July 22, 2023 • 32 mins
Hinduism and Buddhism are closely related in a number of ways, including their vision of what comes after we exit this mortal coil. Learn about the religions' interesting interpretation of the state of existence outside space-time, in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Charles W. Chuck Bryant here, Jen Xer. So
this is a pick from our past about Nirvana, because
what band is more gen X than Nirvana? But wait
a minute, it's not about the band. That's why it's
called Nirvana colon, not the band. It's about Nirvana the
experience again from August twenty seventh, twenty fifteen. Check it out.
(00:24):
And this reminds me that one day we should probably
do one on Nirvana the band, because they were great.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. So this is
the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Here we are now setcher in enlighten Buddha mode.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, I like that.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I don't like that, Josh.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But I did include an Nirvana reference in there when
I said here we are now?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh did not catch that?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I noticed?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Very nice, very subtle.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I slid that one in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, how you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Are you feeling centered?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Uh? No, I'm all whack a do.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Your chakras are all over the place.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
My chakras are all over the place. So much so
that I couldn't think of anything solid did was repeat you.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you know, man, I have to say, while we
were researching this, I was like, this is some beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
It's very appealing.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, actually it was. It's neat stuff. Yeah, like I was.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I became calm in researching this, researching Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah, I think this. You
can tie this in. We have a couple of related episodes,
and we might as well just call this the Enlightenment Suite.
How about that?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'd like that Karma from July twenty eleven, yep, and
Reincarnation from July twenty two and Burning Man the Angriest
People in your uh yeah. And you know, our our
buddy in New York, Rachel Grundy, is a Buddhist. Oh
yeah yeah, and she's I've talked to her about it.
(02:14):
So because I was like, you know, Grundy, I've meditated
someone and it really appeals to me. And like a
true Buddhist, She's like, it's great, man, here, I'll send
you some stuff, no press.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You know, I'll send you some pamphlets.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. That's basically what she did. She wasn't like, you know,
you should look at this. You know, it's a little
uh less overbearing than other religions I found.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I gotcha, you know what I mean. Now, Rachel Grundy
does the literary pub crawl, right? Does she still do that?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I don't know she still does that?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
She used to?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
But we can plug her band Coyote love. How about that?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
There you go, and she just adopted a dog.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So congratulations, congratulations to everybody. That's the Buddhist way.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That is so nirvana. I thought was the perfect way
to cap off karma and reincarnation. Yeah, is the third part,
and maybe we should do meditation, Maybe we should make
it a four parter.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, that could probably be interesting. I'm sure there's a
lot of studies about the physiological effects of it and
all that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, all right, all right, that's it agreed upon. Then,
and then the the what'd you call it? The what suite?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The Enlightenment Suite, the Enlightenment Suite, not to be confused
with the Transcendentalists.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Or the Enlightenment episode, right man.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Which it doesn't factor into this at all. No, Okay,
So Chuck, you're talking nirvana. Yes, I you have like
a conception of it. I have a conception of it,
but in researching one of the things, and I also
knew that Buddhists and Hindus share a lot of cosmology.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Oh, I thought you were gonna say they hate each other.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
No, I don't get that impression.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
No, of course not.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But they they are.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a spinoff. It's the Aftermatch. It is of religions.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's the Joni Loves Chachi of religions.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
What else, Maud?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
What was that? An offshoot of Mary Tyler Moore? Mary
Tyler Moore?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, it's the Jefferson's Yeah for march Archie Bunker, Yeah,
or all family. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I could do this for at least thirty straight minutes.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, we should do an episode on spinoffs.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Where we just say spin off names, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And just hold thumbs up or down, and but we
don't say people just guess.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Right, what are we doing right now?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's the Threes Company, spin off of Hogan's Heroes.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Okay, we're done.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, We're done.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I did not realize that I guess is what I'm saying.
I knew that they were related. I didn't realize that
it was like a direct offshoot where basically I don't
think I knew either the Buddha whose name whose original
name was Siddartha Guatama.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Did you know that actually Siddartha. Okay, so the h
is silent Galatama.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yes, I actually looked at pronunciations or listen to them
for this episode for once.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, I'm also a little ashamed because you did that
and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That was all for Grundy.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I was going.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was going with the with the original status quo. Okay,
it's just mangling words of foreign origin.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, I'm trying to mix things up here fifteen years in.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
And scientific words too, not just foreign ones.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right. So you were talking about Saddharta Kalatama.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Right, He was born into as a Hindu, a Hindu family, sure,
and decided like, yeah, I'm not too hip on Hindu.
I think there's other ways to go. And there's Buddhism.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, that's the quick version.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
YadA, YadA, YadA, there's Buddhism.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah. This was fifth century BC and Asia, of course,
and like you said, he would later become the Buddha,
which is not to be confused with Buddha.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
A Buddha exactly which you want to be a Buddha,
Go do it, Chuck, you can do it. Well, you
couldn't be the Buddha, right, because that's Saddharta's right.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, but you could be a Buddha.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I could be a layman's version, I believe, right, okay,
because like only monks generally achieve the state of a Buddha.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So in researching this, if you wanted to, you could
be like Sinar a life, I'm going to become a
Buddhist monk and conceivably achieve nirvana. Yes, in this lifetime
you could, sure, because you're a human being. You're incarnated
as a human being into this moral coil, and if
you wanted to, you could go do it. But in
(06:38):
researching this, yes, apparently it's typically left to the Buddhist
monks because they're the ones who are like, who have
the time Sinar life.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, because you got to drop out sort.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Of in a lot of ways, not entirely, I mean,
Buddhist monks like still filter amongst the masses and all that, sure,
but for the most part they're focusing a lot more
on achieving nirvana than the average day to day person does,
even like a day to day Buddhist or something.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, it's not a part time job. You're not like
sitting around on Netflix, like should I watch Orange is
a New Black? Or should I meditate for eight hours? Right?
You know?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Can I do both?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
You can?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
By the way, it's called zoning out.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So let's talk a little bit more about said Arta's journey.
