help to concentrate people’s attention here and now; quite often, the contrast between this world vs the other world, in whatever way this other world may be envisioned, constitutes a perennial theme for many religions which also happen to have varying solutions to the tension of human life fomented by the contrast.

Interestingly enough, we find the grapple with such a tension is persistent within the tradition of Hinduism itself. For instance, the Vedas in general is very this-worldly oriented, since these earliest holy texts of Hinduism prescribe duties and roles for each class of the society, and hence, care about social order and welfare more than anything else. However, in comparison, the Upanishads, as analyzed in previously units, views that all those elaborated ritual prescriptions in the Vedas do not have ultimate value in helping individuals to be liberated from the endlessly suffering life cycle of samsara. Instead, the Upanishads urges individuals to leave the society, enter forests and undergo harsh ascetic practices in order to find their genuine Self, Ataman, to eventually get united with Brahman and achieve individual spiritual liberation. Seen from this prospective, the Upanishads is other-worldly oriented in both its philosophy and its practice.

What the Bhagavad Gita achieves is to redirect our spiritual attention from the sublime other-worldliness of the Upanishads back to the all too real world perceived by the Vedas, but while doing so, the Bhagavad Gita also synthesizes key insights from both the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions so as to present a worldview which is simultaneously metaphysically sublime and socially grounded. In a certain sense, this is very similar to what the Ruist canon, called Zhong Yong (which we will discuss later), tries to achieve: to stay centered (Zhong) in the everyday world (yong).

The ethical dilemma that the protagonist of the epic, Arjuna, faces is all too familiar to everyday human life: on the one hand, as a warrior, Arjuna has to fulfill his duty to fight a just war because his uncle, the infamous Duryodhana, was a wicked and relentless ruler who employed all plots to invade and occupy the land originally belonging to Arjuna’s father. On the other hand, if Arjuna fought the war, he would have to kill his own family relatives, teachers, and friends who were politically affiliated to the tribe of Duryodhana. So, in a word, if we were Arjuna, the situation would be like this: the most evil and dangerous person in the world happens to be our close family member, and as a public officer, we have to punish and kill him in order to recover the order for the whole world.

None of the two wisdom traditions, the Vedas and the Upanishads, can provide answers to Arjuna’s dilemma. If according to the Vedas, the fulfillment of Arjuna’s warrior duties would lead to dire consequences; however, if according to the Upanishads, fleeing the battlefield and then meditating in forests seem a rather shameful, and even pointless non-starter for a warrior like Arjuna who is needed by the people living on the endangered land. So, what should Arjuna do?

The persuasion given by Arjuna’s charioteer, who is also an avatar of the Hindu God Krishna, is threefold, which is also three different kinds of “Yoga,” viz., disciplines: the jnanayoga, the discipline of knowledge; karmayoga, the discipline of action; and bhaktiyoga, the discipline of devotion.

In the jnanayoga, the Lord Krishna tried to convince Arjuna through revealing a knowledge, a truth about human “self”: the genuine human self is Atman, and Atman is indestructible. It endures in multiple life cycles, and therefore, people killed on the battleground are not really dead. In this way, Bhagavad Gita employs the philosophy of Upanishads for a spiritual persuasion which directs Arjuna’s attention to human life here and now.

In the karmayoga, the Lord Krishna stated that in order to achieve ultimate spiritual liberation, Arjuna still needs to fulfill his duty, just as the Vedas once prescribes to a warrior. However, Arjuna needs to perform his duty without regard to its consequences, and hence, is expected to achieve a perfect inner equanimity, peace and serenity without being distracted by any outside realities during the middle of Arjuna’s pursuit of the dutiful deeds. In this way, Bhagavad Gita affirms the duty and ritual system elaborated by the Vedas, but re-presents it using the spiritual practice of the Upanishads, and ultimately, urges for a sublime spiritual liberation within situations of human life here and now.

Finally, in the bhaktiyoga, the Lord Krishna realizes that ordinary human beings may be very difficult to achieve the sublime this-worldliness described above, and therefore, Krishna urges Arjuna to unswervingly devote his attention and energies to the worship of Himself, so that Arjuna can find a spiritual anchor conveniently and practically in his everyday mundane life. In comparison to the Vedas and the Upanishads, this devotional dimension of Bhagavad Gita is a unique contribution, and makes the spiritual resources of the Hindu religion not limited in elite circles of priests and hermit renunciates, but widely accessible to ordinary human beings. In the later medieval Hinduism, this bhaktiyoga of the Bhagavad Gita was developed into a full devotional movement, and ever since, Hindu people in varying times and places can choose their favorite god or goddess to worship in order to reach their spiritual liberation in their everyday life.

