Religion Buddhism
Buddhism
In some countries in Asia, Bhutan, Thailand or Sri Lanka, Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the population. At the present time, is the fourth in the world in number of religion believers.
Location and timeline of Buddhism
Buddhism began as a minority religion of Northern India until the Emperor Ashoka adopted as personal religion in the 3rd century a.e.c.
Had his time of greatest development between the 1st and 9TH CENTURY c.e., he arrived to all Asia and became the religion with the largest number of adherents in the world. The Buddhist monasteries were centers of culture and prosperity of India to Japan.
From the 9th century, Buddhism was persecuted in China and lost strength in India, where it disappeared in the 13th century. In the rest of Asia, was becoming more local. In the 20th century, Buddhism expanded across Europe and America.
The foundations of Buddhism
It is said that Buddha expounded systematically the key ideas in the so-called sermon of Benares, which conceives of life as pain.
Buddha sculpture.Thailand
The sermon of Benares
The main idea of the sermon of Benares is found in the following excerpt: "This is the truth about grief: birth is pain, getting old is pain, adoentar-if it's pain, die is pain, join with what we do not like pain, separate than love is pain, not getting what we want is pain (...)The cause of the pain is home to want to live again, to seek what we like (...)
But for the pain to go away you need to undo this thirst to exist, reject her, freeing her.
The way to make the pain go away has eight parts: correct, right thinking, right word, correct activity, right livelihood, right effort, attention and correct concentration. This is the noble eightfold path that terminates the pain and leads to liberation.
Buddhism part affirmation of the inescapable nature of pain. Considers that there are different types of suffering that the human being is lifelong. There are situations that produce anxiety, pain and suffering, for example, the presence of illness, fear of old age, fear of loving and being loved or not loved and lost a loved one, the fear of failure in life and achieve goals, be subject to something you dislike, or have a bad character that produces rejection in other Although that on many occasions not be knowingly accepted.
Buddhist monks in a monastery in Bangkok, Thailand
Hence Buddhism believes that pain is universal, even in the pleasure hides the pain, since at some point it will end and the pain will come back again. This is what Buddhists call the first noble truth.
The second noble truth exposes that the cause of the pain is the desire to live again, to pursue what you love. The problem, according to the Buddha, is that we always or almost always have a selfish and it stops producing greater suffering. The solution would be in the Suppression of pain through the Elimination of existing. But this suppression is not a complete resignation to life. It is a transformation of the views that govern the living, through understanding, acting and meditate. This is the third noble truth.
The fourth noble truth exposes the way to overcome this desire and end the suffering. Has eight parts and is what Buddhists call the "noble eightfold path".
The sermon
Sermon can be defined as a religious discourse of a priest in front of the faithful.
Buddhist monks in front of the statue of Buddha lying on the Gal Vihara Temple (12th century), Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka.
Among the Christian sermons, the most famous is the sermon on the Mount of Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 5.3 -10) which transmits a message of hope. In this lecture you can find Parallels with the Benares regarding the inevitability of suffering.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are those who work for peace, for they shall be called sons of God.
Pagoda of the Zanda, Tibe.
The noble eightfold path
According to Buddhists, through eight different ways you can end the suffering.
The first of these is the correct word, which is to talk without hurting anyone. This means not to lie, speak with kindness while avoiding the gossip, slander and libel.
The correct activity consists in acting without hurting anyone. Also references to the development of virtue and the domain of the passions.
Right livelihood is exercising a profession that does not harm anyone. According to Buddhism, the first person you should not hurt is himself. The parts that have to do with the understand correctly are: correct opinion and right thinking, equivalent to understand with wisdom. To avoid mere assumptions or erroneous opinions about something that happened, it is important a self-examination before drawing up a value judgment. So, Buddha stated that self-knowledge leads to liberation, which you reach by means of meditation. Then you must practice the effort, attention and concentration as mental activities. The effort takes place in meditation, in attention and concentration when it meditates.
The diet fits
Buddhists cannot harm any living being, cannot kill animals. So, many Buddhists are vegetarians. In addition, many Buddhist monks live so very austere and not make more than one meal a day, before noon, but this diet, it was easy to follow in India, with a warm climate and that produces many vegetables, is not possible in regions with harder climates, for example in Tibet, where it's very cold and if produce very few plant foods. Although they are Buddhists, the Tibetans, including monks, eat meat if necessary and make three meals a day.
On the one hand, the Buddhist monks adopt certain habits and customs of the area of Tibet where they settled. On the other, this adaptation occurs only when necessary for survival, because, if this were not done, would be committed to the principle of the noble eightfold path, which should not harm yourself.
