The Jataka Tale Of The Hungry Tigress

In his book God is Not One, author Stephen Prothero offers audiences glimpses into the various religions throughout the world including Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, and more. Within the Buddhism chapter, Prothero discusses the numerous aspects of the religion. He provides extensive information regarding Buddhism’s background, beliefs, and practices. Although he mostly presents facts about this religion, Prothero effectively utilizes these details as substantial evidence to prove his argument that Buddhism heavily focuses on experience rather than narrative (Prothero 201).

Firstly, I am going to talk about the two themes, Bodhisattva’s compassion and emptiness in Mahayana. Bodhisattva is a practitioner who experiences millions of rebirths before becoming Buddha. However, in order to make sure that others are also enlightened, Bodhisattva put off his chance to enter nirvana (liberation). For Bodhisattva, it’s selfish that you only want to attain the perfection of awakening for yourself instead of being compassionate to the people who haven’t

When Ashoka originally became king in 273 B.C., he was just as ruthless as his grandfather. He would slay people he conquered with no mercy. However, one of his massacres took the lives of 100,000 captured people. After committing this act, he was horrified and ashamed of himself. He then vowed to follow the Buddhist teachings of “peace to al beings”.

In Larissa Macfarquhar’s book, Strangers Drowning, she provides character studies of various real-life extreme do-gooders and of some could be considered moral saints. One of them is a Buddhist monk, Nemoto, who dedicates his life to a cause of helping people who want to commit suicide. He is a moral saint in the sense that he draws no barrier for when this work ends and begins. He works tirelessly by taking on the suffering of these individuals he is trying to help, taking calls any hour of the day or night, and helping anyone who wants it. He learns a very important aspect that actually changes the empathy he feels into a separation of himself an the other. In order for him to help, and truly help, he needed to stop empathizing so much and start sympathizing with emotional distance from the other. This is a similar concept in the Bodhisattva method because while empathy breaks a barrier between ‘self’ and an ‘other’, it makes working for their benefit nearly impossible. The

The Indian Tale of Tulisa an Aarne-Tompson Tale Type 425 and the Disney animated Cinderella, both encompass the idea of manipulation or the use someone of a lower status for the benefit of one’s self seated in a higher power. Within both the Indian Tale of Tulisa and the 1950’s Disney animated film Cinderella, individuals within the story use other characters for their own benefit to achieve personal gain. The main characters, Tulisa in Tale of Tulisa and Cinderella in the film Cinderella, both summon animals of different species to help them complete tasks delegated to them to please a higher individual. There is an instance where the Queen in Tale of Tulisa uses Sarkasukis, disguised as an elderly woman, to trick Tulisa into performing tasks to benefit her status, Cinderella’s step-mother in Cinderella uses her two daughters to hurt their step-sister mentally and impose tasks upon her. Then at the beginning of the Tale of Tulisa, Nur-Singh, Tulisa’s father is persuaded to give away his daughter’s hand in marriage to a strange voice originating from a well in return for grand wealth, as Cinderella in the animated movie Cinderella is offered a new life with wealth when the Prince falls in love with her at the ball. There are several accounts throughout both stories where an individual is persuaded to complete an action through lies and deceit, so they will fail in the end, as the outcome ends up going the way of the one in power.

The Kannon Bosatsu, or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, is a carved wood statue of a Bodhisattva figure standing about two and one half to three meters tall. This statue shows a high level of detail on the Bodhisattva 's body, and is carved so smoothly that it could be mistaken for a stone carving. The show of skilled craftsmanship can be seen around the shoulders with the interaction of the cloth with the jewelry the Bodhisattva. The statue is placed on an ornate pedestal to cause the figurine to appear taller, giving it a feeling of authority, which contrasts with its calm, expressionless face. While the figure appears to be standing in a meditative state like the Buddha, the jewelry present all over the body of this figure distinguishes this figure as a Bodhisattva instead of a Buddha. In his book, The Story of Buddhism a Concise guide to Its History and Teachings, Donald S. Lopez Jr. establishes the importance of imagery in Buddhism. One major point he makes concerning the worship of Buddhist figures, is that the disciples of Buddhism not only believe that the figures are a mere representation of Buddha, but that the figures actually become and are animated by Buddha, an argument which seems to hold merit as truth.

