A Slightly Embarrassing Truth For Me

The significance of the Buddhist teachings has impacted the everyday lives of Buddhist adherents as it provides a set of guidance, in which the goal of individuals is to improve themselves through effort and ultimately reach Nirvana, enlightenment. Through the Four Noble truths; The existence of Dukkha (Suffering),

So that is the Buddhism, its origin, beliefs and connections with individual. The Buddha is just a normal human being. He did not ask people to do anything; he just showed the way to get the true happiness, to reach the Nirvana that he was in. His teachings are certainly true and close to life. I would conclude with one of his most beautiful sayings about life,

Hope, J. and van Loon, B. (1995) Buddha for Beginners, New South Wales: Allen & Unwin.

This paper is a book report on “Living Buddha, Living Christ,” written by, Thich Nhat Hanh. In this paper I will discuss the four themes; Mindfulness, Understanding, Interbeing, and Wisdom. I will define the themes, and explain how each theme listed is a part of my life and whether this theme, can be co-related along with my faith.

After I came across David Knitter, a former ordained Christian priest and the author of “Without Buddha I could not be a Christian”, I began to realize that I had taken a western approach to Buddhism and had misconstrued some of Buddhism’s core teachings in my mind according to what I thought it should be. Knitter argued that the meaning behind religious teachings can become distorted upon translation and interpretation (92). This is why he had personal issues with his own religion before he turned to Buddhism to look for answers. He stated that, “the bond between language and the truth is so tight, when we change the language, the truth can and feel very, very different” (94). He also argued that how we use language to interpret the teachings of religious texts changes over time because we become culturally conditioned (93).

This is a nice intro into Buddhism, Ishwor. Please include a hyperlink in MWA1 for any outside sources.

The topic of Zen Buddhism and understanding how it fits into a framework that was designed to

Buddhism see’s the Four Noble Truths as the Buddha’s way of explaining the truth of the human condition and are described as the essence of His teachings. The Four Noble Truths play an important part in understanding the Buddha’s teachings and are essential in realising the goal of His teachings, which is to show individuals how to overcome suffering and obtain Nibbana, a place of peace and happiness where an individual ceases to experience suffering (Dukkha). Buddhism can be described as a religion one must practice and experience in order to grasp a full understanding of, with the Four Noble Truths themselves coming from the personal experience of The Buddha. It is through experiencing the extremes of life that the Buddha had an awakening and ultimately came to understand the truth of the world, as elucidated in the Four Noble Truths. Buddhism see’s the Buddha’s experience and subsequent awakening as reason in itself to support the Four Noble Truths and of the possibility of attaining Nibbana for all sentient beings. Objections raised against the first Noble Truth, which states that there is suffering (Dukkha), and that everything in life is pervaded by dissatisfaction, revolve around

The book Buddhism Plain and Simple, by Steve Hagen, caught my attention and became more interesting to me than I thought. I have always heard of the religion Buddhism, but I never knew what it was all about. I never thought that Buddhism was as huge as it is. I knew that it existed in other countries, but I never knew what exact countries. Many of the views in this book surprised me and the book taught me a lot about morals and better ways to live your life. The word “ Awareness” is talked heavily all through this book. For Buddhists, this is probably the most important aspect in their religion.

Simplicity is important to Buddha because he believes in living a simpler lifestyle rather than being very flourished and wealthy. He thought this was a better way to live

The first two steps in the Eightfold Path, which leads to the cessation of suffering, are right understanding and right resolution; a person must first discover and experience the correctness of the Four Noble Truths, and then resolve to follow the correct path. The next three steps form a kind of unit: right speech, right behavior, and right livelihood. These reflect the external aspects of a person's life, which must not be neglected. The interior disciplines constitute the final three steps: right efforts, right mindfulness, and right contemplation. By this means, the follower of Buddha can arrive at Nirvana. (Robinson)

The life of Siddhartha Gautama has captivated millions of people around the world. Millions of humans practice and try to live a life free of possessions and free of distractions from the materialistic plane of existence we call society. In essence, a popular belief about life becomes mainstream and therefore a new religion is created. I would argue that Buddhism is merely a way of approaching life from an uncharacteristic perspective. Therefore, I am suggesting that the Buddha created a philosophy and deserves a place among the great fathers of human thought such as Aristotle, Plato, and many others. Where Buddhism differentiates from the three major religions of the world, is the amazing techniques that Buddhists pursue every day to optimize their inner thinking within. The philosophies of Buddhism and new research in the scientific community surrounding techniques done by its followers, has created a growing interest in the way of life, especially in western culture. Going along, we will explore what makes this so.

The Buddha went in between to extremes to find the middle way. The middle way consists of the four noble truths and the eightfold path. The four noble truths are the most commonly shared belief between Buddhists. They are ways to eliminate desire, which will eliminate suffering. Number one says, “ life consists of suffering.” Number two says, “everything is impermanent and ever-changing, we suffer because we desire those things that are impermanent.” Number three says, “ the way to liberate oneself from suffering is to eliminate desire.” And number four says, “ desire can be eliminated by following the eightfold path.” The eightfold path is a group of statements, they are not sequential things, they are just attitudes and actions. The eightfold path consists of right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right live hood, right effort, right awareness and right meditation. By following these attitudes and actions, you can achieve a life without suffering#.

The journey “home” that Buddhists refer to as the privilege of enlightenment, the ultimate truth, is called the paramattha. The Paramattha is not the same journey as other faiths profess, because other faiths, like the science known as psychology, emphasize outside influence, in one way or another, in the ancient long search for understanding. Understanding life, afterlife, existence, thought, personality, behavior, and the unknown. These latter truth-seekers have overlapping roads of distinction on their charted course that is not an essential part of the

In the United States there are over four million buddhists, one thousand temples, study groups, or Buddhists associations (Monroe 108). This number has come from just one man searching to find happiness and eventually enlightenment. Buddha’s story is how buddhism became a religion all over the world. It teaches a peaceful manner, reveals the key to happiness for the mind, and eliminates the desire in life. Not just the history of buddhism is important, but how it has spread through the world and what it looks like today.