These prohibitions are also present in other religions: in Hinduism, it is forbidden to eat beef; in Islam and in Judaism, do not allow yourself to eat pork. The Israelis also have a list of forbidden foods.
Buddhism: a missionary religion
Buddhism is a universalist religion, which means that it has a message for any person, without any distinction.
Buddhism: a religion for all
After Buddha's death and before the reign of Emperor Ashoka (273-231 a.e. c), the Buddhist community, despite the missionary expansion, though it may be a minority group. It was a small-scale religion centered on the definition of dogma that permanently mark various paths if and which may have few certainties. However, this religion born in northern India became, thanks to Ashoka, in one of the major world faiths.
Universal character, to propose an acceptable message for any human being regardless of their circumstances and origin, favored its expansion and, in fact, the Buddhists were great missionaries.
Later there will be a parallel between the process that took place in India and which led to the expansion of Buddhism and what occurred in the Mediterranean world with Christianity: came to be religions with millions of faithful to convert to religions of power.
A very important moment in the expansion of Buddhism took place during the reign of the Indian emperor Asoka.Great conqueror, his armies dominated a territory, in which there were many religions. Buddhism had the advantage of serving for any of his subjects. Ashoka became a Buddhist and not only won to Buddhism much of India as also sent missionaries to the kingdoms and territories with whom he had contact, including the West.
Over time, Buddhism, following the routes of the trade, and in particular the Silk Road came to Afghanistan, to China and to Japan: the South, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Indochina; later, from the North to Tibet. There are 1000 years was the religion with the largest number of believers around the world.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan
In early March 2001, the Taliban, extremist group that then dominated the Afghanistan, destroyed part of the giant statues of Buddha in Bamiyan. The largest was about 53 m in height, and was a testament to the strength that Buddhism had in the past in this region.
Buddha Park in Vientiane, Laos
The expansion of Buddhism
Buddhism, having arrived to different people, caused the missionaries to adapt the Customs and beliefs. And what they call "skillful means" in the propagation of religion. As the central Buddhist message is simple and mostly the awakening, might, without ceasing to be Buddhists, offer, in each case, what easier resulted to be understood and accepted.
In this way, the Buddhist communities were and still are very different, eat and dress differently, change their parties, the forms of meditation or the funeral rituals.Until the idea they have of Buddha varies: some see it as an exceptional and exemplary human being, while others believe he is a supernatural being.
Detail of the reliefs of the great Stupa built by King Asoka in Sauchi, India.
Buddhism and Christianity
Buddhism and Christianity are alike in some ways. For example, both disappeared almost completely from places that have emerged.
Nowadays, where Jesus preached, the Christian population is little numerous. In the region of Palestine-Israel, from 638, the date of the taking of Jerusalem by Muslims, Islam was the dominant religion, except in very sporadic moments as the Crusades. There are, at present, many churches of several denominations but very few Christians.
In Israel, just over 1% is made up of Catholics, with just under 1% Orthodox and 0.2% Protestants.
Palestine (West Bank and Gaza), 4% and 4% are Catholics, Eastern Christians. The vast majority of the population is Jewish or Muslim.
Also there is a parallelism in the expansion of both religions. It was essential to Buddhism that Emperor Asoka adopt this religion. In Christianity, there was something like the Emperor Constantine,
Christianity is also a universalist religion, since from the preaching of Sao Paulo failed to take into account differences of class or status of any kind, and wished that your message reach and help all humanity, although in the first moments of Christianity there have been groups who thought that couldn't be Christian without being Jewish. Christian universalism comes from openness to non-Jews who, following são Paulo, accepted the vast majority of Christians.
The Emperor Constantine delivers West to supremacy of the Church. Detail of the Church of the Four Crowned Saints (13th century), Rome.
In both cases, there are historical connections between the political power and religion. The rulers of universalist religions can homogenize through them his subjects and create cohesion in take of his power thanks to the ideology, which is a less expensive way of control the military.
Thanks to the Emperor Ashoka, Buddhism has experienced remarkable expansion, reaching most of the Indian subcontinent and reaching distant regions. Ashoka adopted the Buddhist ethics as Director of his reign and enacted numerous edicts, which were placed on stones and columns in different languages. But they also advocated mutual respect and tolerance, since he considered that all religions contribute to the spiritual development.
Constantine was instrumental in the history of Christianity. In the year 313, promulgated the edict of Milan, which granted freedom of worship to all Christians in the Empire. At that time, in addition to the traditional religion co-exist in Rome, other religions, such as the veneration of Mithras and Judaism. Constantine is said to have had a vision of the cross before the decisive battle which granted him control over Rome and attributed the victory to the intercession of Jesus Christ.
