Buddhism: A Religion, a Philosophy - Research Paper Example

?Buddhism: A Religion, a Philosophy Buddhism is a religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who was an Indian prince and lived in the Northeastern parts of India and Nepal about 25 centuries ago (Siderits). The name Buddha is given to Siddartha Gautama by his followers because of the enlightenment he achieved after years of meditation; Buddha comes from Sanskrit word bodhi meaning awakened. Unsatisfied and bothered by the questions which came to his mind all the time, Buddha left the life of a prince and started traveling to different places in search of the divine truth about life. During his search he never interacted with people or taught them until he thought himself to be enlightened enough to teach others. Buddha taught people that awakening and enlightenment comes through self realization and it has nothing to do with one’s beliefs and ideals. After Buddha’s death, his followers spread his teachings to distant places and Buddhism appeared as a new religion in Asia; today it is the fourth largest religion of the world (Fisher ). Siddhartha Gautama was born to King Suddhodana of Shakya near Nepal in 583 B.C. His mother died soon after giving birth to Siddhartha. It was predicted by one of the holy men of Suddhodana’s court that Siddhartha will be a great conqueror or a great spiritual leader in future; his father was delighted to hear this because he wanted his son to be a great conqueror. Siddhartha spent his early life in his palaces in great luxuries; he was being trained to become a great prince and conqueror, therefore, his father kept him away from the realities of life and the disturbing thoughts of any religion. Siddhartha Gautama went out of his palace for the first time at the age of 29. He was amazed to see the life of people living outside the palace as he observed an aged man, a sick man and a corpse during his journey. The bitter realities of life greatly aggrieved him and the prince started to think about the truth behind this life. Siddhartha started to take journeys out of his palace; during one of such experiences he saw an ascetic. He was told that ascetics are people who leave the worldly life in search of the divine truth. Impressed by the life of ascetics, Gautama decided that he would start searching for the realities of life on his own (Armstrong). Gautama along with his five disciples started off their journey in pursuit of truth of life by visiting the renowned religious scholars of that time (Serinity). After months of learning of almost every known religion of the time in that area of the world, Gautama was not satisfied as a lot of questions remained unanswered in his mind. Therefore, he and his five disciples decided that they will search for enlightenment themselves through physical suffering and meditation. A series of physical sufferings which included extreme fasting, holding of breath and enduring great pain taught Gautama about the suffering and pain in the life of human beings. Gautama has already experienced a life of great pleasures at his palace; therefore, at this stage he had personally experienced both extremes of life. However, he wanted to find out a middle way, a life to end the sufferings of people. During one of his rounds of meditation, Gautama recalled his childhood experience when his mind achieved a state of deep peace and satisfaction. This made him realize that the reality of life can be found out by achieving peace of mind. At this point he decided to end fasting because he felt the need of energy in his quest for reality of life. But when Gautama ended his fast, his companions thought he has ended the quest to find the truth of life and abandoned him. After this, he continued his pursuit of enlightenment through long meditations and soon achieved the peace of mind he wanted and, thus, he believed himself to be enlightened because he found out the reality of life (Serinity). During the immediate period which followed his enlightenment, Gautama did not want to teach whatever he had learned about life because he thought that the enlightenment he had achieved could not be conveyed to anyone. He believed that in order to understand his teachings, a great level of clarity of mind was required, which could only be achieved through meditation. During one of his journeys, which followed enlightenment, he met the companions who had left him. He started teaching his companions; however, his teachings were not about the truth of life, he preferred teaching people in such a way so that they could achieve enlightenment by themselves. Later he started teaching people and got thousands of followers. Buddha’s first sermon which later formed the basics of Buddhism centered on the Four Noble Truths: the truth of suffering (dukkha), the truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya), the truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha) and the truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga) (Gowan). The first truth taught by Buddha tells that life is suffering, however, this suffering is not everlasting; every suffering is short lived and is bound to end. Every feeling in life is temporary and the life itself is also temporary. In order to understand the realities of life and death, knowing one’s own self is mandatory. The second truth about the cause of suffering tells that the actual reason behind the suffering is craving for more. Man has a natural tendency to search out for things that can make him/her happy outside his/her own life, however, no success can quench this thirst to get more and, therefore, people continue to suffer. Buddha explained that man struggles hard to achieve a lot in life and at times even considers himself to be secure, however, when the world does not behave as per our expectations we become frustrated and suffer (Siderits). In his third truth, Buddha gives hope to the people that every suffering has to end one day until a man achieves Nirvana or eternal happiness. The last truth tells us about the noble Eightfold Path through which one can achieve enlightenment and peae of mind. Buddhism is not only a set of doctrine to believe up on, it also tells a path to be followed in order to complete the belief. According to Gautama, all noble deeds of a person are called Karma and are created by the intentional speech, acts of body and mind. Acts of pure desire, hate and delusion do not produce karmic effects. Buddha taught that Karma spreads out from its point of origin and, therefore, has a good effect on a lot of individuals. A man can achieve a better life through his Karma as he is born in a new better form after his death until enough Karma is committed to achieve Nirvana (Gowan). The Eightfold Path as explained by Buddha to achieve enlightenment consists of the following steps: 1.      