This is five sixty three BC in modern day Nepal
or what would be modern day Nepal.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Does the wayback machine go there? Yeah, you want to go,
let's go? All right, sounds like a lovely time.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, here we are. It's cold, It's lovely.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, it's funny. I didn't take it as cold.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I thought we would be going back to like maybe spring,
But yeah, it's really cold here right now.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, it's a good thing you're wearing that ox hide.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, lined with Shirpa.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So I see said Arta over there, and he is
a rich dude, and he is a very shelter dude.
And despite all these riches and this lifestyle, he's very pampered.
He's kind of I can see it in his eyes.
He is dissatisfied.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He is dissatisfied.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He's born into a ruling class, very powerful, like you said,
rich family, Yeah, and he's part of the idle rich,
but he's part of the thinking, idle rich. So he
started to question his place in life, which is basically
what you said, right.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, he starts to mul this over and like maybe
there's more. It's a very long story, and we could
spend hours talking about this, but.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I'm sure people do.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I've seen a yeah, because like you can't do it
part time, like I said, right, But I'm looking at him,
and basically I can tell that his disillusionment has has
reached its apex, and it is culminated by him looking
out the window one day and he sees three things
from his little palace window. He sees a decrepit old man,
(08:55):
he sees a disease man, and then he sees a corpse.
And he's done.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It's like the progression, I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So, and he's like, you know what, I'm done with
this life. Can't take it anymore. Even though I have
my arranged wife, my cousin whom I married, I was
forced to marry. I have a beautiful son whom I love.
I'm going to leave them. I'm going to leave all
my possessions, and I'm going to go on a quest,
(09:23):
a vision quest, if you will, to understand the true
nature of life. And here I go right and back
we are to the present day. Sir, you can hang
your ox hide and that Sherpa on the coat rack.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Wait, well, there's more to this story.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Do we have to go back?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, we gotta go back. I gotta go on, short pants,
put your pants back on.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Right, so chuck.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Here we are back again, and Sidharta is He's gone
from very rich, powerful family. He's decided to go on
this vision quest. He thinks, well, I mean, if I
was very dissatisfied, and I think it's kind of wrong
to be as grossly rich as I was the family
I was born into, I'll just go the exact opposite route,
(10:13):
and I'll become a hermit, a completely poverty stricken hermit
who has not even a pot to pee in, not
even that right. And he figures out that as he's
starving to death, that it's not leading to any kind
of enlightenment. He's actually growing increasingly uncomfortable. It's getting harder
(10:35):
and harder for him to pay attention to enlightenment because
say he's hungry and hungrier. Sure, and he realizes, wait
a minute, maybe this isn't the.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Right way to go. Maybe polar extremes are a little
too extreme.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, what if I die without achieving my goal? That
would just have been a wasted life.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I would have been poverty stricken and great, but
that doesn't lead to enlightenment clearly. So here comes a
stranger who's offering me a meal. I'm gonna take it.
I'm gonna be poverty stricken no longer. And maybe I
don't need to be rich, but I also don't need
to be poverty stricken.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I need to take this middle road to enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So I'm gonna kill that stranger, take all the food.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, with a pigeon hammer.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh wait, that's not the middle road. That's far from
the middle road.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
That's kind of extreme as well.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I kid.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So he takes a meal from a stranger, he figures
out I think finally that like, oh okay, this is
the way to do it, goes and sits under a
tree and achieved nirvana.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
He achieved omniscience.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, there were three stages of that he saw his
past lives, all of them. He saw the past lives
of all others, and he's like, I'm really starting to
catch on to things here. Things are revealing themselves. And
finally he identified the four Noble truths, which we'll talk
about in a bit, but those were the three stages
under the tree. And in the end of it, he said,
(11:57):
you know, I gained a perfect understanding of the laws
governing the cycle of birth and death. Like it's nirvana.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Boom, it's nirvana, and nirvana we should probably say once
he achieved nirvana.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He didn't say it's nirvana.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
No, he couldn't say much.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Actually, one of the things that I came across from
research time and time again is that he very famously
couldn't put it into words a description of what he
experienced in this new state of enlightenment that he was
vibing in.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's like Catulu kind of. It was the unnameable, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, But everybody trusted him anyway. They said, this guy
knows where it's at. We're going to start following his teachings.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah. In Sanskrit, nirvana means to extinguish, so in this case,
they're talking about extinguishing suffering and hatred and ignorance.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
No good, So we'll talk about the Buddha's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Path to enlightenment and his teachings that came out of
this achievement of vana.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Right after this and we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's pretty funny put an ad in the middle of
a Buddhism lesson.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, we take all comers here, my friend. So, if
you achieve nirvana, what you're doing is you are breaking
that cycle. If you listen to our reincarnation podcast, the
samsara is that cycle of reincarnation that you can be
caught in or stuck in. I guess. And this is
where karma, and again we have a great episode on karma.
(13:52):
Karma comes into play because what you're doing is you're
rewarded on your past actions in your current life and
earlier lives.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Right, Does that make sense? No, it makes sense?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, sure so, And I love that this article says
it's important to note that the law of karma isn't
due to God's judgment yeah, over a person's behavior, and
it's closer to Newton's law of motion. That makes more sense.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Right, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah,
So when like you, you know, step on a snail, you're
just like, man, didn't mean to do that. It's going
to come back and bite me later on in another life.
And you build up this karma or whatever. But when
you reach nirvana, you stop accruing bag karma.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's right. You transcend it.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And when you transcend it, then all of a sudden,
you can spend the rest of your life working off
that karma debt that you have already accrued.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, because that doesn't just go away.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It's like paying down a credit card exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So, but it's like when you achieve nirvana, the credit
cards cut up, so you're not adding to your account
any longer. Yeah, but you still have some money that
you owe and you're paying that off in this life
or conceivably other lives following. But at some point your
your golden ticket has been granted. You have achieved nirvana,
(15:13):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And when that happens, you are you have escaped that
smsara and you have achieved potty nirvana, and that is
the final stage that you find in the afterlife. Right.
And in the case of Saddharta, he was eighty years old,
when he passed, and he died in a state of meditation,
basically saying to his people around him, it's all good man,
(15:38):
this is like, this is the goal. It was like
a great way to pass, you know, yeah, like we
should all pass that way.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Sure, telling everybody it's all good.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, pretty much like whatters style.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So he's going all right, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, those were his last words, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So when when one achieves nirvana and you escape the
cycle of semsara, you eventually, when you die and you
work off your karmic debt and you're no longer reincarnated,
you become you basically travel to another dimension, another realm.
