M15 · Supporting study course · 6 lessons
Buddha Dharma: Ethics, Attention and Wisdom
Meet Buddhist ethics, attention and wisdom in their own sources, then compare a modern Gnostic reading without making the traditions identical.
Begin lesson oneSee the lessons
Open lessons · No account, assessment or spiritual rank
What this course is for
Buddhist teachings offer more than a collection of calming techniques. Their ethical, contemplative and wisdom practices belong to living traditions with different texts, institutions and accounts of awakening. We begin there, before asking what a Gnostic interpreter finds resonant.
You will read one short passage, work with an ordinary speech example, follow a small part of dependent arising and distinguish non-self from a different theory of ego. The practical work is deliberately modest. A clearer response to one situation is experience; it is not a certificate of Buddhist awakening.
Readiness: Ethics (F01), Reading Wisdom (F08) and Meditation (M03), or equivalent grounding. No Buddhist affiliation, retreat, special posture, imagery or prior meditative attainment is required. Fictional cases are complete alternatives.
- Explain foundational terms with their Buddhist source and context named.
- Apply one ethical question through a specific small response.
- Compare Buddhist and Gnostic accounts while retaining a material difference.
Take one lesson at a time. Read its explanation and example, prepare the single activity, then review the attempt. Fictional work is a complete study route; it does not establish how you will respond in life. No journal, streak or personal submission is required.
right speech, right action, right livelihood
An excerpt from the Noble Eightfold Path list, within a discourse presenting a way of liberation, not only relaxation.
Put it into practice. Choose one ordinary ethical response while retaining the wider path context.
Your course, step by step
- Buddha and diverse Buddhist traditionsIdentify a Buddhist source’s setting before using it as a statement about all Buddhism.
- Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold PathExplain the Four Noble Truths as a practice framework and apply one ethical question.
- Dependent arising and the wheel of becomingTrace one limited contact–feeling–craving sequence and identify a practical interruption.
- Impermanence, non-self and emptinessDistinguish non-self and emptiness from nihilism or a denial of ordinary responsibility.
- Compassion and bodhisattva teachingsRelate a Mahayana aspiration to one bounded benefit while preserving its wider awakening context.
- Samael/Glorian comparisons and their limitsCompare a Buddhist passage with the Gnostic Essence framework while retaining a clear difference.
Keep the work proportionate
No tantric initiation, subtle-body method, prolonged meditation or denial of ordinary personhood is assigned. Non-self and emptiness are not instructions to ignore needs, responsibility or distress. Use external fictional study if inward attention is unwelcome.
Find Help and every other course remain available without completing this sequence.
Credited teaching and our contribution
Buddhist discourses are read in Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s named Pali translations. Harvard’s Pluralism Project supplies broad diversity context; Alexander Berzin supplies a Tibetan Buddhist explanation of emptiness. Śāntideva supplies a distinct Mahayana compassion passage. Samael’s Essence chapter remains a later Gnostic comparison.
Buddhism: an introduction
Buddhism: an introduction (opens in a new tab)
The Pluralism Project, Harvard University.
Relevant passage: Introductory account of Buddhist diversity and Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana streams.
A broad educational orientation, not a claim that all communities use the same practices or formulations.
Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion: SN 56.11
Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion: SN 56.11 (opens in a new tab)
Translated from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1993; Access to Insight, BCBS edition.
Relevant passage: Middle-way opening, Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path passages.
The linked site notes a later translation version is available. This course identifies the edition actually read and does not equate one small activity with full realisation.
Analysis of Dependent Co-arising: SN 12.2
Analysis of Dependent Co-arising: SN 12.2 (opens in a new tab)
Translated from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1997; Access to Insight.
Relevant passage: Opening sequence and definitions of contact, feeling, craving and clinging.
Our ordinary case illustrates a limited relationship, not the whole twelve-link account or proof of rebirth.
Five Brethren: SN 22.59
Five Brethren: SN 22.59 (opens in a new tab)
Translated from Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1993; Access to Insight.
Relevant passage: Five aggregates, inconstancy and the not-self inquiry.
A Buddhist discourse, not a claim that people do not conventionally exist or that duties disappear.
Dependent Arising: Avoiding Nihilism and Absolutism
Dependent Arising: Avoiding Nihilism and Absolutism (opens in a new tab)
Dr Alexander Berzin, Study Buddhism.
Relevant passage: Basics and the teacher/student example of dependent designation.
One Tibetan Buddhist explanatory approach. The article’s full technical analysis is not assigned.
Bodhicharyavatara, chapter 3
Bodhicharyavatara, chapter 3 (opens in a new tab)
Śāntideva, translated by Adam Pearcey, Lotsawa House, 2007; version 2.3.
Relevant passage: Verse 4 and its benefit-to-beings context.
A Mahayana aspiration, not a required formal vow or instruction to undertake later self-sacrificial imagery.
The Essence
The Essence (opens in a new tab)
Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, chapter 4; Glorian English edition.
Relevant passage: The author’s Essence/ego framework, used for a bounded comparison.
A later Gnostic account, not an unqualified definition of Buddhist non-self.
Return to the practical work
The exercises stay with their preparation, alternatives and reflection.