Sincerely, I am always delightful to read the Bhagavad Gita because of the comprehensiveness that it presents about Hindu spirituality. The genre of its writing, an epic dialogue, is also accessible to readers with its philosophical rigor and literary taste. What I talked about so far is just the surface of this incredibly rich Hindu text, and I decide not to talk any more lest it deprives you of the pleasure of reading it yourself.

Hallo, This is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College for the course of “Comparative Religion: Eastern.”

In the first unit of the course, I talked about my interest in religious studies has been driven by two questions I asked to myself triggered by my initial religious experience: what is the meaning of the experience, and how to maintain it? In varying world religious traditions, the first question is answered by the so-called discipline of “theology,” the central concern of which is about exploring whether there is some “ultimate reality” which conditions all other realities while itself being able to provide a panoramic, holistic view towards all realities. Depending upon approaches taken by religions, the “ultimate reality” has its varying names and specifications: Yahweh, God, Allah, Brahman, Sunyata, Tian, Dao, etc.

So, what is religious experience all about? The answer given by a religion is normally that it is about an individual’s personal experience of a sort of ultimate reality. And then, how to maintain it? Through varying religious practices, such as the participation of liturgy, the performance of ritual, chanting, dancing, meditation, prayer, etc. Personally, I believe the Confucian tradition, or should we call, the Ru tradition, provides good answers to both of these two questions, and thus, my personal lifestyle is anchored in such a tradition and in this sense, you can also say my faith is in Ruism. However, this personal orientation is definitely based upon my study of a variety of traditions. In particular, in order to figure out which sort of “theology” is the best fit, we do not only need to learn historical writings within a given tradition; we also need to broadly study varying subjects and disciplines so that we can make sure the consistency and interconnection between one’s theology and a gazillion other aspects of human life and civilization. During the process, one’s theological view could surely be revised and adapted, and in my candid view, it is among the most rewarding pursuits via anchored, yet broad religious studies that one can continually line up one’s theology together with evolving human experience step by step. At least, this way of religious studies can help individuals to find the “wholeness” of one’s life, and thus, re-obtain a certain kind of deep “integrity” for one’s life.

While studying varying theologies in the world, a basic contrast we can find regarding how religions conceptualize their ultimate reality is theism vs non-theism. Here, I carefully choose the term “non-theism” rather than “atheism” because atheism, such as pure naturalism informed by natural science to affirm nothing holy about the world or Marxism which sees all religions as the opium of human spirit utilized by a ruling class to oppress the others, is an antithesis to the traditional Judeo-Christian theism, and hence, not typically considered as a religious worldview. However, “non-theism” denies that ultimate reality can be conceived as an omnipotent personal God or a supreme deity out of the consideration that a personal God cannot be so “ultimate” as to be able to condition all other realities to provide that needed panoramic worldview. Instead, non-theism believes that the genuinely ultimate reality shall be an all-pervading consciousness without a super agency to issue the consciousness, an all-encompassing energy-field, or simply an ever-generating life-force which is itself original, holy, all powerful, but just cannot be conceptualized as a personal God. In other words, if “atheism” is an antithesis of theism, “non-theism” just presents a different theology from theism, and using a further analysis which we will indicate in Hinduism, “non-theism” can even be compatible with theism since God or gods can still be worshiped within an overall non-theistic theological framework.

In the two foundational scriptures of Hinduism, the Vedas and the Upanishads (the Upanishads is actually part of the Vedas, but it was written significantly later and presented a distinctive style of Hindu spirituality, so scholars normally mention these two scriptures separately), the contrast between theism and non-theism is prominent, with theism being practically prioritized while non-theism being theologically prioritized. Let me explain why this is so in the following.

“Theism” is prioritized practically in the Vedas because 1) the social order of ancient Indian civilization needs a cosmic justification, and thus, as exemplified by the mythology of Purusha (the Man, in the assigned reading pp. 54, section 10.90), the sacrifice of varying parts of the body of this primordial holy giant leads to the creation of the caste system, which is a major organizational principle of ancient Indian society. And 2) the being and order of natural phenomena observed by human beings need to be explained, and hence, the sequence of creation based upon the activities of “a single body shaped like a man” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishads, pp.55, ) gives rise to reasons why varying kinds of creatures are generated and how humans can have a secured relationship with them via the performance of varying rituals. In other words, since the central concern of the Vedic Hinduism is to maintain social order while increasing social welfare, the theology of theism is prioritized so that an elaborated ritual system can be designed and implemented to maintain a rapport with varying gods and goddesses.

