Introduction
Hinduism	Islam	Sikhism	Christianity
Buddhism	Jainism	Zoroastrianism	Bahai

Budhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (Sanskrit; in Pali, Siddhattha Gotama), who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BCE. Originating in India, Buddhism gradually spread throughout Asia to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, as well as the East Asian countries of China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan.

Buddhism:  To shun all evil.

To do good.

To purify one's heart.

This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Dhammapada, XIV, 5 Buddhism largely consists of the doing of good action, the avoidance of bad action, and mental training. The aim of these practices is to put an end to suffering and achieve enlightenment; either for oneself, or for all beings. Enlightenment leads to Nirvana (Sanskrit: "Extinguishing.") Buddhist morality is guided by principles of harmlessness and moderation. Buddhists frequently use meditation to try to gain insight into the fundamental operations of human psychology and the causal processes of the world.

While Buddhism does not deny the existence of supernatural beings (indeed, many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe power for creation, salvation or judgement to them. Like humans, they are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events, and so some Buddhist schools associate with them via ritual.

What is a Buddha?

Buddha is a word in the ancient Indian languages Pali and Sanskrit which means "one who has become awake". It is derived from the verbal root "vbudh", meaning "to awaken." The word "Buddha" denotes not just a single religious teacher who lived in a particular epoch, but a type of person, of which there have been many instances in the course of cosmic time. (As an analogy, the term "American President" refers not just to one man, but to everyone who has ever held the office of the American presidency). The Buddha Gautama, then, is simply one member in the spiritual lineage of Buddhas, which stretches back into the dim recesses of the past and forward into the distant horizons of the future.

Gautama did not claim any divine status for himself, nor did he assert that he was inspired by a god or gods. He claimed to be not a personal saviour, but a teacher to guide those who choose to listen. A Buddha is any human being who has fully awakened to the true nature of existence, whose insight has totally transformed him or her beyond birth, death, and subsequent rebirth, and who is enabled to help others achieve the same enlightenment.

The principles by which a person can be led to enlightenment are known as the Buddhadharma, or simply the Dharma. Dharma in this sense of the rather complex term means, "law, doctrine, or truth." Anyone can attain what the Buddha attained regardless of age, gender, or caste. Indeed, Buddhists believe there have been many solitary buddhas (Pali pacceka-buddha; Sanskrit: pratyekabuddha) who achieved enlightenment on their own but did not go on to teach others. According to one of the stories in the Sutta Nipata, the Buddha, too, was afraid to teach humans because he despaired of their limited capacity for understanding. The Vedic (early Hindu) god Indra, however, interceded, and requested that he teach despite this. That the historical Buddha did so is thus a mark of special compassion.

Origins

Legend has it that the Buddha to be, Siddhartha Gautama, was born around the 6th century BCE. His birthplace is said to be Lumbini in the kingdom of Magadha, in what is now Nepal. His father was a king, and Siddh lived in luxury, being spared all hardship.

The legends say that a seer predicted that Siddhartha would become either a great king or a great holy man; because of this, the king tried to make sure that Siddhartha never had any cause for dissatisfaction with his life, as that might drive him toward a spiritual path. Nevertheless, at the age of 29, while being escorted by his attendant Channa, he came across what has become known as the Four Passing Sights: an old crippled man, a sick man, a decaying corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. These four sights, as they are called, led him to the realization that birth, old age, sickness and death came to everyone, not only once but repeated for life after life in succession for uncounted aeons. He decided to abandon his worldly life, leaving behind his wife and child, his privilege, rank, caste, and to take up the life of a wandering holy man in search of the answer to the problem of birth, old age, sickness, and death. It is said that he stole out of the house in the dead of night, pausing for one last look at his family, and did not return there for a very long time.

Indian holy men (sadhus), in those days just as today, engaged in a variety of ascetic practices designed to "mortify" the flesh. This belief was taken to an extreme in the faith of Jainism. It was thought that by enduring pain and suffering, the atman (Sanskrit; Pali: atta}, "soul." became free from the round of rebirth into pain and sorrow. Siddhartha proved adept at these practices, and was able to surpass his teachers. However, he found no answer to his problem and, leaving behind his teachers, he and a small group of companions set out to take their austerities even further. He became a skeleton covered with skin, surviving on a single grain of rice per day, and practiced holding his breath. After nearly starving himself to death with no success (some sources claim that he nearly drowned), Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's plowing, and he had fallen into a naturally concentrated and focused state in which time seemed to stand still, and which was blissful and refreshing. Perhaps this would provide an alternative to the dead end of self-mortification?

