Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hinduism
Vedas Vishnu
Hinduism
The term refers to the collect faiths that originated in India. Hinduism does not have a clear origin. There is not one holy book or text. There is not a single founder.
Shaivism
Shiva The supreme being and creator of the universe. Parvati, Sakti- wife Ganesha-child Nandi- Bull
Saktism
Sakti- wife of Siva, the female part of the universe. Destroyer or destructive force in this realm.
Vaisnavism
Vishnu- Is a personal god. Protector in this realm The Buddha was an incarnation of the God Vishnu according to Hindus.
Vedas
Those who know it, do not speak it Those who speak it, do not know it.
Vedic Scriptures
Are writing that reveal the hidden nature of reality. The Vedas were the religious writings of the Aryans, a nomadic people that invaded India in the around 1500 B.C. Hold the universe to be one, monism.
Samsara
Samsara- The cycle of birth and death. Humans are basically good, but are caught up in a cycle of desire of and suffering that is a direct result of ignorance and ego. Humans are tormented by many desires. Desire is the root of evil.
Karma
Karma- chain of causes & consequences Actions we perform today can have consequences for us far into the future all of our actions will eventually have consequences.
Nirvana
Nirvana- permanent liberation from life Liberation from the cycle of samsara, we cease to exist and become one with the universe.
Buddhism
Buddha Four Noble Truths Eightfold Path
Buddhism
A philosophical tradition, founded by Gautama Siddhartha Buddha in the fifth century b.c., that took on various forms as a religion and spread throughout Asia; It is a branch of Hinduism Buddhism attempts to help the individual conquer the suffering and mutability of human existence through the elimination of desire and ego and attainment of the state of nirvana.
The way or practice recommended in Buddhism that includes: Right View, Right Aim, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Living, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Contemplation.
Eightfold Path
Islamic Philosophy
Al-Kindi Al-Farabi Avicenna Al-Ghazali Averroes Sufism
Mulla Sadra & Kabir
Neo-Platonism
A further development of Platonic philosophy under the influence of Aristotelian and Pythagorean philosophy and Christian mysticism; it flourished between the third and sixth centuries, stressing a mystical intuition of the highest One or God, a transcendent source of all being.
Al-Kindi
A ninth-century Islamic thinker, used Greek ideas to define God as an absolute and transcendent being. God created the world by means of his will. All of reality comes from God.
Al-Farabi
A ninth-century Islamic philosopher, posited the philosopher-prophet as the one providing the necessary illumination for his society. Also claimed God to be Absolute Being, and that God was the first cause. He based this view on Aristotles argument of the unmoved mover.
Avicenna
A tenth-century Islamic thinker, felt that there is a parallelism between philosophy and theology. Arabian physician and philosopher, born in 980; died at Hamadan, in Northern Persia, 1037. Avicenna was actually Persian, not Arabian.
Speculative Philosophy
Speculative philosophy is divided into the inferior science physics, and middle science (mathematics), and the superior science (metaphysics including theology).
Practical philosophy
Practical philosophy is divided into ethics (which considers man as an individual); economics (which considers man as a member of domestic society); and politics (which considers man as a member of civil society).
Conceptualist
A favourite principle of Avicenna, which is quoted not only by Averroes was intellectus in formis agit universalitatem, that is, the universality of our ideas is the result of the activity of the mind itself. Avicenna is a conceptualist. The mind makes ideas real.
Al-Ghazali
A late eleventh-century and early-twelfthcentury Islamic philosopher, attacked Avicenna regarding the eternity of the world and the reduction of religious law to a mere symbol of higher truths.
Averros
Arabian philosopher, astronomer, and writer on jurisprudence; born in 1126; died at Morocco, 1198. A twelfth-century Islamic thinker, was thought of as holding two separate truths, that of religion and that of philosophy.
Sufism
Represents a mystical, theosophical, and ascetic strain of Muslim belief that seeks union with God (Allah).
Mulla Sadra
A late sixteenth- and early-seventeenthcentury thinker who was influenced by the mystical tendencies in Neo-Platonism, sought a return to the first principle of being.
Kabir
A late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenthcentury Indian poet, was considered one of the great mystical poets in the tradition of Sufism.
Taoism
Lao Tzu Chuang Tzu Sun Tzu Lieh Tzu Yin and Yang
Tao
Taoism is based on the idea that behind all material things and all the change in the world lies one fundamental, universal principle: the Way or Tao.
