A discussion based on Huston Smith’s book The World’s Religions (known in earlier editions as The Religions of Man) and/or the vastly inferior Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions.
Continued from Part 2: Hinduism.
44 thoughts on “World Religions, Part 3: Buddhism”
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Before going into details, we’ll need someone to give a few quick facts about Buddhism:
– Who founded it, and when?
– How was it transmitted (that is, how do we know about it today)?
– What’s its Big Idea?
– What does it say about other religions?
Volunteers?
In response to #1,
Gautama was born in India in 563 BCE and in 535 BCE he believed he reached enlightenment and took the title Buddha…and soon after started teaching about how to reach enlightenment. That’s correct…I think…
Cool! My friend is Buddhist, and she has really cool inscence. (sp?)
PP,
Thanks! Yes, his name was Siddhartha Gautama (sometimes spelled Gotama), and he lived in India almost 2,600 years ago. But names and dates alone aren’t very Muselike. What sort of person was he, and how did he wind up founding a religion?
ill give u this
more later
why do we have to do this? cant we just link to wiki?
buddhism
what i basically know is, first there was a rich king, who was kept in this castle place away from all bad things, so he did not know that these things even existed.
one day, he went out, and saw bad things (death, disease, etc)
he siad, zomg this horrible. so , he went off to watever religios place of his time, and tortured and fasted himself. he was spo good at this, that he became the greatest guru, like ever. therefore, he got a lot of followers. a while later, he realized, that it was completly stupid to do this to yourself, so he said, wait, lets be nice to ourselves, and others. basically, he came uop with a new set of laws, called the dharma. materialism is bad, dont hurt other people etvc etc. i dont feel like this anymore….
other religions–whatever, i think that there ok with them
Patience, Grasshopper! I think there are good reasons for telling these stories to one another rather than just reading them somewhere else.
You’ve hit the first part of the story right on the head: handsome rich kid (a prince, no less, and a good Hindu), sheltered life, reached adulthood before finding out about poverty, disease, and death; freaked out, tried every kind of yoga there was, and finally decided that they were all wrong. What he proposed in their place, though, was not just a new set of laws, but more like a new theory of how the world was put together and what life was like. The rules were just means to an end. What was S.H.’s (a.k.a. the Buddha’s) Big Idea?
Karma is a part of Buddhism I think…Buddhists believe that all their actions will influence their future.
correct me if I’m wrong..
4 – I read part of that chapter……. I think he was born seeing people being mistreated or something, and………
I don’t remember. I might have been completely wrong about that. I should have tried to remember it better.
I haven’t read the book *meep* but i’m gonna just comment once here anyway to say that buddhism roxxez my soxxez even though i don’t exactly understand all of it. It’s pretty sweet though.
I’m going to get that book out of the library again. I think it is necessary.
well, ok… they do have every thing on wikipedia though…
late ri got to gop
I like the concept of reincarnation…you know, the idea that if you screw up in life you get another chance instead of writhing eternally in hellfire…And even if you do end up in hell, you can get out eventually and try again…
pp-karma is in hundusim
11 – But you’re supposed to read the book. So that’s what I’m going to do.
This isn’t a very hot thread, is it? I think discussion about religion is a great idea.
Give it time. These religions are thousands of years old; they’re in no hurry for us to discuss them.
Ok, so I haven’t finished the chapter yet but I’ll post on what I’ve read so far.
I actually like this chapter a bit better than the last one. I think it was just that the story of Siddhartha Guatama’s life was really interesting. I actually got goosebumps when I read the bit about where he gains enlightenment. It’s weird, because I didn’t think religion could affect me that way.
Anyway.
So we’ve already answered the some of the questions but I’ll just answer them anyway.
