Grupp Buddhist Philosophy Study Guide 1

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Study Guide 1: Buddhist Philospohy

Semester: Spring 2007

Jeffrey Grupp, Department of Philosophy

Indiana University Northwest

www.AbstractAtom.com

>>Click here to go to the class syllabus

FIRST HALF OF THE SEMESTER STUDY GUIDE:

Unit 1: Buddhist Psychology in India

Reading assignments (will be assigned incrementally during lectures)

	Buddahist Psychology, by de Silva, chapters 1-4
	Buddhist Ethics, by Peter Harvey, pages 1-40
	Buddaha, Dhammapada
	*Harvey: An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics, Chapter 1*

Topics covered:

Life of Buddha

Specific details of the two principle tenets of Buddhist psychology: recognition of suffering and doing something about it (meditation)

	cease to participate
	refocus attention
	proper understanding of culture
	mental illness = suffering
	attention and introspection
	going beyond polarized thought

Film assignments: Clips from Little Buddha, Siddartha, Sling Blade

Basics of Buddhist psychology

	behavior and action does not matter
	culture is sickened
	you are right, the world is wrong
	Buddhist psychology versus Western psychology
	feeling, sensation, and cognition
	desire is not satiated, and only leads to dissatisfaction, hate, violence, and misery
	emotions as inbuilt stimulus-response devices
	humans as helpless to the content of their thoughts (this was covered 2/5/07)
	diagram of the directions the human observer can look: 1. external (dukka) and 2. internal (nirvanic)

Four noble truths:

All life is suffering (attention outward versus inward, inner versus outer arrow)

Suffering is caused by desire

There is a cure of suffering

The cure is the eightfold path

	The Eightfold path
	Eightfold path's tenet of mindfulness

Unit 2: Buddhist Physics in India: Reality, Energy, Atoms

Reading assignments (will be assigned incrementally during lectures)

Required readings:

Grupp, "Mereological Nihilism: Quantum Atomism and the Impossibility of Material Constitution"

Grupp, "The R-Theory of Time, or Replacement Presentism: The Buddhist Philosophy of Time" (pages TBA)

Kane, Supersymmetry (pages 1-71)

Dreyfus, Recognizing Reality (pages 1-154)

Optional readings:

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew23265.htm

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/david6.htm

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew91343.htm

In class film assignment: Clips from The Matrix, Lost Highway

Topics covered:

	Metaphsics
	Buddhist rejection of metaphysics
	Physics
	Idealism
	Energy
	Consciousness
	Quantum particles / quantum abstract atoms
	Mereological nihilism
	Emptiness / vibration / momentariness / R-theory of time
	Time
	Presentism
	Cymatics
	R-theory
	Properties
	Conceptualism
	Realism
	Blob theory
	Nirvana
	Levels of reality
	Dharmakirti
	Dignaga
	Nagarjuna
	Momentariness (Buddhist atoms flashing in and out of existence)

Test 1 will be some time around the first week in March