Right View: According to the teachings of Buddha, a right view provides the base for understanding the realities of life. A right view can be achieved by knowing what is going on inside and outside us. A person can only end his sufferings if he rejects all wrong perceptions by developing a right view. 2.      Right Intention: Buddha believed and taught that thoughts are forerunners of actions therefore thoughts are more important than actions. The whole principle of right intention is based on the above mentioned belief. Right View along with Right Intention forms the foundation of the wisdom path to enligtenment. Happiness can only be achieved through pure thoughts and right intentions. Buddha explained to his followers that three types of right intentions are imperative for achieving enligtenment; the intention to renunciation helps in controlling the intention of desire, the intention of good will helps in refuting the intention of bad will and the intention of harmlessness rebuts the intention of harmfulness (Bodhi). 3.      Right Speech: Buddha taught his followers to adopt the right speech and for that he told them to abstain from false speech. According to him a person’s way of speech can create disharmony and enmity if he is rude and abusive. Idle talk was also discouraged by him because it causes conflicts. 4.      Right Action: After developing the base for right actions in the first three steps of The Eightfold Path, Buddha explains that a person should keep himself away from killing and stealing because these two actions lead to a lot of other misdoings. He also taught his followers not to misuse sex. Buddha urged his followers to develop compassion for other people and show this compassion by actions. 5.      Right Livelihood: The livelihood earned through the sufferings of others is not a right livelihood. Buddha insisted that methods of earnings of a person should not affect other people’s life. Therefore he forbade his followers from adopting five types of businesses; business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants and business in poison (Gowan). Earning Right Livelihood or Samyag Ajiva can be achieved by finding a way in which the ideals of love and compassion for others are least affected (Bodhi). 6.      Right Effort: An effort to prevent traits like greed, anger and ignorance and to develop traits of generosity, love, kindness and wisdom is the right effort. Once these traits are achieved, an effort has to be made to strengthen them in order to completely follow the essence of right effort. 7.      Right Mindfulness: It means that a person should always be aware of the truths of life and must stay away from daydreams, anticipation, indulgences or worries. Clearing all the illusions of mind is mandatory for achieving right mindfulness. 8.      Right Concentration: Buddha taught his followers that they can stay in a state of meditation all the time only if they perform their routine jobs with Right Concentration which can be achieved if a person keeps himself focused on the ultimate objective of achieving enlightenment (Sangharakshita). The teachings of Buddhism are very different from other religions of the world. Buddhism is a non-theistic religion because there is no concept of God in it. Buddha believed that merely believing in a God does not help a person in achieving internal satisfaction and the state of Nirvana. Self-identification and compassion for others is the only way through which peace can be achieved and for this believing in God is not necessary (Pals). Because of its non-theistic nature, some scholars argue that Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy which teaches a way of life in order to achieve peace of mind. Buddhism is practiced by a number of atheists in the world just as a source of achieving self-satisfaction. However, it is illegitimate to call Buddhism a religion without beliefs. In fact, the set of beliefs taught by Buddhism require a lot of devotion and allegiance; to follow the teachings of Buddhism means one has to leave all the worldly desires and has to show kindness and compassion for every individual on Earth. The philosophical aspects of Buddhism have provided it popularity in modern era because in a world full of hatred and restlessness, it promotes peace of mind and soul and teaches the ways to achieve it (Yao).   Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. Buddha. n.p. Paw Prints, 2008. Print. Bodhi, Bhikku. The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering. n.p.: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994. Print. Fisher, Mary. Living Religions: Eastern Traditions. n.p. Prentice Hall, 2003. Print. Gowans, Christopher. Philosophy of the Buddha. n.p. Routledge, 2003. Print. Pals, Daniel. Eight theories of religion. n.p. Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. Sangharakshita. The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. n.p. Windhorse Publications, 2007. Print. Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction. n.p. Asghate Publishing, 2007. Print. Yao, Weiqun. "Buddhist Thought and Several Problems in the World Today." Frontiers of Philosophy in China 1.1 (2006): 144 - 147. Print. Young, Serinity. Buddhism. n.p. Marshall Cavendish, 2006. Print. . Read More