However, In the Vedas, particularly in the Upanishads, we discover an even stronger theme of “non-theism” which often acts as an unexpected intruder to the already elaborated theistic worldview, and thus, furnishes an indescribable philosophical and theological depth to Hindu spirituality. For instance, in the Creation Hymn of the Rig Veda, the earliest Veda that we can read, the existence of “gods” is depicted as “came afterwards,” whereas the earliest being in the world is just a life force or pure desire which “breathed, windless, by its own impulse” (Hymn 10.129, pp. 55). Also, in chapter one of the Brihada’ranyaka Upanishads, the creation made by the single body shaped like a man is finally depicted as “brahman’s super-creation,” which gives rise to all the immortal “gods.” (pp.56) Obviously, what is genuinely ultimate in these Vedic verses is thought of as being beyond what any theistic concept can capture. In other parts of the Upanishads, we can also discern some philosophical reason why non-theism is thought of as being more ultimate than theism. If the ultimate reality is a personal God, then, this supreme person will have to perceive the world and varying worldly creatures as an object while Himself being a perceiver. In this case, the entire realm of being will have to be divided as a perceiver versus the perceived, which, in the view of those Upanishadic authors, is unfortunate and inadequate since in the experience of deep meditation, everything in the universe merges into One, and thus, what is ultimate per se must not be dualistic. Ultimately, this Upanishadic non-dualism (assigned reading, pp. 57) gives rise to a typical trope used prevalently by the medieval tradition of Vedanta Hinduism, viz., ultimate reality as an all-encompassing, infinite, yet joyful consciousness without any division.

This deep spiritual vision of non-duality is based upon sophisticated philosophizing and ascetic religious practice, but once achieved, it is in a great tension with the theistic version of Hindu spirituality which emphasizes social order based upon distinctions more than individual liberation based upon non-distinction. More importantly, not everybody’s spiritual capacity is up to this sort of elite religious lifestyle of Upanishadic renunciates, and typically, ordinary humans’ religious practice needs something, such as gods or goddesses, to hold on to so as to devote and facilitate their everyday spiritual life. Therefore, eventually, the way that ancient Hinduism solves this tension is to put non-theism as theologically prior, but theism as practically prior. In more concrete terms, this means that individuals will be expected to fulfill their duties and roles within a given stratified human society, and choose the god or goddess whom they feel right and good to worship; however, individuals also need to realize that the sake of performing duties is not just for maintaining social order, and the devotion to one’s personal gods is not just for their individual practical needs either. Ultimately, beyond these duties, roles, and devoted gods, there is something even more ultimate, more universalistic and more grounding which can bring everything in the world into a unified whole. In this way, the journey of Hindu spirituality expects individuals to achieve their spiritual liberation simultaneously and seamlessly in the process of living out their everyday social life here and now.

We will find such a synthesis in the text of Bhagavad Gita, and which will be the topic of our next unit.

Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College.

The first religion that we will learn for quite a deal in the course of Comparative Religion: Eastern is Hinduism. This order of learning is not only because Hinduism, as one of the most affiliated traditions in the world, is also the eldest living one. More importantly, the complexity and richness of Hinduism would just highlight every purpose of religious studies in college, which we discussed in my last video, to an unprecedented extent.

The first and foremost thing we need to know about “Hinduism” is that “Hinduism” is a somewhat misleading term. If we call some religious phenomenon as “-ism,” the term seems to suggest that there must be a central authority, a set of settled scriptures, a clearly articulated body of doctrines, and an authorized series of personal and communal ritual-performance for the thing that is called such a “-ism,” just like Catholicism or other kinds of established Christianity. However, none of these assumptions work in the case of “Hinduism.” The term “Hindu” derives from the Sanskrit “Sindhu,” which means “a large body of water.” Originally, it was used in Arabic to refer to the people who lived in the Indus Valley, which is indeed covered by a large body of rivers and waters. It was not until the arrival of European colonizers that “Hinduism” was coined up by European scholars as a collective term for the religious beliefs and practices of some of the people who live in India, notably not including the people who lived in India but practiced religions not deemed as indigenous (such as Islam). In other words, since the term “Hindu” was originally a geographic term, and then, used by aliens to designate vaguely everything that was thought of religiously as being indigenous to the people living in that area, an immediate question we can ask is that: did those indigenous people practice the same religion?

The trickiness of this question is that, as partly argued by the assigned reading (p.42), there are strong reasons for both the “yes” and “no” answers to the question.