It's just something different that basically exists outside of space time,
(16:22):
as modern Buddhists would say, and you are kind of
one with the universe. Just become a selfless part of
the universe.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
That sounds beautiful to me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Sure, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So Pot of Nirvana Day or just Nirvana Day, is
celebrated on February fifteenth in East Asia. Celebrations vary, Evidently,
I looked it up. Apparently some people just meditate, some
people are just reflective. A lot of times in monasteries
food is prepared and shared. But that is February fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Okay, Nirvana day. Yeah, so, Chuck, if you become a.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Buddhist monk and you achieve nirvana, and let's say you're
not a Buddhist monk and you no, well, let's say
you are.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Okay, so you're a buddhistman that keep putting on these
clothes and taking them off.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
You achieve nirvana.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You become a Buddha, right, not again, not the Buddha,
but a Buddha like you're which means an enlightened one.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And if you say I have got some time and
money and I'm going to hire you a Buddha to
lead me to nirvana, you're almost like a junior Buddha.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There's a different word for him. They're called are hats.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, are hit that's what I found. Are hit Yeah, okay,
that's right. That's when you have a Buddha guide to
guide you and you are not you're enlightened. You're just
not omniscient.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, not bad though, Yeah, big difference though. Not omniscient
and omniscient.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
There's a pretty big difference between those two things, you know, right,
So when the Buddha came back from his in like well,
once he achieved his enlightened state, he started trying to
tell people like, you can be like this too, and
here's how you do it. He said that there are
it's very simple. There are just four noble truths. It's
(18:22):
all you need to know until you realize that the
fourth noble truth mentions an eightfold path and then suddenly
like it's exponentially more involved, but it's still fairly simple stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, he taught this for the last forty five years
of his life. Number one is that life is suffering,
and I think that was he was clued into that
from his window that day. Yeah, it was the suffering
that really made him go, like, man, right, this is life,
that old guy, that dead body.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
If this is life, who needs enemies?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Oh? Good? Point Number two suffering is caused by ignorance
of the true nature of the universe. So ignorance is
not bliss, ignorance is no good.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
No, And basically the true nature of the universes that
we are made unhappy by wanting, by craving things, and
that we can free ourselves from those things by overcoming them.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
That's right. That's number three. You can end that suffering.
And then number four is if you attach yourselves and
follow the four I'm sorry, the Noble eightfold Path, not
the four right, then you're all set. You can overcome
all that junk.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
It's like, just remember these four things and then these
extra eight things.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So the eight fold path, the noble eight fold Path
are the ideals that guide you along the way, and
they're broken down into three divisions.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
There's samas.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
The divisions are samas.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh no, the the individual paths are called samas.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh gotcha. Well, the first two are under the division
of wisdom, right views, and right intention.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
And it's free if samas are are frequently translated into
right here in the West in English. Sure, and it
doesn't this article I read by this one guy said, like,
that doesn't mean that the opposite of that is wrong, right,
It's more right. It's more like right in this sense
means complete, perfect, whole.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, so the opposite of that would be incomplete, imperfect,
not whole. That makes sense rather than wrong, right, Yeah,
I get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The second division is ethical conduct, and under there you
have complete or right speech, right action, and right livelihood.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So working for Goldman Sachs or clubbing baby seals, You're
gonna have trouble achieving Nirvana at this in those positions,
I would.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Say, so, probably not. You're probably not seeking nirvana either, right,
you know, yeah, so you're fine. What about podcasters?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Podcast totally in there.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
We're somewhere between clubbing baby seals and Golden Sets. And
then finally, concentration is the last division, and that is
right effort, right mindedness, and right contemplation.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And the right mindedness is you know, being mindful, being aware.
Right effort is like you're directing your effort toward these
good things. Yeah, you're not being slack in your path
to enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And then the last one, right contemplation, is kind of
difficult to understand. It's very least, it's difficult to explain.
I found in researching, but it's basically focusing your entire
self on this, on the Eightfold Path and the four
Noble Truths, and yeah, like you're you're really directing all
of your thought and energy into that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah. And that's what I got from Grundy when I
talked to her last time we were up there at
the Bell House. She was it was just very soothing.
She's just like, man, it's just practice. You're like, it's
a cycle. You're just continually trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And that's like the simplest breakdown. But you know, if
something bad happens and you don't, you start over and
you try harder, gotcha, which is like that sounds like
really great life principles. Yep, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So that's Buddhist thought as far as achieving nirvana goes,
and Hinduism is actually very closely related, but there are
some major distinctions, and we will talk all about that
right after this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Okay, Chuckers, we're back.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
The Buddhists typically talk about nirvana as nirvana. In Hinduism,
it's usually referred to as moksha, but they're base talking
about the same thing. It's this the highest plane of
existence wherein you stop being reincarnated, you have worked off
your karmic debt, and you reunite with the cosmos, with
(23:16):
the universe. And in Hindu cosmology, they're talking about Krishna,
which is the godhead, which is the source of all things,
and Krishna is very frequently or Kristna incarnates in three
major deities in all deities, and all Hindu deities are
(23:37):
extensions of Krishna. But the big three are Brahma who's
the creator, Vishnu who's the sustainer, and Shiva who's the destroyer.
And when you die, when you achieve moksha, you go
and get absorbed into Krishna again.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, And the big difference that I think we found
with between Buddha nirvana and Hindu nirvana or Buddhist nirvana
is that with Hindu you're working your way up through
this cast system.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Eventually you start out by you have to be born
through every type of organism that exists on the planet.
You actually make it through under Hindu cosmology, eight million,
four hundred thousand different species of animals before you even
get to humanity. And then once you become a human,
you can go through countless lives in different casts over
and over again. But those casts are hierarchical, and you,
(24:35):
like you said, are working your way out.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, that's called the varna, and you get that good
karma you perform by performing duties in that cast, and
then basically once you have it's almost like a graduation
in the next life. If you've done well to the
next cast up.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, And there's actually a lot of debate right now
because Gandhi was famously thrown out of his cast vice Shaya.
