Buddhism, The Practical, Theatrical, And Its Social Aspects Of Buddhism

Buddhism has been around for over two thousand years, and continues to do so in many countries around the world. This religion originates in Asia and has a very unique adversity, much of its structure arose from the end of World War II, predominantly Asian nations needed to restructure society (RoAT 167). The word ‘Buddha’ means one who has awakened and will no longer be reborn. Thereafter, one who will enter nirvana, the state of being free from suffering.

Buddhism is an extremely unique religion that has many different philosophies and practices that you can not find in any other world religions. Buddhism explains the purpose of life. It is also a way to find peace within oneself. It helps find the happiness and contentment that people in our world today desperately seek. These variety of traditions, beliefs, and spiritual practices are largely based on teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha, commonly known as the Buddha, “the enlightened one”. Followers of Buddhism generally tend to stay away from conflict and live peacefully, working towards the ultimate goal of pure and lasting happiness. The religion is growing around the world and most recently in the west. It is a religion that can easily attract people from their fast pace world by giving them solutions and practices to relieve their stress and worries. Buddhism has answers to many of the problems in modern materialistic society. It is an ancient religion that millions of people around the world still follow today. (“A Five Minute Introduction.”)

Buddhism is a religion that focuses more on the individual and the actions of that individual, which was prevalent to me when I made my way into Portland and set foot in a Buddhist temple. The man I met within the walls of this temple was far from my stereotypical thoughts of Buddhist monks. The man I met looked like your plain old, average Joe, American man. Before I delve into the depths of my visit to this inspiring place, I need to sum up the Buddhist religion and why I chose to study this particular group of people.

There are many different religions with many different beliefs, traditions, practices, and rituals. These differences are a very important part of understanding and appreciating the culture and history behind the specific religion. However, the practices that certain religions have in common can aid even more in furthering the understanding of specific beliefs of other religions. Since most religions cultivate from the practices and beliefs of other religions, they use those core values and beliefs and transform them into what they believe is a better way practicing. Religions use similarities within each other and twist them into their own. There are certain beliefs within every religion that shape their practices such as their morals or their most essential or absolute value, their position on human beings’ problems and solutions, and their view on life and death within their religion. Pure Land Buddhism (a form of Mahayana Buddhism) and Vaishnavites (a group within Hinduism) are great examples of this very concept.

Buddhism is one of the largest religions in the world, and it is continually expanding throughout the world. Buddhism comes from "budhi", which means "to awaken", the goal of Buddhism. Buddhism is a very open and adaptive religion. Because of this, there are over 80,000 different types of Buddhism. The two most widest beleived being Mahayanna and Theraveda. There are about 3-4 million Buddhists in America now. Buddhism is rich in history and it appeals to millions, as it spreads messages of peace, equality, and fairness with little or no commitment needed on the follower.

Buddhism is actually more of a philosophy or way of life than a religion. Approximately 350 million people around the world are Buddhists. It began about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gautama at age 35, known as the Buddha, was “awakened or enlightened”. Buddhism basically means you must lead a moral life, be aware of your thoughts and actions and try to develop wisdom and understanding. It explains a purpose to life, tries to explain injustice and inequality and provides a way of life that leads to happiness. Buddhism began in India, and the earliest Buddhist art is found there. It is the fourth largest religion in the world. During the Muslim conquest Buddhism was excluded from India after almost a thousand years of peaceful coexistence with India 's other religions. The Buddha taught that awakening comes through one 's own experiences, not through beliefs and doctrine. He experienced a realization of the nature of life, death and existence. The focus of Buddhism is on practice rather than belief. Buddhist art and literature overflow with sacred beings, creatures and symbols. The huge number of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, devas, dakinis and demons overwhelm and confuse many of us. Buddhism offers an approach involving techniques and practices that enable its followers to experience a deeper level of reality for them. Buddhism is making a comeback in India. There were two schools of Gupta Buddhist sculpture; the Mathura school, from the earlier Kushan period, and the

Buddhism is a religion that was created and established by Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, a hindu who, after seeing what he called the four sights, sought to understand and explain the reason why the hardships of the world occurred. This lead him to create the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, both of which are meant to help anyone who follows them to reach prajna, the awareness of ultimate reality and then eventually reach Nirvana, a state in which an individual has extinguished the flames of desire, allowing them to escape Samsara’s suffering.