For the No side, scholars may cite that for each stance advocated by religious practitioners in the so-called “Hinduism,” you can always find a contradictory or simply different stance in the same tradition, and in general, these diverse views of religion are abundantly tolerated and lavishly practiced throughout the entire Hindu history. This is not only true to varying views within the so-called Hindu tradition; the toleration is also applicable to apparently non-Hindu traditions. For instance, in history, non-Hindu traditions such as Islam and Christianity all once had a strong hold on certain portions of the Hindu population; however, as a Hindu practitioner, one can easily see Jesus or Allah as a legitimate God who serves the specific need of the people who worship them, but ultimately, in the eyes of this Hindu practitioner, these Gods, together with varying Gods and Goddesses worshiped by Hindu people in villages and cities, are just the many manifestations of the same Ultimate Reality, the same God, Brahman or whichever name you would like to choose to call it. Oddly, even for indigenous traditions that deny such an existence of ultimate reality, such as Buddhism, the founders of these traditions, such as Siddhartha Gautama in the same case, can still be seen as a holy person that reveals certain features of Ultimate Reality, and thus, serves the specific need of their followers. As a consequence, the statue of Buddha can be readily observed in India which is worshiped by devotees with their special religious dispositions. In a word, the so-called Hindu tradition really indicates an extremely accommodating, tolerating and inclusive nature that we can describe it as a gigantic melting pot which leaves out nothing that would like to get in and does not abandon anything that has already arrived.

Nevertheless, for the “Yes” answer, you’ll also find many scholars, particularly Hindu scholars, who may strongly advocate that “Hinduism” can be used as a collective name to refer to the long-standing cultural and religious legacy of the Hindu nation. For these scholars, the seemingly ultra-diverse feature of Hinduism is a strength, rather than a weakness. It speaks to the extraordinarily vibrant and dynamic nature of Hinduism, and therefore, provides a rich resource to solidify a Hindu identity in the modern world. More importantly, if we learn details of the Hindu history, we’ll frequently find cases where religious thinkers and practitioners would intend to synthesize all available religious sources before them, although the authenticity of these syntheses themselves succumbed to constant debate, contestation and adaptation. Since “synthesis” is not a totally unfamiliar phenomenon to the so-called Hindu tradition, we cannot deny the possibility of the unity of Hinduism either.

So, what is my take on this question, the one about the unity vs diversity of the so-called Hindu tradition?

In my view, the unity of Hinduism is best understood as a long lineage of human trials and endeavors to grapple with shared both local and large-scaled questions, rather than any read-made, closed system of answers. Since the lineage is essentially a dynamic process of grappling with conundrums, rather than dictating answers to them, we can also understand that the unity of Hinduism is a fluid, evolving, and essentially kinematic unity.

In more concrete terms, I would indicate this dynamic, unfolding unity of Hinduism in three of its foundational texts, which we will focus upon in our later learning. And these texts are the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.

The central concern of Vedic Hinduism, as it lies at the very early beginning of the Hindu civilization, is how to maintain social order and increase social welfare of all humans. The solution the Vedas provides is to assign roles and duties to each class of the society, and a class of priesthood will take charge of presiding over the performance of varying rituals so as to maintain the social order. A notable instance in this regard is the creation of a caste system and its cosmological justification in the Vedas, through which the highest class, the priesthood, is charged with performing rituals so as to maintain the harmonized order between human society and the entire cosmos.

However, humans have their intrinsic individual needs of spiritual transformation regardless of classes and social roles. Therefore, in the Upanishadic Hinduism, we find a strong individualistic element of Hindu spirituality which defies any non-egalitarian prescription of religious life. Here, the essential goal of human life is thought of as rediscovering one’s genuine self, which is called Atman, and its liberation consists in a union with Brahman, the ultimate reality which creates and sustains the entire universe. Accordingly, the practice of Upanishadic Hinduism is very ascetic. One is encouraged to become a renunciate to abandon one’s household so as to enter a forest for a prolonged period of spiritual practice in order to achieve Moksha, the final spiritual liberation in terms of the union between Atman and Brahman.

However, the path to religious asceticism is philosophically complicated and practically arduous, which is not fit for every human being. More importantly, if all humans abandoned their civilization and went to forests, the flourishing of human society would become inconceivable. Therefore, in the time of the composition of the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism developed a strong “devotional” dimension to re-develop a this-worldly oriented ethics and spirituality. Its solution to the tension between individual liberation and social welfare is that as long as individuals fulfill their duties regardless of consequences, they can achieve Moksha outside of the forest, here and now. Individuals are encouraged to choose whatever God they find intimacy with to worship, and their devotion to such a worship will help them to live a religiously liberating life without undergoing all those harsh, ascetic disciplines.

The text of Bhagavad Gita was written before the common era, and after that, Hinduism continually evolved, and indicated the extraordinary diverse nature which we analyzed before. However, the lineage of thinking and practice as indicated by the sequence of Vedas – Upanishads – Gita in terms of “social welfare” – “individual liberation” – “liberation in society” provides a shared body of terms, themes and questions for all later development of Hinduism to inherit, unpack, enrich, and diversify.

Honestly, although I have taught Hinduism for several times before, I still feel greatly fascinated by the endless story about the evolution of the so-called Hindu tradition. I am amazed by its spiritual depth, philosophical rigor, and diverse and colorful religious practices. I believe this is among the traditions you can get the most out of from the perspective of college religious studies, and I look forward to hearing your learning experience of it during the course.