Taking a little buttermilk from a passing goatherd, he found a large tree (now called the Bodhi tree) under which he would be shaded from the heat of the mid-summer sun, and set to meditating. This new way of practicing began to bear fruit. His mind became concentrated and pure, and then, six years after he began his quest, he attained Enlightenment, and became a Buddha.

Historically speaking, there are questions about this story. First, there are other narrative versions of his life that do not exactly match - one has it that the Buddha leaves home in the "prime of his youth", his parents weeping and wailing all the while. Second, we know from other sources that the country of Magadha, where he was born, was an oligarchic republic at that time, so there was no royal family of which to speak. However, regardless of the details of his early life, the evidence strongly indicates that the Buddha was indeed a historical person living in approximately the same time and place in which he is traditionally placed.

See also: Earliest Buddhism Principles of Buddhism

The Three Jewels

Buddhists seek refuge in what are often referred to as the Three Jewels or Triple Gem. These are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the "noble" (Sanskrit: arya) Sangha or community of laypeople and monks who have become enlightened. While it is impossible to escape one's karma or the effects caused by previous thoughts, words and deeds, it is possible to avoid the suffering that comes from it by becoming enlightened. In this way, dharma offers a refuge. Dharma, used in the sense of the Buddha's teachings, provides a raft and is thus a temporary refuge while entering and crossing the river. However, the real refuge is on the other side of the river.

To one who is seeking to become enlightened, taking refuge constitutes a continuing commitment to pursuing enlightenment and following in the footsteps of the people who have followed the path to enlightenment before. It contains an element of confidence that enlightenment is in fact a refuge, a supreme resort. Many Buddhists take the refuges each day, sometimes more than once in order to remind themselves of what they are doing and to direct their resolve inwardly towards liberation.

Although Buddhists concur that taking refuge should be undertaken with proper motivation (complete liberation) and an understanding of the objects of refuge, the Indian scholar Atisha identified that in practice there are many different motives found for taking refuge. His idea was to use these differing motivations as a key to resolving any apparent conflicts between all the Buddha's teachings without depending upon some form of syncresis that would cause as much confusion as it attempted to alleviate.

In the 11th century, Lamp for the Path by Atisha, and in the subsequent Lamrim tradition as elaborated by Tsongkhapa, the several motives for refuge are enumerated as follows, typically introduced using the concept of the "scope" (level of motivation) of a practitioner:

• Worldly scope is taking refuge to improve the lot of this life
• Low scope is taking refuge to gain high rebirth and avoid the low realms
• Middle scope is taking refuge to achieve Nirvana
• High scope is taking refuge to achieve Buddhahood
• Highest scope is also sometimes included, which is taking refuge to achieve Buddhahood in this life.

See also: Three Jewels

• Dukkha: All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering.
• Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance.
• Nirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana.
• Marga: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path.

• Right Understanding
• Right Thought
• Right Speech
• Right Action
• Right Livelihood
• Right Effort
• Right Mindfulness

See also: Noble Eightfold Path

The Five Precepts

• I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living creatures (killing).
• I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given (stealing).
• I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.
• I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech (lying, harsh language, slander, idle chit-chat).

• The three marks of conditioned existence

  According to the Buddhist tradition all phenomena (dharmas) are marked by three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dharma Seals:
• Anatta (Pali; Sanskrit: anatman): All beings have no self. In Indian philosophy, the concept of a self is called atman (that is, "soul" or metaphysical self), which refers to an unchanging, permanent essence. This concept and the related concept of Brahman, the Vedantic monistic ideal, which was regarded as an ultimate atman for all beings, were indispensable for mainstream Indian metaphysics, logic, and science; for all apparent things there had to be an underlying and persistent reality, akin to a Platonic form. The Buddha rejected the concept of atman, emphasizing not permanence but changeability. If the soul were permanent and unchanging--if all existence has its root in something fixed--then change becomes philosophically difficult to account for (this is similar to Zeno's paradoxes). This problem was analyzed extensively by nagarjuna.
• Anicca (Pali; Sanskrit: anitya): All things and experiences are inconstant, unsteady, and impermanent. Everything is made up of parts, and is dependent on the right conditions for its existence. Everything is in flux, and so conditions are constantly changing. Things are constantly coming into being, and ceasing to be. Nothing lasts.
• Dukkha (Pali; Sanskrit: duhkha): because we fail to truly grasp the first two conditions, we suffer. We desire a lasting satisfaction, but look for it amongst constantly changing phenomena. We perceive a self, and act to enhance that self by pursuing pleasure, and seek to prolong pleasure when it too is fleeting.

