Buddhism

(bo͝od`ĭzəm), religion and philosophy founded in India c.525 B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama, called the BuddhaBuddha
[Skt.,=the enlightened One], usual title given to the founder of Buddhism. He is also called the Tathagata [he who has come thus], Bhagavat [the Lord], and Sugata [well-gone]. He probably lived from 563 to 483 B.C.
..... Click the link for more information. . There are over 300 million Buddhists worldwide. One of the great world religions, it is divided into two main schools: the Theravada or Hinayana in Sri Lanka and SE Asia, and the Mahayana in China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. A third school, the Vajrayana, has a long tradition in Tibet and Japan. Buddhism has largely disappeared from its country of origin, India, except for the presence there of many refugees from the Tibet region of China and a small number of converts from the lower castes of Hinduism.

Basic Beliefs and Practices

The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the "four noble truths": existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trishna); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvananirvana
, in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, a state of supreme liberation and bliss, contrasted to samsara or bondage in the repeating cycle of death and rebirth.
..... Click the link for more information. ; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the "eightfold path" of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance.

Experience is analyzed into five aggregates (skandhas). The first, form (rupa), refers to material existence; the following four, sensations (vedana), perceptions (samjna), psychic constructs (samskara), and consciousness (vijnana), refer to psychological processes. The central Buddhist teaching of non-self (anatman) asserts that in the five aggregates no independently existent, immutable self, or soul, can be found. All phenomena arise in interrelation and in dependence on causes and conditions, and thus are subject to inevitable decay and cessation. The casual conditions are defined in a 12-membered chain called dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) whose links are: ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age, and death, whence again ignorance.

With this distinctive view of cause and effect, Buddhism accepts the pan-Indian presupposition of samsara, in which living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth-and-death, with the momentum to rebirth provided by one's previous physical and mental actions (see karmakarma
or karman
, [Skt.,=action, work, or ritual], basic concept common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The doctrine of karma states that one's state in this life is a result of actions (both physical and mental) in past incarnations, and action in this life can
..... Click the link for more information. ). The release from this cycle of rebirth and suffering is the total transcendence called nirvana.

From the beginning, meditation and observance of moral precepts were the foundation of Buddhist practice. The five basic moral precepts, undertaken by members of monastic orders and the laity, are to refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants. Members of monastic orders also take five additional precepts: to refrain from eating at improper times, from viewing secular entertainments, from using garlands, perfumes, and other bodily adornments, from sleeping in high and wide beds, and from receiving money. Their lives are further regulated by a large number of rules known as the Pratimoksa. The monastic order (sangha) is venerated as one of the "three jewels," along with the dharma, or religious teaching, and the Buddha. Lay practices such as the worship of stupas (burial mounds containing relics) predate Buddhism and gave rise to later ritualistic and devotional practices.

Early Buddhism

India during the lifetime of the Buddha was in a state of religious and cultural ferment. Sects, teachers, and wandering ascetics abounded, espousing widely varying philosophical views and religious practices. Some of these sects derived from the Brahmanical tradition (see HinduismHinduism
, Western term for the religious beliefs and practices of the vast majority of the people of India. One of the oldest living religions in the world, Hinduism is unique among the world religions in that it had no single founder but grew over a period of 4,000 years in
..... Click the link for more information. ), while others opposed the Vedic and Upanishadic ideas of that tradition. Buddhism, which denied both the efficacy of Vedic ritual and the validity of the caste system, and which spread its teachings using vernacular languages rather than Brahmanical Sanskrit, was by far the most successful of the heterodox or non-Vedic systems. Buddhist tradition tells how Siddhartha Gautama, born a prince and raised in luxury, renounced the world at the age of 29 to search for an ultimate solution to the problem of the suffering innate in the human condition. After six years of spiritual discipline he achieved the supreme enlightment and spent the remaining 45 years of his life teaching and establishing a community of monks and nuns, the sangha, to continue his work.