I believe it's the merchant class, and he was thrown
out of it because he championed for the rights of
the lowest class, the Sudra, who basically were responsible for handling,
(25:14):
picking up dead animals and taking care of the rest
of the community's waste. And basically we're just generally mistreated
by the higher casts. And so there's this question now
in modern Hinduism, like does the cast system still fit?
Is it's still appropriate? But the thing is is, if
it's not a reflection of say God's punishment, but something
(25:38):
is physical, as like the second law of thermodynamics or motion,
sorry that it's just a reaction to some other action
you took in a past life. Who are humans to
say that the cast system is no longer appropriate. It's
just part of the universe. But then if it turns
out to human construct well then it gets kind of ticklish,
(25:59):
right because it undermines this Hindu cosmology. So it's a
weird place that modern Hinduism is in right now talking
about whether or not to do away with the cast system. Interesting,
what do you think I think that's up to Hindu
good answer, thanks.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So I would imagine that Gandhi then in his next
life was definitely in that next cast up. Huh.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I would guess if he didn't just achieve moksha right
then and there.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, he's a pretty good guy.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
You're Gandhi. We'll just you can skip a few levels
exactly grades.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, And that's the thing. Like the highest classes, the
Brahman class in Hinduism, and they're the priestly class.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
They're like the.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Hindu or the Buddhist monks who go off and try
to achieve nirvana. Their station in life is to achieve moksha.
They've worked off their karmic debt to a tremendous degree,
and like their focus in life is to get rid
of the rest of their karmic life. So they are
not born again right right. The one below that is Kashatriya,
(27:00):
that's the ruling warrior class. That's the one that Siddharta
was born into, apparently when he was like this is wrong. Yeah,
we like anybody should be able to achieve enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah, and that was one of the main reasons that
Buddhism was born, right, was that he didn't he rejected
that cast system.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
The main reason.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yes, yeah, and so but within this, like if you're
a kesha traya, like you're you're working on your karmak
debt because as far as you're concerned, if you can
work off enough of it, you will be born the
next life into the Brahmin class. And then you can
work really hard and get out of that and end
up achieving enlightenment. So there is like a hierarchical progression.
(27:38):
And as you were saying, one of the main things
that you're tasked with as a Hindu is dharma, which
is responsibility to your cast, right, like acting like a
member of your cast rather than you know, acting out
like Gandhi, I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, there's actually four tenants, just like the eight what
was it, the eight the Noble Eightfold path, right, the
the there's like four in Hinduism. One of them is dharma,
responsibility to basically your caste, society's rules, but more importantly
like Krishna's rules, and also like being having a responsibility
(28:21):
and duty to your.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Own calling in life and just like living like that.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Artha is pursuing wealth because in Hinduism there's this idea
that's like kind of like in Buddhism, where you don't
need to be super rich, but you also shouldn't be
poor either. And one of the things is, just like
with Buddhism and Hinduism, you're trying to escape earthly desires
and wants. One way to do that is to have
(28:48):
the money to not have to worry about where your
food's going to come from. Freeze you up for a
lot of time to contemplate and get toward enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Sure, that's artha comma is more fulfilling desires frequently, like
sexual desires, that kind of stuff, but there's all sorts
of like taboo and constraint and all that kind of stuff.
It's not like a free for all in Hinduism as
far as sex goes, right, Right. And then lastly there's moksha.
Once you have moved past your earthly desires, you become
(29:16):
free from delusion and realize that there is there is
no earthly self, there's just your connection to Krishna, and
then you can become enlightened.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Which is also called mosha. Correct.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, nice, pretty interesting stuff, huh. Yeah, so that's Nirvana,
not the band, not the band man. I hope we
pointed that out at the beginning of this or else.
Everybody's really confused right now.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh well, probably call it something like Nirvana not the band.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
If you want to know more about Nirvana not the band,
you can type that word into the search bar at
housetifforks dot com. Since I said search bar, it's time
for listener may.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And if you want to know more about Nirvana the band,
watched the great documentary montage.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Of heck It's not called Nirvana the band, Nope.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Montage of Hecky. Very well done, is it? Oh? It's
great depressing? All right, I'm gonna call this our biggest
fan in Uganda. Hey, guys, my name is Joshua Quizinberry.
I'm a huge, possibly the biggest fan of your show
and I listen to every chance I get. My wife's
son and I live in Compala, Uganda, where we run
an NGO for children with severe special needs who have
(30:34):
been abandoned, organ or abused. On the Nazi Sabotage episode
just spoke about the brilliant but poorly executed plan of
the Germans to infiltrate the US and cause chaos. I
wondered if you guys knew that wasn't an original idea
by Hitler, but in fact, during World War One, Kaies
of Wilhelm number two had an entire sabotage ring running
out of New York City that was responsible for numerous
(30:55):
acts of terror, including blowing up or attempting to blow
up railroads canals from the East coast all the way
to San Francisco in Canada. Did not know that this
is during the neutral period, Our neutral period of nineteen fourteen.
One of the largest and most devastating was blowing up
at munition's depot on New Jersey's Black Tom Island. Apparently
the blast was heard all the way in Philly and
(31:16):
through shrapnel that actually damaged the arm and torch of
Lady Liberty herself.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
What bring me, Kaiser Wilhelm.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
He's dead?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Huh good?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Some of it? I just want to kick his body.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
What was that?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I just figured that was you, Kaiser Wilhelm.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Is that what I sound like to you?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
No, like I'm drunken about a throw up.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Some of the other plots that were thankfully discovered were
attaching rudder bombs on chips. Another interesting one was trying
to buy us passports from dockworkers to smuggle more spies in.
It was found out and ushered in putting photos on passports.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I think I understand.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I think so too, so they couldn't be stolen and
used anymore. Anyway, I thought you guys would find it
fascinating that the Germans that were a little better at
sabotage and would have made a better film than World
War One. Wow. And that is Josh Cleusenberry.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Thanks a lot, Josh, Thanks for the work you're doing
out there.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, if you want to get in touch with us
to let us know more about something we walked right
past in a previous episode, we love to hear more stuff.
