Led by The Buddha (Pali Canon) Simulacrum
About this course
One of the five religions a learner may study for OCR GCSE Religious Studies, which requires two religions at the level of Beliefs and Teachings and Practices. This module covers Buddhism in both halves, Theravada and Mahayana.
Your host is The Buddha (Pali Canon) Simulacrum, abstracted from the earliest stratum of the teaching, where the Dhamma is set out in its plainest and most analytical form. This suits the examination, which is built around the Buddha's own framework — the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the marks of existence — and teaches by diagnosis and prescription.
Key terms are given in Pali (with Sanskrit where the spec uses it), and the Theravada understanding is set beside the Mahayana developments, as the examiner requires.
Led by The Buddha (Pali Canon) Simulacrum
The question
What did the Buddha teach about suffering and the way beyond it? You will study his life and Enlightenment, the Dhamma and the Three Marks of Existence (dukkha, anicca, anatta), the Four Noble Truths with the Eightfold Path and Threefold Way, the analysis of the person (the khandas in Theravada; sunyata and buddha-nature in Mahayana), human destiny (arhat, bodhisattva, Buddha, Pure Land), and Buddhist ethics — kamma, compassion, the Precepts, and the Middle Way.
Outcome
You can explain Buddhist beliefs and support them from the suttas, accounting for both Theravada and Mahayana positions and the divergence between the arhat and bodhisattva ideals.
Sub-units
Led by The Buddha (Pali Canon) Simulacrum
The question
How is the path walked in daily life? You will study worship and the types of meditation (samatha, vipassana, metta bhavana, zazen, mindfulness), the sacred places and pilgrimage sites (Bodh Gaya, Sarnath) and the meaning of the Buddha images and mudras, the monastic and lay Sangha and the Ten Precepts, the festivals (Wesak, Vassa, Uposatha, Parinirvana Day, Lama Tsong Khapa Day), and attitudes to death across the Theravada, Tibetan, and Japanese traditions.
Outcome
You can explain Buddhist practices and their relationship to the teaching, and account for the divergences between Buddhist groups in worship, the life of the Sangha, and the rituals of death.
Sub-units