After the Buddha's death his teachings were orally transmitted until the 1st cent. B.C., when they were first committed to writing (see Buddhist literatureBuddhist literature.
During his lifetime the Buddha taught not in Vedic Sanskrit, which had become unintelligible to the people, but in his own NE Indian dialect; he also encouraged his monks to propagate his teachings in the vernacular.
..... Click the link for more information. ; PaliPali
, language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Some scholars classify it as a Prakrit, or vernacular dialect of classical Sanskrit.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Conflicting opinions about monastic practice as well as religious and philosophical issues, especially concerning the analyses of experience elaborated as the systems of AbhidharmaAbhidharma
[Skt.,=higher dharma, or doctrine], schools of Buddhist philosophy. Early Buddhism analyzed experience into 5 skandhas or aggregates, and alternatively into 18 dhatus or elements.
..... Click the link for more information. , probably caused differing sects to flourish rapidly. Knowledge of early differences is limited, however, because the earliest extant written version of the scriptures (1st cent. A.D.) is the Pali canon of the Theravada school of Sri Lanka. Although the Theravada [doctrine of the elders] is known to be only one of many early Buddhist schools (traditionally numbered at 18), its beliefs as described above are generally accepted as representative of the early Buddhist doctrine. The ideal of early Buddhism was the perfected saintly sage, arahant or arhat, who attained liberation by purifying self of all defilements and desires.

The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism

The positions advocated by Mahayana [great vehicle] Buddhism, which distinguishes itself from the Theravada and related schools by calling them Hinayana [lesser vehicle], evolved from other of the early Buddhist schools. The Mahayana emerges as a definable movement in the 1st cent. B.C., with the appearance of a new class of literature called the Mahayana sutras. The main philosophical tenet of the Mahayana is that all things are empty, or devoid of self-nature (see sunyatasunyata
[Skt.,=emptiness], one of the main tenets of Mahayana Buddhism, first presented by the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajna-paramita) scriptures (1st cent. B.C. on) and later systematized by the Madhyamika school.
..... Click the link for more information. ). Its chief religious ideal is the bodhisattvabodhisattva
[Sanskrit,=enlightenment-being], in early Buddhism the term used to refer to the Buddha before he attained supreme enlightenment; more generally, any being destined for enlightenment or intent on enlightenment.
..... Click the link for more information. , which supplanted the earlier ideal of the arahant, and is distinguished from it by the vow to postpone entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved.

The bodhisattva is an actual religious goal for lay and monastic Buddhists, as well as the name for a class of celestial beings who are worshiped along with the Buddha. The Mahayana developed doctrines of the eternal and absolute nature of the Buddha, of which the historical Buddha is regarded as a temporary manifestation. Teachings on the intrinsic purity of consciousness generated ideas of potential Buddhahood in all living beings. The chief philosophical schools of Indian Mahayana were the MadhyamikaMadhyamika
[Skt.,=of the middle], philosophical school of Mahayana Buddhism, based on the teaching of "emptiness" (see sunyata) and named for its adherence to the "middle path" between the views of existence or eternalism and nonexistence or nihilism.
..... Click the link for more information. , founded by Nagarjuna (2d cent. A.D.), and the YogacaraYogacara
[Skt.,=yoga practice], philosophical school of Mahayana Buddhism, also known as the Vijnanavada or Consciousness School. The founders of this school in India were Maitreya (270–350), his disciple Asanga (c.
..... Click the link for more information. , founded by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th cent. A.D.). In this later Indian period, authors in different schools wrote specialized treatises, Buddhist logic was systematized, and the practices of TantraTantra
, in both Hinduism and Buddhism, esoteric tradition of ritual and yoga known for elaborate use of mantra, or symbolic speech, and mandala, or symbolic diagrams; the importance of female deities, or Shakti; cremation-ground practices such as meditation on corpses; and,
..... Click the link for more information. came into prominence.

The Spread of Buddhism

In the 3d cent. B.C. the Indian emperor AśokaAśoka
or Ashoka,
d. c.232 B.C., Indian emperor (c.273–c.232 B.C.) of the Maurya dynasty; grandson of Chandragupta. One of the greatest rulers of ancient India, he brought nearly all India, together with Baluchistan and Afghanistan, under one sway for the
..... Click the link for more information. greatly strengthened Buddhism by his support and sent Buddhist missionaries as far afield as Syria. In succeeding centuries, however, the Hindu revival initiated the gradual decline of Buddhism in India. The invasions of the White Huns (6th cent.) and the Muslims (11th cent.) were also significant factors behind the virtual extinction of Buddhism in India by the 13th cent.

In the meantime, however, its beliefs had spread widely. Sri Lanka was converted to Buddhism in the 3d cent. B.C., and Buddhism has remained its national religion. After taking up residence in Sri Lanka, the Indian Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa (5th cent. A.D.) produced some of Theravada Buddhism's most important scholastic writings. In the 7th cent. Buddhism entered Tibet, where it has flourished, drawing its philosophical influences mainly from the Madhyamika, and its practices from the Tantra.

