Tip: While the audio is playing, you should take notes. Try to identify main points if possible. After listening to the audio clip, you will be given five to six multiple choice questions. You will not be given a transcript or be allowed to listen to the recording again.   Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture from a world religions class and then answer the questions. Female Professor: So, recall that we’ve been looking at how Buddhism in China has evolved in many different directions. Adapting the religion from its Indian origins into a uh…Chinese context had inherent difficulties, due... Show more

Tip: While the audio is playing, you should take notes.

Try to identify main points if possible. After listening to the audio clip, you will be given five to six multiple choice questions. You will not be given a transcript or be allowed to listen to the recording again.

 

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture from a world religions class and then answer the questions.
Female Professor: So, recall that we’ve been looking at how Buddhism in China has evolved in many different directions. Adapting the religion from its Indian origins into a uh…Chinese context had inherent difficulties, due to the differences in culture, language, and epistemologies. This left Buddhism in an especially malleable state in China, which um…provides some explanation as to how so many different forms of Buddhism came to exist. Each branch of Buddhism takes a different approach in the recruitment and education of followers. When followers of the same religion begin to disagree on fundamental issues, the religion inevitably splits to form two new interpretations of the original. Today, we are going to talk about the first of these splits, which resulted in the formation of the Mahayana and Theravada branches of Buddhism.
Theravada Buddhism is based on the 'Four Noble Truths': all known existence is suffering, suffering is caused by desire, one must eliminate desire to eliminate suffering, and one must follow the eightfold path in order to eliminate desire. This eightfold path consisted of maintaining the Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and uh…Right Concentration. Theravada Buddhism focused a great deal on the last section of the eightfold path, which was meditation, so a great deal of one's time was to be dedicated to deep mediation. This made Theravada Buddhism an esoteric religion because the people of the lower and middle classes were unable to devote so much time to meditation. Essentially, only the um…highest classes were able to dedicate their lives to this, because they were the only classes with sufficient leisure time.
Mahayana Buddhists believed that the Theravada form was inaccessible to the great majority of people, due to the extreme emphasis on meditation. The Mahayana Buddhists disagreed so much with the Theravada Buddhists that they even referred to Theravada as Hinayana, or “The Lesser Vehicle.”
Actually, this is an important distinction and warrants a pause in our discussion just to reiterate. Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism differ to a great extent in the basic ideology of attracting new followers. Theravada essentially makes little effort to include those who are unable to adhere to the requirements of their religion. The Mahayana Buddhists designed their religion to appeal to a great number of people, you know, basically to be more convenient and understandable to the illiterate masses.
I know we’ve only just started to scratch the surface here and there is a lot of layers we’ll get to uncover about these sects in the coming days, but in an effort to not overwhelm you, let’s end here a bit early and pick up next class.

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