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Buddha Buddhism,
Theravada
& Mahayana
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What is Buddhism?
This is one of the most
popular religions or rather
philosophy since there is no
explicit god and that’s very
good since there is no god
anyway. Everyone who walks
on earth without any of the
blinkers will automatically
know this. It was founded in
India around 500 BC and made
its way through Asia, first
to Tibet, China, Sri Lanka
and Myanmar or Burma, after
Thailand and slowly
expanding its footprint. |
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Buddhism is not a
real homogenous religion
as most other
religions are similar, there
are always sects with their
own rules, believing and
mythology, often in a
combination with people
issuing strict rules
and telling all
other human are more
or less not good as it
is usual in Islam
where is is clearly
postulated that all
non Muslims are
so-called
nonbelievers, this is
against some of the
basics human social
behavior and there
is clearly no
willingness to update.
Over time plenty of
sects developed with
its own doctrines
and legends.
Although it
has produced not
much mythology of
its own, it has
incorporated legends
of various regions.
The roots came from
Siddhartha Gautama
later known as The
Buddha, a prince
from a state in
northern India where
his father Suddhodana was king,
the Buddha was born
around 563BC.
Although he was a
real person, many
legends have been
growing up around
him
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those are still
visualized in form
of
Buddhist art,
Buddha statue,
painting, murals and
other artwork.
Considering the time
it is often
difficult to
separate fact and
fiction, but the
basics are well
known, such as his
religious teachings.
Buddhists in Asia
and all over the
world still take the
teachings quite
serious since it is
not so much directed
to a "God" who watch |
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over the
local ghosts and
deities, as it is in
Myanmar e.g. they
have their local
Nats which are ghost
of dead people
living in the trees
or small spirit
houses, they also
have this in
Thailand where
practically in front
of every house is a
spirit shrine.
Since it was
started in India no
wonder that there
have been and still
are influences of
Brahmanism which is
again a variation of
Hinduism.
This
religions share the
believe into
reincarnation and
karma, inclusive
Indian gods called
Devas and Asuras
which are the
demons.
Legends tell about
Amitabha who was a
bodhisattva, means a
person who found
enlightenment but
delayed his entering
into nirvana to help
others to gain
enlightenment too by meditation. |
Buddhist teaching
Mahayana
in the monastery |
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Some
History of
Buddhism |
It began in India
and China
followed in about
65AD to became one
of the three
important religions,
the others are
Taoism and
Confucianism.
Since Chinese people
are pragmatic
everyone could be
worshipping in any
of this temples and
vice versa.
Mahayana
as
practiced in China
is just more
suitable to the
spiritual world over
there because it
allowed more
deities, myths and
superstition than
Theravada.
In about 600AD a
Chinese monk with
the name Xuan Zang
went to India to
collect information
about the life of
Buddha and to get
copies of Tripitaka
texts. This travel
adventure was
published in around
1500 under the title
“Journey to the
West”. The story
also told about the
monkey god Sun
Wukong and the pig
god Zhu Bajie who
joined Xuan Zang on
his journey, the
journey duration was
about 14 years and
many strange
adventures had to be
solved.
The Chinese version
of the religion
developed
into a
complex
hierarchy of
gods and
deities over
time. A
important
deity was
Shang Di,
working
under him
was Dongyue
Dadi also
known as
Great
Emperor of
the Eastern
Peak he was
the one
looking
after the
souls of
virtuous
people and
more. Another of
this deities
were the
Four Kings
of Heaven,
Four Kings
of Hell, and
the kitchen
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god, important for
every home. Another
major deity was the
bodhisattva Mi-le
(known in India as Maitreya),
considered
to be the
future
Buddha.
Buddhist,
Christianity, and
Islam
are the three
most universalistic
religions, as they
are not
nation specific.
This is a
rather modern
philosophy, its more
than 2000 years old
but the elements of
pluralism and
humanity are
definitely included.
The totally opposite are
religions such as
Islam and
Christianity who
claim only they are
right in terms of
religion. As a
matter of fact one
can easily
distinguish a
primitive religion
from a advanced and
humanitarian
religion by checking
the tolerance giving
to others with a
different thinking
pattern.
This is on the top
of any religion by
this parameter. Here nobody
give you a problem
when you think in a
different way, in
Islam, if you think
different, they
stone you,
they hang you and
they kill you by
some other means,
strange religion
isn't it ? As a
matter of fact they
do even the same
when a women make
some "winkle -
twinkle" to a other
guy and the Turks,
Kurds, Moroccans and
so on even kill
their sisters and
brothers if they
mingle with people
of other religion,
this happen in the
21. century. |
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the
center is Gautama
as the main
object of
veneration.
The word Buddha is
not just a name.
It means "the
enlightened one".
There where
countless Buddha
before, but the
highest veneration
was to
Prince Siddhartha.
It has many
ideas, sects and
local, national
versions and is
characterized by complicated dogmatic
expressions. But
aside of all this
diversity and
variants of
there are
some common values.
One of this is the
doctrine of the
eternal
changeability in the
world and the lack
of an eternal soul,
the doctrine of the
reincarnation,
rebirth, karma and
the belief in the
inevitable practical
effect of human
activity.
The main
directions of
Buddhism are called
Theravada or Hinayana "Little
Vehicle", and the
Mahayana "Big
vehicle" but in all
versions Buddha as
the main object of
veneration.
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Copyright by www.buddha-buddhism.com |
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