You can tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should
Know If you can send us an email, Stuff podcast
at housetuffworks dot com, and as always, hang out with
(32:35):
us at our home on the web, Stuff youshould Know
dot Com.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Hi, everybody, Charles W. Chuck Bryant here, Jen Xer. So
this is a pick from our past about Nirvana, because
what band is more gen X than Nirvana? But wait
a minute, it's not about the band. That's why it's
called Nirvana colon, not the band. It's about Nirvana the
experience again from August twenty seventh, twenty fifteen. Check it out.
(00:24):
And this reminds me that one day we should probably
do one on Nirvana the band, because they were great.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. So this is
the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Here we are now setcher in enlighten Buddha mode.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yes, I like that.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I don't like that, Josh.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But I did include an Nirvana reference in there when
I said here we are now?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Oh did not catch that?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I noticed?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Very nice, very subtle.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I slid that one in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, how you doing?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Are you feeling centered?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Uh? No, I'm all whack a do.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Your chakras are all over the place.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
My chakras are all over the place. So much so
that I couldn't think of anything solid did was repeat you.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you know, man, I have to say, while we
were researching this, I was like, this is some beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
It's very appealing.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, actually it was. It's neat stuff. Yeah, like I was.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I became calm in researching this, researching Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah, I think this. You
can tie this in. We have a couple of related episodes,
and we might as well just call this the Enlightenment Suite.
How about that?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I'd like that Karma from July twenty eleven, yep, and
Reincarnation from July twenty two and Burning Man the Angriest
People in your uh yeah. And you know, our our
buddy in New York, Rachel Grundy, is a Buddhist. Oh
yeah yeah, and she's I've talked to her about it.
(02:14):
So because I was like, you know, Grundy, I've meditated
someone and it really appeals to me. And like a
true Buddhist, She's like, it's great, man, here, I'll send
you some stuff, no press.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
You know, I'll send you some pamphlets.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. That's basically what she did. She wasn't like, you know,
you should look at this. You know, it's a little
uh less overbearing than other religions I found.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I gotcha, you know what I mean. Now, Rachel Grundy
does the literary pub crawl, right? Does she still do that?
Speaker 1 (02:40):
I don't know she still does that?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
She used to?
Speaker 1 (02:42):
But we can plug her band Coyote love. How about that?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
There you go, and she just adopted a dog.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So congratulations, congratulations to everybody. That's the Buddhist way.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That is so nirvana. I thought was the perfect way
to cap off karma and reincarnation. Yeah, is the third part,
and maybe we should do meditation, Maybe we should make
it a four parter.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, that could probably be interesting. I'm sure there's a
lot of studies about the physiological effects of it and
all that.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Okay, all right, all right, that's it agreed upon. Then,
and then the the what'd you call it? The what suite?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The Enlightenment Suite, the Enlightenment Suite, not to be confused
with the Transcendentalists.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Or the Enlightenment episode, right man.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Which it doesn't factor into this at all. No, Okay,
So Chuck, you're talking nirvana. Yes, I you have like
a conception of it. I have a conception of it,
but in researching one of the things, and I also
knew that Buddhists and Hindus share a lot of cosmology.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Oh, I thought you were gonna say they hate each other.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
No, I don't get that impression.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
No, of course not.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
But they they are.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, it's a spinoff. It's the Aftermatch. It is of religions.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's the Joni Loves Chachi of religions.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
What else, Maud?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
What was that? An offshoot of Mary Tyler Moore? Mary
Tyler Moore?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Right, it's the Jefferson's Yeah for march Archie Bunker, Yeah,
or all family. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I could do this for at least thirty straight minutes.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, we should do an episode on spinoffs.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Where we just say spin off names, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And just hold thumbs up or down, and but we
don't say people just guess.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Right, what are we doing right now?
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's the Threes Company, spin off of Hogan's Heroes.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Okay, we're done.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, We're done.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I did not realize that I guess is what I'm saying.
I knew that they were related. I didn't realize that
it was like a direct offshoot where basically I don't
think I knew either the Buddha whose name whose original
name was Siddartha Guatama.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Did you know that actually Siddartha. Okay, so the h
is silent Galatama.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yes, I actually looked at pronunciations or listen to them
for this episode for once.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, I'm also a little ashamed because you did that
and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
That was all for Grundy.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I was going.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I was going with the with the original status quo. Okay,
it's just mangling words of foreign origin.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Well, I'm trying to mix things up here fifteen years in.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
And scientific words too, not just foreign ones.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Right. So you were talking about Saddharta Kalatama.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Right, He was born into as a Hindu, a Hindu family, sure,
and decided like, yeah, I'm not too hip on Hindu.
I think there's other ways to go. And there's Buddhism.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah, that's the quick version.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
YadA, YadA, YadA, there's Buddhism.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah. This was fifth century BC and Asia, of course,
and like you said, he would later become the Buddha,
which is not to be confused with Buddha.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
A Buddha exactly which you want to be a Buddha,
Go do it, Chuck, you can do it. Well, you
couldn't be the Buddha, right, because that's Saddharta's right.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, but you could be a Buddha.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I could be a layman's version, I believe, right, okay,
because like only monks generally achieve the state of a Buddha.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So in researching this, if you wanted to, you could
be like Sinar a life, I'm going to become a
Buddhist monk and conceivably achieve nirvana. Yes, in this lifetime
you could, sure, because you're a human being. You're incarnated
as a human being into this moral coil, and if
you wanted to, you could go do it. But in
(06:38):
researching this, yes, apparently it's typically left to the Buddhist
monks because they're the ones who are like, who have
the time Sinar life.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah, because you got to drop out sort.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Of in a lot of ways, not entirely, I mean,
Buddhist monks like still filter amongst the masses and all that, sure,
but for the most part they're focusing a lot more
on achieving nirvana than the average day to day person does,
even like a day to day Buddhist or something.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, it's not a part time job. You're not like
sitting around on Netflix, like should I watch Orange is
a New Black? Or should I meditate for eight hours? Right?
You know?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Can I do both?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
You can?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
By the way, it's called zoning out.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So let's talk a little bit more about said Arta's journey.
This is five sixty three BC in modern day Nepal
or what would be modern day Nepal.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Does the wayback machine go there? Yeah, you want to go,
let's go? All right, sounds like a lovely time.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, here we are. It's cold, It's lovely.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You know, it's funny. I didn't take it as cold.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I thought we would be going back to like maybe spring,
But yeah, it's really cold here right now.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, it's a good thing you're wearing that ox hide.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, lined with Shirpa.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So I see said Arta over there, and he is
a rich dude, and he is a very shelter dude.
