Buddhism is one of the world's major religions -- yet many dispute whether it should be called a religion at all. Buddhism has been called a 'philosophy' as much as a faith, because of its non-theocratic nature. Although the Buddha is revered as a historical figure, and many Buddhist traditions invest his persona with a kind of miraculous power, it is not necessary to believe in a god or gods to be a Buddhist. Buddhism could be defined as a way of coping with some of the perplexing problems that all religions grapple with to some degree: injustice and suffering. In contrast to the caste system of India, which stressed how karma could determine the cycle of one's birth or rebirth, Buddhism stressed the adherent's need to escape from the endless karmic cycle and to find a sense of peace and detachment called Nirvana. The first noble truth of Buddhism is the idea that there is suffering in the world. Because of this stress upon suffering, many have criticized Buddhism as a depressing religion. Buddhism, however, does not deny that there is joy in the world. In fact, the founder Siddhartha...
However, Buddhism holds that both joy and sorrow subjects humans to an endless rollercoaster of death and rebirth. Living at the extremes of pleasure and pain both cause people misery, because all joy is inevitably curtailed with a loss, given life's impermanence. By clinging to the notion of a stable, unchanging self and the need to remain in a state of happiness, all of us suffer. This is delusion because even the happiest person will meet with sickness, old age, and death. Nothing is permanent; particularly what we humans call happiness.
In fact, Hindus consider their religion not as a form of religion per se, but spirituality in general. Selvanayagam (2005) discussed the Hindu concept of spirituality, which takes into account all possible ways or manner in which enlightenment can be achieved. In India, wherein the Hindu religion is the dominant and an integral part of people's lives, Hinduism is considered more than a religion -- it is also a political
It is through the process of death and rebirth that the knowledge is gained which will finally liberate the individual being from the central cause of all suffering itself - the cycle of death and birth. Essentially, it is only through knowledge that this can be achieved in most Buddhist schools of thought. The rationale behind the importance of reincarnation as a process that is required to escape the centrality
Christians believe at increasing the followers of their faith such that everyone in the world would have one religion. Buddhists on the other hand follow the rule of impermanence which would lead to Buddhism fading out like every other worldly object. They are however anticipating the reappearance of an individual who can achieve enlightenment similar to the Buddha and reignite a religion with the same belief system. ("Comparison of") Christianity
Very few lay people were exclusively Buddhist- that is, felt a commitment to Buddhism over against China's other religions" (Welch 1976, p.164). Moreover, Buddhism in China was largely an individual affair. The monastaries were not held together any type of hierarchy. "In China the largest unit was the monastery and the highest office was the abbotship. This meant that there was no mechanism for maintaining standards" (Welch 1976, p.175). As
Thus to some, Chinese acceptance of Buddhism was surprising given that "China was already a very old civilization, with a written language, a well-organized government system and educational system, with two well-established philosophical and religious traditions -- the Confucian and Daoist Traditions -- sophisticated literature, poetry, art & #8230; so we had here a very highly developed highly literate civilization, and Buddhism came from outside via missionaries" (Garfield 2010).
Through a period of persecution and assimilation, however, much of the Buddhist traditions and writings were translated into Taoist terminology -- incorporating such elements as vegetarianism, banning alcohol, meditation, and the path toward enlightenment. Since the relaxation of bans on religion, most surveys believe that about 50% of Chinese identify themselves with Buddhism, and many with both Buddhism and Taoism, seeing both as part of their cultural heritage. Esposito, et.al.
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