Buddhism came to SE Asia in the first five centuries A.D. All Buddhist schools were initially established, but the surviving forms today are mostly Theravada. About the 1st cent. A.D. Buddhism entered China along trade routes from central Asia, initiating a four-century period of gradual assimilation. In the 3d and 4th cent. Buddhist concepts were interpreted by analogy with indigenous ideas, mainly Taoist, but the work of the great translators KumarajivaKumarajiva
, 344–413, Buddhist scholar and missionary, b. Kucha, in what is now Xinjiang, China. When his mother, a Kuchean princess, became a nun, he followed her into monastic life at the age of seven.
..... Click the link for more information. and Hsüan-tsangHsüan-tsang
, 605?–664, Chinese Buddhist scholar and translator. He early entered monastic life and later traveled in China, teaching and studying. Between 629 and 645 he made a pilgrimage to India in search of authentic scriptures.
..... Click the link for more information. provided the basis for better understanding of Buddhist concepts.

The 6th cent. saw the development of the great philosophical schools, each centering on a certain scripture and having a lineage of teachers. Two such schools, the T'ien-t'ai and the Hua-YenHua-yen Buddhism
[Chin.,=flower garland], school of Chinese Buddhism centering on the Avatamsaka Sutra [flower garland sutra]. This school has no Indian counterpart.
..... Click the link for more information. , hierarchically arranged the widely varying scriptures and doctrines that had come to China from India, giving preeminence to their own school and scripture. Branches of Madhyamika and Yogacara were also founded. The two great nonacademic sects were Ch'an or Zen BuddhismZen Buddhism,
Buddhist sect of China and Japan. The name of the sect (Chin. Ch'an, Jap. Zen) derives from the Sanskrit dhyana [meditation]. In China the school early became known for making its central tenet the practice of meditation, rather than adherence
..... Click the link for more information. , whose chief practice was sitting in meditation to achieve "sudden enlightenment," and Pure Land BuddhismPure Land Buddhism
or Amidism,
devotional sect of Mahayana Buddhism in China and Japan, centering on worship of the Buddha Amitabha. According to the Pure Land Sutras, composed in India in the 2d cent. A.D.
..... Click the link for more information. , which advocated repetition of the name of the Buddha Amitabha to attain rebirth in his paradise.

Chinese Buddhism encountered resistance from Confucianism and Taoism, and opposition from the government, which was threatened by the growing power of the tax-exempt sangha. The great persecution by the emperor Wu-tsung (845) dealt Chinese Buddhism a blow from which it never fully recovered. The only schools that retained vitality were Zen and Pure Land, which increasingly fused with one another and with the native traditions, and after the decline of Buddhism in India, neo-Confucianism rose to intellectual and cultural dominance.

From China and Korea, Buddhism came to Japan. Schools of philosophy and monastic discipline were transmitted first (6th cent.–8th cent.), but during the Heian period (794–1185) a conservative form of Tantric Buddhism became widely popular among the nobility. Zen and Pure Land grew to become popular movements after the 13th cent. After World War II new sects arose in Japan, such as the Soka GakkaiSoka Gakkai
[Jap.,=Value Creation Society], Japan-based independent lay Buddhist movement. A theological offshoot of Nichiren Buddhism, it was founded (1930) as the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai [Value Creation Educational Society] by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, educator and follower of the
..... Click the link for more information. , an outgrowth of the nationalistic sect founded by Nichiren (1222–82), and the Risshokoseikai, attracting many followers.

Bibliography

See H. C. Warren, Buddhism in Translations (1896, repr. 1963); D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism (1956); A. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese History (1959, repr. 1979); E. Conze, Buddhism (1953, repr. 1959), Buddhist Scriptures (1959), and Buddhist Thought in India (1962, repr. 1967); E. Zürcher, Buddhism (1962); K. S. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China (1964, repr. 1972); W. T. de Bary, The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan (1969); T. Ling, The Buddha (1973); R. Lester, Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia (1973); W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (2d ed. 1974); D. and A. Matsunaga, Foundations of Japanese Buddhism (1974–76); S. J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer (1976); L. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (1976); R. H. Robinson, The Buddhist Religion (3d ed. 1982); and R. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism (1988); J. Ishikawa, The Bodhisattva (1990).

Buddhism

a Far Eastern ethical religion deriving from the teachings of Buddha, ‘the enlightened one’, a Hindu nobleman in 6th-century BC Nepal. Subsequently, Buddhism has spread widely and has taken several forms. The road to salvation, according to Buddha, is self-denial, self-discipline and meditation, with the goal of escape from the endless cycle of reincarnation which would otherwise occur. Nirvana, or complete spiritual fulfilment, is the ultimate objective. As such, the orientation of Buddhism has often been, in Weber's terminology, ‘other-worldly’. At times, however, Buddhism has also been a highly political religion, as in Lamaism or as part of protest movements within Third World societies.