And despite all these riches and this lifestyle, he's very pampered.
He's kind of I can see it in his eyes.
He is dissatisfied.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He is dissatisfied.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
He's born into a ruling class, very powerful, like you said,
rich family, Yeah, and he's part of the idle rich,
but he's part of the thinking, idle rich. So he
started to question his place in life, which is basically
what you said, right.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, he starts to mul this over and like maybe
there's more. It's a very long story, and we could
spend hours talking about this, but.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I'm sure people do.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I've seen a yeah, because like you can't do it
part time, like I said, right, But I'm looking at him,
and basically I can tell that his disillusionment has has
reached its apex, and it is culminated by him looking
out the window one day and he sees three things
from his little palace window. He sees a decrepit old man,
(08:55):
he sees a disease man, and then he sees a corpse.
And he's done.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
It's like the progression, I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So, and he's like, you know what, I'm done with
this life. Can't take it anymore. Even though I have
my arranged wife, my cousin whom I married, I was
forced to marry. I have a beautiful son whom I love.
I'm going to leave them. I'm going to leave all
my possessions, and I'm going to go on a quest,
(09:23):
a vision quest, if you will, to understand the true
nature of life. And here I go right and back
we are to the present day. Sir, you can hang
your ox hide and that Sherpa on the coat rack.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Wait, well, there's more to this story.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Do we have to go back?
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, we gotta go back. I gotta go on, short pants,
put your pants back on.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Right, so chuck.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Here we are back again, and Sidharta is He's gone
from very rich, powerful family. He's decided to go on
this vision quest. He thinks, well, I mean, if I
was very dissatisfied, and I think it's kind of wrong
to be as grossly rich as I was the family
I was born into, I'll just go the exact opposite route,
(10:13):
and I'll become a hermit, a completely poverty stricken hermit
who has not even a pot to pee in, not
even that right. And he figures out that as he's
starving to death, that it's not leading to any kind
of enlightenment. He's actually growing increasingly uncomfortable. It's getting harder
(10:35):
and harder for him to pay attention to enlightenment because
say he's hungry and hungrier. Sure, and he realizes, wait
a minute, maybe this isn't the.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Right way to go. Maybe polar extremes are a little
too extreme.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, what if I die without achieving my goal? That
would just have been a wasted life.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I would have been poverty stricken and great, but
that doesn't lead to enlightenment clearly. So here comes a
stranger who's offering me a meal. I'm gonna take it.
I'm gonna be poverty stricken no longer. And maybe I
don't need to be rich, but I also don't need
to be poverty stricken.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I need to take this middle road to enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So I'm gonna kill that stranger, take all the food.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
No, with a pigeon hammer.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh wait, that's not the middle road. That's far from
the middle road.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
That's kind of extreme as well.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I kid.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So he takes a meal from a stranger, he figures
out I think finally that like, oh okay, this is
the way to do it, goes and sits under a
tree and achieved nirvana.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
He achieved omniscience.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, there were three stages of that he saw his
past lives, all of them. He saw the past lives
of all others, and he's like, I'm really starting to
catch on to things here. Things are revealing themselves. And
finally he identified the four Noble truths, which we'll talk
about in a bit, but those were the three stages
under the tree. And in the end of it, he said,
(11:57):
you know, I gained a perfect understanding of the laws
governing the cycle of birth and death. Like it's nirvana.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Boom, it's nirvana, and nirvana we should probably say once
he achieved nirvana.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
He didn't say it's nirvana.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
No, he couldn't say much.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Actually, one of the things that I came across from
research time and time again is that he very famously
couldn't put it into words a description of what he
experienced in this new state of enlightenment that he was
vibing in.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's like Catulu kind of. It was the unnameable, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, But everybody trusted him anyway. They said, this guy
knows where it's at. We're going to start following his teachings.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah. In Sanskrit, nirvana means to extinguish, so in this case,
they're talking about extinguishing suffering and hatred and ignorance.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
No good, So we'll talk about the Buddha's.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Path to enlightenment and his teachings that came out of
this achievement of vana.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Right after this and we're back.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
That's pretty funny put an ad in the middle of
a Buddhism lesson.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, we take all comers here, my friend. So, if
you achieve nirvana, what you're doing is you are breaking
that cycle. If you listen to our reincarnation podcast, the
samsara is that cycle of reincarnation that you can be
caught in or stuck in. I guess. And this is
where karma, and again we have a great episode on karma.
(13:52):
Karma comes into play because what you're doing is you're
rewarded on your past actions in your current life and
earlier lives.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Right, Does that make sense? No, it makes sense?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, sure so, And I love that this article says
it's important to note that the law of karma isn't
due to God's judgment yeah, over a person's behavior, and
it's closer to Newton's law of motion. That makes more sense.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Right, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah,
So when like you, you know, step on a snail, you're
just like, man, didn't mean to do that. It's going
to come back and bite me later on in another life.
And you build up this karma or whatever. But when
you reach nirvana, you stop accruing bag karma.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's right. You transcend it.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And when you transcend it, then all of a sudden,
you can spend the rest of your life working off
that karma debt that you have already accrued.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yeah, because that doesn't just go away.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It's like paying down a credit card exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So, but it's like when you achieve nirvana, the credit
cards cut up, so you're not adding to your account
any longer. Yeah, but you still have some money that
you owe and you're paying that off in this life
or conceivably other lives following. But at some point your
your golden ticket has been granted. You have achieved nirvana,
(15:13):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
And when that happens, you are you have escaped that
smsara and you have achieved potty nirvana, and that is
the final stage that you find in the afterlife. Right.
And in the case of Saddharta, he was eighty years old,
when he passed, and he died in a state of meditation,
basically saying to his people around him, it's all good man,
(15:38):
this is like, this is the goal. It was like
a great way to pass, you know, yeah, like we
should all pass that way.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Sure, telling everybody it's all good.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Yeah, pretty much like whatters style.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
So he's going all right, all right.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, those were his last words, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So when when one achieves nirvana and you escape the
cycle of semsara, you eventually, when you die and you
work off your karmic debt and you're no longer reincarnated,
you become you basically travel to another dimension, another realm.