From that moment on, put a cross in the regalia of his guard, protected the Christian bishops and leaned on them to remain in power.
Schools of Buddhism
In Buddhism there were many schools and groups. At present, there are three main ways to understand Buddhism, according to the regions of Asia, the continent in which you live most of the followers of that religion.
Buddhist monks from the South
Southern Buddhism
Southern Buddhism is one that is widespread mainly in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.
The followers of Buddhism from the South say they have the oldest sacred texts and closest to that Buddha preached. They give a great importance to the monks, who wear saffron robes, remain single and have very strict rules of discipline, as do more than a meal a day, taken before noon.
Ideally, the arhat, the monk who managed the awakening, following the example of Buddha through meditation and wisdom and it will never be reborn. They think that those who do not follow the discipline of the monasteries cannot attain liberation in this life and will try, for his merits and your good karma, rebirth as monks in order to reach nirvana.
Around the 1st century a.e.c. began to develop a distinct form to understand Buddhism, mahayana or great vehicle called to achieve liberation, which defends the arrival at the wake by many paths and without having to be a monk. This route is followed in the Eastern and Northern Buddhism.
Mongolian woman prostrate in front of a statue.
In mahayana Buddhism, each school proposes a path itself: some insist that the faithful make the effort to achieve liberation and others, in that the release is granted by the Buddhas.
For example, in the school of "pure land", which was very popular in China and Japan, it is believed that the Buddha Amitābha or "Amide", in Chinese, can take your faithful through death, a paradisiacal place, the pure land of the West, if praise him properly. The devotion, in this case, is the most important, not meditation, since that is who saves thanks to Amitābha prayer.
On the other hand, on the main zen school is the personal effort and constant in meditation that leads to awakening.Each is saved on their own merits, and the Buddhas have nothing to do with it.
The Buddhism of Eastern and Northern Buddhism
The East Buddhism is present in Japan and in East China and there are many different schools. Believe that there are many Buddhas and other supernatural beings, so that Sakyamuni, the historical Buddha, it would only be one of them. Ideally, the bodhisatva, a person can be a monk or not, but that, even if it has entered nirvana after he achieved awakening, decides to return to the world to help living beings moved by love and compassion for others.
Northern Buddhism developed in Tibet and expanded by Mongolia and the Western China. There are many sacred texts translated from India or written in Tibetan, among which the most famous is the Bard All \, or Tibetan Book of the dead.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that certain people with great spiritual development can come back after you die and choose his reincarnation. They are recognized because they recall the past life and identify objects that before were his. They are called tulkus and can be incarnations of bodhisatvas or Buddhas. Some of the religious leaders of Tibet are tulkus as the dalai lamas. Are the political and religious leaders of Tibet, and its followers believe are an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the bodhisatva of compassion.
Buddhists believe in gods?
To the South, Buddhism Buddha is an exemplary human being, who taught the path to awakening, but he is not a god. In their sacred texts, the question about whether gods exist or not seems to interest a lot because he adds nothing to the real problem that concerns: how to achieve awakening. This attitude is very significant, since I do not believe that there is a creator god, or that the universe remains for her performance, nor the awakening is achieved by their intermediary.
In the Eastern and Northern Buddhism, however, if attaches great importance to the role of Buddhas and bodhisatvas. Are many supernatural beings which surrenders cult because they help achieve the awakening and there are havens to which you can get for your intercession and therefore look like what, in other religions, the gods.
The difference of what occurs in the Western religions, such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam, for Buddhists there is no entity created the world doesn't need that it exists. In this way, also eliminates the theological issue of the existence of an almighty God who has created a world where there is evil.
The Buddha avoided metaphysical speculation about whether the world is eternal or not, if the soul is the same as the body, or if a Buddha exists after death, whereas on these issues "the greed of opinions tends not to be uplifting."
In long sermons of Buddha collected in the Digha Nikaya, the Buddha quips with the great Brahma from Hinduism, which would be the closest to the Creator God that Christians believe:
"There was a monk who wondered about how could transcend all worlds and meditated in order to contact the gods and give them your question. None of the gods of the sky below, or any other sky until you reach the Entourage of Brahma, could help you, but they assured him that the great Brahma could do it. After a while the great Brahma became visible and the monk you formulated your question. However, the only response he got was the proud assertion of Brahma that was the creator. After answering three times this way, Brahma led the monk aside and told him that he could not evade his entourage admitting publicly that I didn't know the answer. "
Category: Religion History
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