Buddhism

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Buddhism is a humanistic philosophy with deep psychological insights. Some practitioners worship gods, others do not. The Buddha himself is not worshiped as a god, but he is venerated as a completed, spiritual teacher.

Buddhism's principal concept is that human consciousness can be transformed from attachment to ego, suffering, and objects of desire to the unattached bliss of Nirvana. The path of this transformation was demonstrated by the Buddha, an enlightened man who showed the way out of the wheel of life, death, and rebirth—the material world seemingly ruled by attachment and ignorance. Buddhism's fundamental practice is meditation, and its fundamental social expression is the Samgha, the order of priests.

One of the keys to understanding Buddhism is the concept of anatman, "no self." To understand anatman, we must begin with Buddha's Four Noble Truths: All life is suffering; suffering is caused by desire; there can be an end to desire; and to end desire, follow the Eightfold Path.

In the process of seeking for the meaning of life, Buddha came to realize that:

All Life Is Suffering

By this Buddha did not mean that life is a miserable experience. Rather, he was pointing out that even the most joyous moment contains the thought that the moment cannot last. Every life will come to an end. Everything is in the process of dying. At the moment of birth the journey begins toward death. The reality of death should be acknowledged, not denied or feared to the point of debilitation.

The Buddha would never discourage jogging, joining an exercise club, or pursuing a healthy diet. But he would insist these activities should be performed to enhance life, rather than to create the illusion that death can be postponed. The healthiest person alive will someday die. Hence, all life is suffering.

But the knowledge of death is not necessarily tragic. Death is a part of life. So what causes suffering? Is it simply the knowledge that good times don't last forever? No.

Suffering Is Caused by Desire

We want what we cannot have. We desire something because we believe it will bring happiness or release from sorrow. We attempt to hold on to joyous moments, trying to make them last forever. We gather things around us to protect us from suffering, so life becomes a matter of accumulating and desiring more of those things—a bigger house, a more suitable mate, better clothes, a more comfortable car, a higher-paying job that will provide more money to buy more things.

Buddha believed people consist of five skandhas, or bundles. Rather than consisting of a "soul" stuck in a body, people are made up of various parts, blending together to produce a whole. The five skandhas are:

Form (outward appearance) Feelings (inward emotions) Perceptions (how we visualize what we feel) Impulses (Karmic dispositions—the forces that propel life forward toward a goal) Background consciousness (that from which we spring and to which we return)

To see how these things work together, consider, as an example, an inner conversation before buying a new car:

That's a nice car. (The form of the car pleases us.)

I want that car! (We experience an inward emotion of desire.)

I can just see myself driving down the street. Imagine the stares of approval I'd get. (We visualize how we would feel.)

I deserve that car. It was meant for me! (We believe Karma, or fate, brought us to this place and time.)

I've always wanted a car like that! (We come to believe our purchase is somehow eternally predestined.)

Note the progress from skandha to skandha. Form stimulates feelings, which form perceptions, provoke impulses, and inform consciousness.

The problem, according to Buddha, is that most people get stuck on the word "I." "I" want, "I" feel, "I" visualize. But who is this "I"? "I" is obviously the villain of the piece, because it is this "I" who is setting in progress the chain of desires that lead to suffering. By saying "I," we demonstrate that we feel as though we are somehow an individual separate from the rest of the world. If "I" am "me," and "you" are "you," then we are obviously separate from each other. And if "I" desire something, then the "I" that desires must be an entity separate from the desire itself.

Buddha would say we are misreading the data. The "I" who sees and perceives is simply a phenomenon. It is an illusion. It does not really exist. It is a word expressing the way we perceive what is, in fact, the bundle of parts that make up our whole.

We are now approaching the point where we can begin to understand anat- man. We have seen that suffering is caused by desire. Buddha came to realize that "desire" was the weak point. This is where Buddhism becomes positive.

There Can Be an End to Desire

Suffering is like fire. It needs fuel. Remove the fuel and the fire goes out. Desire is the fuel that feeds suffering. If the perceived "I" can stop desiring, suffering can be stopped. It's as simple (and as difficult) as that.

