B01-Early Disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha: Another New course at LFBCS

This class on early disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha (5^th-6^th century BCE) will use as a text Great Disciples of the Buddha Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy by Nyanaponika Thera & Hellmuth Hecker. This text is a survey of the background, practice, and accomplishments of Shakyamuni Buddha’s greatest disciples including Sariputta, Maha-mogallana, Mahakassapa, Ananda, Anuruddha, Mahakaccana, Great Women Disciples, Angulimala, Anathapindika, and others. This course includes important Patriarchs and Matriarachs of the Theravada and other traditions, who are worthy of our study and who have much to teach us about what it takes to become holy beings.

This text can help us understand the life of Shakyamuni Buddha through a range of rich-poor, male-female, and young-old disciples and provide a glimpse into life in ancient India. It is rich with Sutta references and other Pali sources for more research into this important time in our history.

This course, B01-Early Disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, requires that G02, G03(A), and D35(A)-The 128 Evil and Erroneous Views be completed as a prerequisite to taking this course.  There are ten lessons covering each of the ten chapters in the text. Reba Jinbo Rinpoche is facilitating this course and has said he will be available to discuss any parts of the book that you may want to discuss, but this and many of the biographies are basically self study courses with a final assignment for you to select passages from the text that were most meaningful to you–for a variety of reasons. You will then prepare a paper or some method of explaining why you selected those passages and what they mean and why that passage was important to you. You then need to present your findings to at least one other person and record that presentation as your final project for the course along with the feedback you get from the person(s) who experienced your presentation. This is the same technique we will use for most of our courses at LFBCS. The seminar planned on the SAUMOL will provide an example of this process.