Buddhism is a religion mainly concerned in one’s inner peace and liberation from suffering. It is originated from India reaching almost 2,500 years of history. There are approximately 367 million followers in today’s world. Gautama Buddha, also known as the young Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama or “the awakened one”, is the founder and leader of this religion. The root word Budh in Sankrit means “to wake up” and “to know. (Smith&Novak 4)” The encouragement on how Gautama gets to bring Buddhism to people comes from the “suffering” he saw outside of his palace. During his life, Gautama established the community of monks “Sangha” and taught the path to liberate from suffering “Dharma.”

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. It is the oldest and fourth largest religion in the world with around 500 million followers. Buddhism focuses on teaching people how to come to terms with and end the suffering of themselves and others by cutting out greed, hatred, and ignorance from their lives. Unlike most major world religions, Buddhism does not revolve around worshiping a god or divine creator, instead the focus of Buddhism is living one 's best life and transforming the lives of others. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to reach Enlightenment and upon death achieve Nirvana, the liberation of pain and suffering. For Buddhists, it is the individual’s responsibility to find his or her own path to enlightenment; the principles of Buddhism are seen more as guidelines than rules.

Buddhism. Buddhism is a philosophy or non-theistic religion originating in India about two and a half thousand years ago. The general idea of Buddhism is to find inner peace and happiness, as well as wisdom and compassion through daily practice. Buddhists live peacefully and share their happiness with others. Buddha taught that all problems arise from negative states of mind and peace comes from a positive state of mind, because of this he explained gradual ways to create a positive state of mind and overcome our anger and suffering leading to the negative state of mind. (aboutbuddhism.org)

Buddhism is a philosophically-religious study, that concentrates on people’s life, their bodies, and minds, and promotes harmony between them all. It is crucially different from all other world religions in the way that it puts people in the center of everything and offers to achieve the better reality, Nirvana, through meditation and acceptance of four noble truths. Vipassana meditation, as one of the branches of Buddhism, can be understood as secular, not religion. To understand Vipassana, better, we should go back to exploring what Buddhism is, how it connects body and mind, and the ways to achieve Nirvana.

The initiator of Buddhism was accredited to a man named Siddhartha Gotama, but has come to be known as Buddha, “the Enlightened One.” He never envisioned to be a religion, since he understood life in Hindu faith. However, Buddhism is currently a main religion and an approach on life. One of the principal concerns Buddha had was that people needed to find their own enlightenment rather than alluring to the gods for help and support. The five basic rules of moral conducts are the killing, stealing, lying, engaging in improper sexual conduct and partaking in toxicants. (Hopfe, Woodward page 133, 2012). Buddhism emphases on leading a moral life, being thoughtful of one’s judgments and actions, and developing wisdoms with the knowledge of the great power of the Gods and subjects to the laws of karma and rebirth.

Buddhism is the religions of about 400 million people in the Orient. Buddhism accepts some Hindu ideas and rejects others. It retained the ideas of Karma and re-incarnation of souls. The Buddhist movement

Buddhism was founded in India by Buddha Shakyamuni thousands of years ago. He based centered his religion on peace and loving kindness. He established positive and negative states of mind. He created paths to find happiness and everlasting peace. There are many different form of expressing Buddhism that have evolved over the years, all of which originated from the teachings of Buddha. Buddhism practices positive thinking, emphasizes meditation, lays the path to find happiness, and does not believe that the world was created by a god or gods. Buddhism is also a faith that is flexible and practiced by anyone regardless of their religious and ethnic background.

Buddhist theory and practice is based around purification of the mind, which can lead to liberation and enlightenment. One of the foundations of the Buddha’s teachings is the idea of liberation through the Four Noble Truths (also known as the Four Holy Truths). These truths are as follows: the truth of suffering, in which everything involves suffering; the truth of the cause of suffering, suffering has a cause and origin; the truth of the end of suffering, suffering can be overcome or cured; and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering, there is a path to refocus your life (Gowans, 2003). It is said that the Buddha only appreciated these four truths once he had completely achieved enlightenment (Mūller, 1890).