It's just something different that basically exists outside of space time,
(16:22):
as modern Buddhists would say, and you are kind of
one with the universe. Just become a selfless part of
the universe.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
That sounds beautiful to me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Sure, it's nice.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So Pot of Nirvana Day or just Nirvana Day, is
celebrated on February fifteenth in East Asia. Celebrations vary, Evidently,
I looked it up. Apparently some people just meditate, some
people are just reflective. A lot of times in monasteries
food is prepared and shared. But that is February fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Okay, Nirvana day. Yeah, so, Chuck, if you become a.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Buddhist monk and you achieve nirvana, and let's say you're
not a Buddhist monk and you no, well, let's say
you are.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Okay, so you're a buddhistman that keep putting on these
clothes and taking them off.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
You achieve nirvana.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
You become a Buddha, right, not again, not the Buddha,
but a Buddha like you're which means an enlightened one.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And if you say I have got some time and
money and I'm going to hire you a Buddha to
lead me to nirvana, you're almost like a junior Buddha.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
There's a different word for him. They're called are hats.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, are hit that's what I found. Are hit Yeah, okay,
that's right. That's when you have a Buddha guide to
guide you and you are not you're enlightened. You're just
not omniscient.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, not bad though, Yeah, big difference though. Not omniscient
and omniscient.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
There's a pretty big difference between those two things, you know, right,
So when the Buddha came back from his in like well,
once he achieved his enlightened state, he started trying to
tell people like, you can be like this too, and
here's how you do it. He said that there are
it's very simple. There are just four noble truths. It's
(18:22):
all you need to know until you realize that the
fourth noble truth mentions an eightfold path and then suddenly
like it's exponentially more involved, but it's still fairly simple stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, he taught this for the last forty five years
of his life. Number one is that life is suffering,
and I think that was he was clued into that
from his window that day. Yeah, it was the suffering
that really made him go, like, man, right, this is life,
that old guy, that dead body.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
If this is life, who needs enemies?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Oh? Good? Point Number two suffering is caused by ignorance
of the true nature of the universe. So ignorance is
not bliss, ignorance is no good.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
No, And basically the true nature of the universes that
we are made unhappy by wanting, by craving things, and
that we can free ourselves from those things by overcoming them.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
That's right. That's number three. You can end that suffering.
And then number four is if you attach yourselves and
follow the four I'm sorry, the Noble eightfold Path, not
the four right, then you're all set. You can overcome
all that junk.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
It's like, just remember these four things and then these
extra eight things.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So the eight fold path, the noble eight fold Path
are the ideals that guide you along the way, and
they're broken down into three divisions.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
There's samas.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
The divisions are samas.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh no, the the individual paths are called samas.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh gotcha. Well, the first two are under the division
of wisdom, right views, and right intention.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
And it's free if samas are are frequently translated into
right here in the West in English. Sure, and it
doesn't this article I read by this one guy said, like,
that doesn't mean that the opposite of that is wrong, right,
It's more right. It's more like right in this sense
means complete, perfect, whole.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, so the opposite of that would be incomplete, imperfect,
not whole. That makes sense rather than wrong, right, Yeah,
I get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The second division is ethical conduct, and under there you
have complete or right speech, right action, and right livelihood.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So working for Goldman Sachs or clubbing baby seals, You're
gonna have trouble achieving Nirvana at this in those positions,
I would.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Say, so, probably not. You're probably not seeking nirvana either, right,
you know, yeah, so you're fine. What about podcasters?
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Podcast totally in there.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
We're somewhere between clubbing baby seals and Golden Sets. And
then finally, concentration is the last division, and that is
right effort, right mindedness, and right contemplation.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
And the right mindedness is you know, being mindful, being aware.
Right effort is like you're directing your effort toward these
good things. Yeah, you're not being slack in your path
to enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And then the last one, right contemplation, is kind of
difficult to understand. It's very least, it's difficult to explain.
I found in researching, but it's basically focusing your entire
self on this, on the Eightfold Path and the four
Noble Truths, and yeah, like you're you're really directing all
of your thought and energy into that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah. And that's what I got from Grundy when I
talked to her last time we were up there at
the Bell House. She was it was just very soothing.
She's just like, man, it's just practice. You're like, it's
a cycle. You're just continually trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Gotcha.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And that's like the simplest breakdown. But you know, if
something bad happens and you don't, you start over and
you try harder, gotcha, which is like that sounds like
really great life principles. Yep, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
So that's Buddhist thought as far as achieving nirvana goes,
and Hinduism is actually very closely related, but there are
some major distinctions, and we will talk all about that
right after this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Okay, Chuckers, we're back.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
The Buddhists typically talk about nirvana as nirvana. In Hinduism,
it's usually referred to as moksha, but they're base talking
about the same thing. It's this the highest plane of
existence wherein you stop being reincarnated, you have worked off
your karmic debt, and you reunite with the cosmos, with
(23:16):
the universe. And in Hindu cosmology, they're talking about Krishna,
which is the godhead, which is the source of all things,
and Krishna is very frequently or Kristna incarnates in three
major deities in all deities, and all Hindu deities are
(23:37):
extensions of Krishna. But the big three are Brahma who's
the creator, Vishnu who's the sustainer, and Shiva who's the destroyer.
And when you die, when you achieve moksha, you go
and get absorbed into Krishna again.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, And the big difference that I think we found
with between Buddha nirvana and Hindu nirvana or Buddhist nirvana
is that with Hindu you're working your way up through
this cast system.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Eventually you start out by you have to be born
through every type of organism that exists on the planet.
You actually make it through under Hindu cosmology, eight million,
four hundred thousand different species of animals before you even
get to humanity. And then once you become a human,
you can go through countless lives in different casts over
and over again. But those casts are hierarchical, and you,
(24:35):
like you said, are working your way out.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, that's called the varna, and you get that good
karma you perform by performing duties in that cast, and
then basically once you have it's almost like a graduation
in the next life. If you've done well to the
next cast up.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, And there's actually a lot of debate right now
because Gandhi was famously thrown out of his cast vice Shaya.