Tao Continued
This principle gives rise to all existence and governs everything, all change and all life. Behind the bewildering multiplicity and contradictions of the world lies a single unity, the Tao. The purpose of human life, then, is to live life according to the Tao, which requires passivity, calm, non-striving (wu wei ), humility, and lack of planning, for to plan is to go against the Tao.
Lao Tzu
Founder of Taoism, held that the Tao is ineffable and beyond our ability to alter. He emphasized the importance of effortless nonstriving.
Tao Te Ching
The whole world recognizes the beautiful as the beautiful, yet this is the ugly; the whole world recognizes the good as the good, yet this is bad. Thus Something and Nothing produce each other. The difficult and the easy complement each other
Seek peace
Lao Tzu believed that human life, like everything else in the universe, is constantly influenced by outside forces. He believed "simplicity" to be the key to truth and freedom. Lao Tzu encouraged his followers to observe, and seek to understand the laws of nature; to develop intuition and build up personal power; and to use that power to lead life with love, and without force.
The way
Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible. These three are indefinable, they are one. From above it is not bright;
Chuang Tzu
The most important Taoist after Lao Tzu and stressed the equality of opposites and the danger of usefulness.
Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu A sixth-century B.C. Taoist philosopher and general, applied Taoist philosophy to military strategy. Some scholars have concluded that Sun Tzu's work was actually authored by unknown Chinese philosophers and that Sun Tzu did not actually exist as a historical figure. There is more evidence to support this theory than the traditional one of Sun Tzu as an individual historical figure.
Lieh Tzu
Lieh Tzu was born around 450 B.C. As for the events of his lifetime, his trade etc. we know nothing. Wrote book: The Perfect Emptiness
5 agents or causes
The yin and yang accomplish changes in the universe through the five material agents, or wu hsing , which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome one another. Yin-yang and the five agents explain all events within the universe..
Everything is explained
All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change.
Cyclical existence
This production of yin from yang and yang from yin occurs cyclically and constantly, so that no one principle continually dominates the other or determines the other. All opposites that one experienceshealth and sickness, wealth and poverty, power and submissioncan be explained in reference to the temporary dominance of one principle over the other. Since no one principle dominates eternally, that means that all conditions are subject to change into their opposites.
Confucianism
Confucius Mencius
Confucius
Founder of the most dominant system of Chinese thought, emphasized the perfectibility of people as well as their ability to affect things for the better.
Confucius himself had a simple moral and political teaching: to love others; to honor one's parents; to do what is right instead of what is of advantage; to practice "reciprocity," i.e. "don't do to others what you would not want yourself"; to rule by moral example instead of by force and violence; and so forth.
Self Control
Confucius thought that government by laws and punishments could keep people in line, but government by example of virtue and good manners would enable them to control themselves (Analects II:3). "The way the wind blows, that's the way the grass bends" (Analects XII:19).
Mencius
A Confucian thinker second in importance to Confucius. One cannot discuss Confucianism without at least mentioning the man the Chinese call "The Second Sage," Meng Tzu, or, in Latinized form, Mencius (372-289 B.C.) Mencius, like Confucius, concerned himself entirely with political theory and political practice; he spent his life bouncing from one feudal court to another trying to find some ruler who would follow his teachings.
Radical Thinker
Mencius several times throughout Chinese history has been regarded as a potentially "dangerous" author, leading at times to outright banning of his book. This is because Mencius developed a very early form of what was to be called in modern times the "social contract."
Zen Buddhism
Zen Chan Hui Neng Murasaki Shikibu Dogen Kigen Samurai
Zen
A form of Buddhism that reached its zenith in China and later developed in Japan, Korea, and the West; its name (Chinese Ch'an, Japanese Zen) derives from the Sanskrit dhyana (meditation). In early China, the central tenet of Zen Buddhism was meditation rather than adherence to a particular scripture.
Chan
Chinese Zen Buddhism.
Hui Neng
Sixth patriarch of Chinese Zen, emphasized the oneness of all things.
Murasaki Shikibu
An influential Japanese Mahayana Buddhist philosopher of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, held that women were responsible moral agents who were capable of enlightenment and could influence their destines, reach nirvana, and achieve salvation.
Dogen Kigen
A Japanese Zen monk, stressed the importance of acquiring the perspective of the universal Self, given the impermanence of life.
Samurai
Miyamoto Musashi Yamamoto Tsunetomo Samurai writers who helped record and preserve samurai ideals of preparedness; indifference to pain, death, and material possessions, wisdom, and courage.
Bushido
The way or ethic of the samurai warrior, based on service and demanding rigorous training, usually both in the military and literary arts.