Buddha has been considered as a democratic crusader against the inequalities of the caste system and the empty pretensions of the Brahmanical theology. He is regarded as having weakened the foundations of the prevalent religious and social structure by repudiating the revelatory character of the Vedas and by challenging the arrogant claims to dignity, importance and merit to Brahmin priests. The following lines clearly depict the rejection of ascriptive superiority based on the physical fact of birth in a particular gotra and family

The theme of self-sacrifice continues in chapter 10, where Buddha ransoms his eyes, so another man can see, and in another example, Buddha “threw down his body to feed a starving tigress” (Fa-hsien 11). In all cases, he is seen to make sacrifices all, human beings, harmless creatures and even beasts of

* How do different social groups act as part of the ritual? Do men and women have different roles? Do younger people and older people have different roles? Buddha-lama-effigy-patron

It is said that history is shaped by the lives of great men.  Great men are leaders.  They bring about change; they improve the lives of others; they introduce new ideas, models, and theories to society.  Most of the world's religions were founded, developed, or discovered by great men.  Two particular religions - Christianity and Buddhism - developed in different parts of the world, under different circumstances, and in different social atmospheres.  But each religion is based upon the teachings of a great man.  When one compares the life of Buddha with the life of Jesus, one finds that the two share many things in common.  This essay aims to compare and contrast the lives of Buddha1 and Jesus in two key areas:  conception and birth.

Buddhism’s founder was a man named Siddhartha Gautama, meaning “one who realized his goal.” Buddhists believe that when Siddhartha’s mother, Maha, was conceived she had a dream involving a white elephant carrying a lotus flower. She interpreted the dream to mean that her son would grow up to become a great spiritual leader. Just a week after Siddhartha was born, his mother died. Upon her death, he lived with his wealthy aunt and his father on a large estate. As Siddhartha grew up, his father kept him away from all suffering and anguish of the world. Unlike many of his peers, he was well educated and free from the world’s sorrows.

This essay will reflect the meaning, as well as the mythological interpretation of a movie titled “Little Buddha.” In the movie, “Little Buddha,” there were Tibetan Buddhist monks from a monastery in Bhutan, led by Lama Norbu, searching for a child, who they believed had been reincarnated, as the Buddhist leader, Lama Dorje. This individual was thought to be in an American child named Jesse. Jesse was believed to be the son of an architect father, named Dean, and a school teacher mother, named Lisa. The family lived in Seattle, Washington. The monks traveled to Seattle to meet the boy, observe his daily routine and habits, learn his personality to determine if he could undergo further testing to prove whether or not he was the reincarnated being of Lama Dorje.

Each of the characters in “The Monkey and the Monk,” represent an important trait or idea of buddhism, and this novel can be used as a basic representation for buddhist ideas. Either the strengths, weaknesses, or backgrounds of each character can be analyzed and applied to traditional buddhist

Jainism and Buddhism acknowledge extremely similar aspects in their respective religions. They both have a grounded belief of karma, samsara, and one of liberation. Although these basic principle are the same, they have differences within them. In this essay, it will discuss the similarities and differences between the basic beliefs and traditions regarding karma, samsara, recognition of the self, and final liberation in regards to Jain and Buddhist religions.

About 2,500 years ago, Prince Siddhartha Gautama renounced his empire in search of happiness or panacea for sorrow (dukkha) Gautama, after an extensive research throughout his empire and meditating on the collected data under a banyan tree,discovered that aspiration or want (kama) was at the root of sorrow (dukkha) laid down four noble truths to eliminate sorrow, and became the Buddha, the enlightened. Truths “Sanskriti, Mana. "The Four Noble." (1998).”