Largest Followings Of Buddhism example essay topic

Buddhism Buddhism is a major world religion which was founded in northeastern India. It is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha. It has significant numbers of followers around the world, with the majority in Asia. India has one of the largest followings of Buddhism as does China. The total following is estimated at about 300 million worldwide. Siddhartha Guat ama was born in Kapilavastu, India, just inside present day Nepal.

He was the son of the head of the Sakya warrior caste. According to legend, at his birth sages recognized in him the marks of a great man with the potential to become a sage or the ruler of an empire. The young prince was raised in sheltered luxury. At an early age Siddhartha showed an inclination to meditation and reflection.

This displeased his father who wanted him to become a warrior and ruler rather than a religious philosopher. Ceding to his father's wishes, Siddhartha married at an early age and participated in the worldly life of the court. Siddhartha found his carefree, self-indulgent existence dull, and after a while he left home and began wandering in search of enlightenment. At the age of 29, he left his wife, children, and political involvement's in order to seek truth.

This was an excepted practice at the time for some men to leave their family and lead the life of an ascetic. Siddhartha first studied Hinduism, he received instruction from some famous Brahman teachers. However he disliked the Hindu caste system and found Hindu asceticism futile. One day in 533 BC, according to Buddhist teaching, Siddhartha encountered an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse. He suddenly and deeply realized that suffering isthe common lot of humankind.

He then came upon a mendicant monk, calm and serene, whereupon he determined to adopt the monk's way of life and forsake family, wealth, and power inthe quest for truth. This decision, known as the Great Renunciation, is celebrated by the Buddhists as a turningpoin in history. He began practicing yoga and adopted a life of radical asceticism. In his search he attracted five followers, but later lost them. Eventually he gave up this approach and adopted a middle path between the life of indulgence and that of self-denial.

Sitting under a Bo tree, he meditated, rising through a series of higher states of consciousness until he attained the enlightenment for which he had been searching. This moment is known as the Great Enlightenment. It revealed the way of salvation from suffering. The Buddha, as he is known, began to preach, wandering from place to place, gathering a body of disciples, and organizing them into a monastic community known as the sangha.

He regained his original five disciples, and with their company he traveled through the Ganges River Valley, teaching his doctrines, and organizing monastic communities that admitted anyone regardless of class. He returned briefly to his native town and converted his father, his wife, and other members of his family to his beliefs. After 45 years of missionary activity Buddha died in Kusinagara, Nepal, as a result of eating contaminated pork. He was about 80 years old. Buddhism is a religion that shares few concepts with Christianity. They do not believe in a God or gods.

They dont have a need for a personal Savior. They do not believe in the power of prayer, or eternal life in heaven or hell after death. Instead they believe in reincarnation, the concept that one must go through many cycles of birth, living, and death. After many such cycles, if a person releases their attachment to desire and the self, they can attain Nirvana.

The Buddha was an oral teacher; he left no written body of thought. His beliefs were record by later followers. Atthe core of the Buddha's enlightenment was the realization of the Four Noble Truths. (1) Life is a suffering. This is more than a mere recognition of the presence of suffering in existence. It is a statement that says human existence is essentially painful from the moment of birth to the moment of death.

Even death brings no relief, for the Buddha accepted the Hindu idea of life as cyclical, with death leading to further rebirth. (2) All suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the craving, attachment, and grasping that result from such ignorance. (3) Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and attachment. (4) The path to the suppression of suffering isthe Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right-mindedness, and right contemplation.

These eight are usually divided into three categories that form the cornerstone of Buddhist faith: morality, wisdom, and samadhi, or concentration. Buddhism analyzes human existence as made up of five aggregates or bundles: the material body, feelings, perceptions, predisposition's or karmic tendencies, and consciousness. A person is only a temporary combination of these aggregates, which are subject to continual change. Noone remains the same for any two consecutive moments.

Buddhists deny that the aggregates individually or in combination may be considered a permanent, independently existing self or soul. They regard it as a mistake to conceive of any lasting unity behind the elements that constitute an individual. The Buddha held that belief in such self results in egoism, craving, and hence in suffering. Thus he taught the doctrine of an atman, denial of permanent soul.

The Buddha taught the doctrine of pratityasamutpada, dependent origin. This shows how ignorance in a previous life creates the tendency for a combination of aggregates to develop. These cause the mind and senses to operate; sensations result which lead to craving and a clinging to existence. This triggers the process of becoming once again, producing a renewed cycle of birth, old age, and death. Through this chain a connection is made between one life and the next. What is left is a stream of renewed existence's, rather than a permanent being that moves from life to life.

Buddhists also believe the doctrine of Karma. Karma consists of a person's acts and their ethical consequences. Human actions lead to rebirth, wherein good deeds are inevitably rewarded and evil deeds punished. The Karmic process operates through a kind of natural moral law rather than through a system of divine judgment.

One's karma determines such matters as one's species, beauty, intelligence, social status, etc... Through varying karma one can be reborn as anything, human, animal, ghosts, whatever. The ultimate goal of the Buddhist path is release fromthe round of worldly existence and its suffering. To achieve this goal is to attain Nirvana, an enlightened state in which greed, hatred, and ignorance cease to exist. In theory, the goal of Nirvana is attainable by anyone, although it is a realistic goal only for members of the monastic community. For those who are unable to pursue the ultimate goal, the goal of better rebirth through improved karma is the path which they take.

This is in hopes of being born into a better life, in which they are capable of pursuing final enlightenment as members of the sangha. Buddhism spread very rapidly throughout India because of the religion's political support. King Asoka sent out many missionaries throughout the land to gain followers. I twas brought to China by merchants, where it established strong roots. Eventually Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan. In the 7th century AD Buddhism was introduced in Tibet through the influence of foreign wives of the king.

Some seven centuries later Tibetan Buddhists adopted the idea that the abbots of its great monasteries were reincarnations of famous bodhisattvas. A bodhisattvas is one who forgoes Nirvana in order to save others. The chief of these abbots became known as the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet as a theocracy from the middle of the 17th century until the seizure of Tibet by China in 1950. One of the lasting strengths of Buddhism has been its ability to adapt to changing conditions and to a variety of cultures. Buddhism remains strong in Thailand and Myanmar.

Buddhism largely died out in India during the 8th and 12th centuries, but has since had a strong resurgence. Buddhism is still very strong in Japan, and is gaining popularity inthe West. As its influence in the West slowly grows, Buddhism is once again beginning to undergo a process of acculturation to its new environment. Although its influence in the United States is still small, apart from Japanese and Chinese communities, new American forms of Buddhism may eventually develop.

As Buddhism has taken a grasp on Hollywood, it could become a major philosophical belief inthe United States 315.