Follow the Eightfold Path

But how do we stop desiring? How do we control such a basic human tendency? The path is difficult. Buddha's Fourth Noble Truth describes it as the Eightfold Path:

Right Understanding (seeing through illusions such as the idea that wealth will bring happiness) Right Thought or Motives (doing for others rather than for oneself) Right Speech (even to ourselves—positive words are better than negative ones) Right Action (doing nothing that would have to be kept hidden) Right Livelihood (work must be consistent with beliefs) Right Effort (constant awareness of the Eightfold Path) Right Mindfulness (doing everything purposefully) Right Meditation (final attainment of the trance state of anatman, "no self"; we understand that we are one with everything and connected to it all, without being aware that we are aware—we simply "are")

When we come to the point wherein the "I," the ego, has retreated, taking its proper place as simply a phenomenon, we are freed from the desires upon which the "I" has insisted. Once we are freed from desire, suffering cannot exist, because suffering is caused by desire.

Acceptance replaces desire, and there is a vast difference between the two. Acceptance has to do with embracing the duality of life as it is in the moment, not desiring to modify it, change it, or judge it. This is the Middle Way between the pairs of opposites, joy and sorrow. Instead of clinging to the joy and attempting to hold onto it by any and all methods, we accept joy when it comes just as we accept sorrow when it comes. And by seeking acceptance, we discover the Middle Way between joy and sorrow to the place of peace that embraces both. This is enlightenment.

Dreams are very important in Buddhism, which views dreams as very often having to do with prophecy or as resulting from the influence of a deity. (Buddhist statues at the Wat Yai Chai-mongkol, Ayutthaya, Thailand.)

Buddhism

(dreams)

Buddhism is one of the great religions of the world, third in size (in terms of number of adherents) after Christianity and Islam. Originating as a splinter sect from Hinduism (much as Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism), Buddhism spread throughout Asia, all but disappearing in India, the land of its birth. Buddhism shares many of its basic notions, such as the doctrine of reincarnation, with Hinduism.

As in other areas of the world, Asians have speculated extensively about the significance of dreams, often coming to much the same conclusion as other cultures. Certain dreams, for instance, have often been regarded as messages from the gods. In Buddhism, which claims no supreme divinity as such, dreams can nevertheless represent messages from divine agencies.

The earliest Buddhist scriptures, for example, tell the story of how the future Buddha’s mother had a dream in which four kings carried her bed to a mountain peak where four queens greeted her with jewels and escorted her to a palace of gold: “A white elephant with six shining ivory tusks appeared and painlessly pierced her side with a thrust of its tusk. She awoke to the song of a blue bird and realized that she had immaculately conceived” (Van de Castle, p. 39—see Sources). This dream was interpreted as signifying that she was pregnant with someone who would become either a world ruler or a world teacher.

Where India outstrips other cultural traditions is in the development of the theme of this life or this world as a kind of dream. According to the mainstream of Hindu religious thought—which was adopted wholesale by Buddhism—the individual soul is trapped in the sufferings involved with life in this world. And because of reincarnation, even death does not release one from this world. In most of the religious traditions of southern Asia, including Buddhism, release or liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life. A metaphor often used to describe the insight that leads directly to liberation is awakening from a dream. However, while certain schools of philosophical Hinduism have argued that this world is literally as insubstantial as a dream, most schools of Buddhist thought have emphasized that this world is as unimportant as a dream.

In the Questions of King Milinda (an early Indian Buddhist work), it is said that the persons who dream are (1) those under the influence of a deity, (2) those who dream under the influence of their experiences, and (3) those with prophetic dreams. This relative sophistication did not carry into the Theravadin tradition, in which dreams generally came to be regarded as the resulting from worldly attachments, and thus as distracting. There was, nevertheless, a distinction drawn between two forms of prophetic dreams: auspicious and inauspicious. The former result from the direct influence of a Buddha, and the latter from the unrefined tendencies of human nature. Some of Buddhism’s most interesting contributions to dreams and dream lore have been carried out by Tibetan Buddhists (see Yoga and Tibet).

Buddhism

a religious teaching propagated by the Buddha and his followers, which declares that by destroying greed, hatred, and delusion, which are the causes of all suffering, man can attain perfect enlightenment
www.buddhanet.net/

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Bud·dhism

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Bud•dhism

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Schools of Buddhism

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Buddhism

Basic Beliefs and Practices

Early Buddhism

The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism

The Spread of Buddhism

Bibliography

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Buddhism

All Life Is Suffering

Suffering Is Caused by Desire

There Can Be an End to Desire

Follow the Eightfold Path

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Words related to Buddhism

noun a religion represented by the many groups (especially in Asia) that profess various forms of the Buddhist doctrine and that venerate Buddha

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noun the teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth

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