It is by realizing (not merely understanding intellectually, but making real in one's experience) the three marks of conditioned existence that one develops Prajna, which is the antidote to the ignorance that lies at the root of all suffering.

• Meditation or dhyana of some form is a common practice in most if not all schools of Buddhism, for the clergy if not the laity.
• Central to Buddhist doctrine and practice is the law of karma and vipaka; action and its fruition, which happens within the dynamic of dependent origination (pratitya-samutpada). Actions which result in positive retribution (happiness) are defined as skillful or good, while actions that produce negative results (suffering) are called unskillful or bad actions. These actions are expressed by the way of mind, body or speech. Some actions bring instant retribution while the results of other actions may not appear until a future lifetime.
• Rebirth, which is closely related to the law of karma. An action in this life may not give fruit or reaction until the next life time. This being said, action in a past life takes effect in this one, making a chain of existence. The full realization of the absence of an eternal self or soul (the doctrine of anatta (Pali; Sanskrit: anatman) breaks this cycle of birth and death (samsara).

Vegetarianism

Many Westerners think that the Buddhist precept against killing implies that Buddhists should avoid eating the meat of animals. However, this is to miss the distinction between killing an animal and eating its already dead meat. During the Buddha's time, there was no general rule requiring monks to refrain from eating meat. In Pali scriptures there are several recorded instance of the Buddha eating meat, though whether he died from eating tainted pork is disputed. In fact, at one point the Buddha specifically refused to make such a rule, declaring that one can eat meat as long as one does not hear, see or suspect that the meat was specifically killed for oneself. The Buddha also stated that it is one's immoral conduct that makes one impure, not the eating of meat, and declared meat eating as karmatically neutral.

However the situation is very different in the case of Mahayana Buddhism. Though Mahayana Buddhism accepts Theravadan sutras as valid, in their own Mahayana sutras, the account of Buddha eating meat is absent. Secondly, at the time when Mahayana Buddhism was formulating its own monastical rules, monks and nuns no longer received their food by begging. Instead, they lived in monasteries where food was brought to them from the outside lay community. So if meat was offered, it was specifically killed and prepared for monks, which violates Buddha's rule. Thirdly, Mahayana Buddhists placed great emphasis on the Boddhisatva way where the cultivation of compassion is the central focus of the practice. In Mahaparinirvana, it is stated that "the eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion". In addition, a passage in the Lankavatara Sutra shows the Buddha inveighing strongly in favor of vegetarianism though the historical accuracy of this passage is strongly disputed. Therefore, meat eating came to be greatly discouraged in early Mahayana schools. This is still the case in Chinese Buddhism while many Japanese and Korean schools have adopted different interpretations of this issue.

Therefore, in the modern world, attitudes toward vegetarianism vary by location. In China and Vietnam, monks typically eat no meat. In Japan or Korea some schools do not eat it while most do. In Tibet, most monks eat meat, although one needs to consider that with the limited choice in food in Tibet, it would be hard to survive if one did not eat meat. Theravadan Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia do not practice vegetarianism. But more importantly, all Buddhists including monks are allowed to adopt vegetarianism if they wish to do so.

Some Hindus believe that Gautama is the 9th incarnation of Vishnu, and in the religion of Shintoism, he is seen as a Kami. The Baha'i Faith states he was an independent Manifestation of God. Siddhartha Gautama is thought to have been sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Josaphat based on a mistaken account of his conversion to Christianity. Some Muslims believe that Gautama Buddha is Dhul-Kifl, one of the prophets mentioned in the Qur'an.