I believe it's the merchant class, and he was thrown
out of it because he championed for the rights of
the lowest class, the Sudra, who basically were responsible for handling,
(25:14):
picking up dead animals and taking care of the rest
of the community's waste. And basically we're just generally mistreated
by the higher casts. And so there's this question now
in modern Hinduism, like does the cast system still fit?
Is it's still appropriate? But the thing is is, if
it's not a reflection of say God's punishment, but something
(25:38):
is physical, as like the second law of thermodynamics or motion,
sorry that it's just a reaction to some other action
you took in a past life. Who are humans to
say that the cast system is no longer appropriate. It's
just part of the universe. But then if it turns
out to human construct well then it gets kind of ticklish,
(25:59):
right because it undermines this Hindu cosmology. So it's a
weird place that modern Hinduism is in right now talking
about whether or not to do away with the cast system. Interesting,
what do you think I think that's up to Hindu
good answer, thanks.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
So I would imagine that Gandhi then in his next
life was definitely in that next cast up. Huh.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I would guess if he didn't just achieve moksha right
then and there.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, he's a pretty good guy.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
You're Gandhi. We'll just you can skip a few levels
exactly grades.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, And that's the thing. Like the highest classes, the
Brahman class in Hinduism, and they're the priestly class.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
They're like the.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Hindu or the Buddhist monks who go off and try
to achieve nirvana. Their station in life is to achieve moksha.
They've worked off their karmic debt to a tremendous degree,
and like their focus in life is to get rid
of the rest of their karmic life. So they are
not born again right right. The one below that is Kashatriya,
(27:00):
that's the ruling warrior class. That's the one that Siddharta
was born into, apparently when he was like this is wrong. Yeah,
we like anybody should be able to achieve enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Yeah, and that was one of the main reasons that
Buddhism was born, right, was that he didn't he rejected
that cast system.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
The main reason.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yes, yeah, and so but within this, like if you're
a kesha traya, like you're you're working on your karmak
debt because as far as you're concerned, if you can
work off enough of it, you will be born the
next life into the Brahmin class. And then you can
work really hard and get out of that and end
up achieving enlightenment. So there is like a hierarchical progression.
(27:38):
And as you were saying, one of the main things
that you're tasked with as a Hindu is dharma, which
is responsibility to your cast, right, like acting like a
member of your cast rather than you know, acting out
like Gandhi, I love it.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, there's actually four tenants, just like the eight what
was it, the eight the Noble Eightfold path, right, the
the there's like four in Hinduism. One of them is dharma,
responsibility to basically your caste, society's rules, but more importantly
like Krishna's rules, and also like being having a responsibility
(28:21):
and duty to your.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Own calling in life and just like living like that.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Artha is pursuing wealth because in Hinduism there's this idea
that's like kind of like in Buddhism, where you don't
need to be super rich, but you also shouldn't be
poor either. And one of the things is, just like
with Buddhism and Hinduism, you're trying to escape earthly desires
and wants. One way to do that is to have
(28:48):
the money to not have to worry about where your
food's going to come from. Freeze you up for a
lot of time to contemplate and get toward enlightenment.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Sure, that's artha comma is more fulfilling desires frequently, like
sexual desires, that kind of stuff, but there's all sorts
of like taboo and constraint and all that kind of stuff.
It's not like a free for all in Hinduism as
far as sex goes, right, Right. And then lastly there's moksha.
Once you have moved past your earthly desires, you become
(29:16):
free from delusion and realize that there is there is
no earthly self, there's just your connection to Krishna, and
then you can become enlightened.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Which is also called mosha. Correct.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, nice, pretty interesting stuff, huh. Yeah, so that's Nirvana,
not the band, not the band man. I hope we
pointed that out at the beginning of this or else.
Everybody's really confused right now.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Oh well, probably call it something like Nirvana not the band.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
If you want to know more about Nirvana not the band,
you can type that word into the search bar at
housetifforks dot com. Since I said search bar, it's time
for listener may.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And if you want to know more about Nirvana the band,
watched the great documentary montage.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Of heck It's not called Nirvana the band, Nope.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Montage of Hecky. Very well done, is it? Oh? It's
great depressing? All right, I'm gonna call this our biggest
fan in Uganda. Hey, guys, my name is Joshua Quizinberry.
I'm a huge, possibly the biggest fan of your show
and I listen to every chance I get. My wife's
son and I live in Compala, Uganda, where we run
an NGO for children with severe special needs who have
(30:34):
been abandoned, organ or abused. On the Nazi Sabotage episode
just spoke about the brilliant but poorly executed plan of
the Germans to infiltrate the US and cause chaos. I
wondered if you guys knew that wasn't an original idea
by Hitler, but in fact, during World War One, Kaies
of Wilhelm number two had an entire sabotage ring running
out of New York City that was responsible for numerous
(30:55):
acts of terror, including blowing up or attempting to blow
up railroads canals from the East coast all the way
to San Francisco in Canada. Did not know that this
is during the neutral period, Our neutral period of nineteen fourteen.
One of the largest and most devastating was blowing up
at munition's depot on New Jersey's Black Tom Island. Apparently
the blast was heard all the way in Philly and
(31:16):
through shrapnel that actually damaged the arm and torch of
Lady Liberty herself.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
What bring me, Kaiser Wilhelm.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
He's dead?
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Huh good?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Some of it? I just want to kick his body.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
What was that?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
I just figured that was you, Kaiser Wilhelm.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Is that what I sound like to you?
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
No, like I'm drunken about a throw up.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Some of the other plots that were thankfully discovered were
attaching rudder bombs on chips. Another interesting one was trying
to buy us passports from dockworkers to smuggle more spies in.
It was found out and ushered in putting photos on passports.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I think I understand.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I think so too, so they couldn't be stolen and
used anymore. Anyway, I thought you guys would find it
fascinating that the Germans that were a little better at
sabotage and would have made a better film than World
War One. Wow. And that is Josh Cleusenberry.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Thanks a lot, Josh, Thanks for the work you're doing
out there.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, if you want to get in touch with us
to let us know more about something we walked right
past in a previous episode, we love to hear more stuff.
You can tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should
Know If you can send us an email, Stuff podcast
at housetuffworks dot com, and as always, hang out with
(32:35):
us at our home on the web, Stuff youshould Know
dot Com.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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Josh Clark
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