Siddartha Guatama was a prince. At his birth it was predicted that his destiny would be one of two things- a great conquerer, or to be a great redeemer. His dad liked the conquerer idea better, so in order to keep Sidd.Guat. (I’m just going to use that abbreviation because I’m lazy) connected to worldy things, he pampered him, gave him lots of possessions and luxuries, and never let him see bad things (because it was predicted that if he was kept in touch with worldly things, his destiny would take the conquering route)
The one day good old Sidd.Guat. was out riding and he sees and old, decrepit man (his servants were supposed to remove old people from the road so he wouldn’t see them, but this guy was overlooked, or as some stories say, placed there by gods).
Ok this summary is turning out to be kinda long, I’ll try and shorten it up.
Anyway, Sidd.Guat ends up also seeing disease, death, and a monk who has given up worldy possesions.
So these things make him realize that
a) all his pretty dancing girls and delicious feasts are worthless in the long run, because we all grow old and die, or else something gets us sooner
b) there is another way of life – the life of a monk- that doesn’t include all this extravagance.
So he gives up everything, and shaves his head, and sets out to seak enlightenment (not to become a pancake
)
He travels for something like 6 or 7 years. He learns about the different types of yogas from the great Hindu experts, but though he agrees with some of it, there are other parts where his beliefs differ.
So obviously this was a guy who could think for himself, even though he had been brought up in an unreal, sheltered environment.
Then he experimented with something called ascetism, which is refrainging from all worldy pleasures. However, Sidd.Guat took it to such an extreme that he was only eating about 6 grams of rice a day, and basically torturing himself. He falls into a faint and is nursed back to health by a helpful lass named Sujata.
From this Sidd.Guat learns that, while it’s good to refrain from indulgence and such, you shouldn’t go to the opposite extreme and starve yourself. He says to follow The Middle Path.
He next sits under the bo tree. The evil one Mara sensed that his rival (Sidd.Guat) was near to acheiving enlightenment, so he comes to tempt him. He does this in several ways, and fails.
Then Sidd.Guat.’s mind breaks through the surface, and he is enlightened. The world is all very beautiful, flowers blossom, galaxies shudder, it’s all very momentous. Sidd.Guat spends seven days rooted to the spot with bliss. Then he tries to get up, and promptly is hit again with another wave pf bliss, which then keeps him there for 49 days (or was it 42? one or the other) .
But this naughty Mara isn’t done yet, and he has one final temptation. “Who cares? ” he says. “So sure, you have enlightenment, but how can all these puny commoners every understand the infinite wisdom you have found?”
Sidd.Guat is a bit stumped by this one, so he does what he normally does- he sits and meditates on it. After a day, he come up with his reply, which is actually surprisingly simple and lacking in complex logic:
“There will be some who understand”
And he then bops along to spend his life helping others, and preaching his wisdom, his philosophy, and evidently there were some who understood, because it’s what- the 6th most common religion in the world? Will need to check facts on that one. But the point is, he started a new religion, that was similar to hinduism in some ways, but also drastically different.
all in, his story’s a pretty cool one, and I would write more except that this post is waaaaay to long for MBer’s attentions span already, plus I’ve been a naughty girl and procrastinated my vocab words…
Now we’re getting somewhere! I don’t think you have to be afraid of long posts, if they’re interesting enough.
One quick note: it’s clear that Mara isn’t a real being, but a symbol of the laziness and distractions inside a person’s own mind. Why did you log on to MuseBlog when you had vocabulary words to study? Mara made you do it, of course.
18 – haha. Good idea. I’ll remember that one for my new social studies teacher. (I’m not serious, of course.)
Also, I’m very afraid of posting long posts. If I have too much to say, I break it up into a few. I’m bad, I know. Cowardly. I’ll try to do better.
Buddhism is very cool. I’m glad you said that, Skipper Nancy (17). If people haven’t looked at the book in a while, they can just look at your nice and long post and refresh themselves.
I just requested the book from the library. But I already read the beginning, so that’s okay, right?
I don’t fully understand the way reincarnation works in Buddhism. Could someone explain it to me?
one other fact – buddha’s mom couldn’t get pregnant until she dreamed of a white elephant entering her womb thru her right side. next morning, she was pregnant. thats why in many asian cultures (e.g. thailand) the white elephant is sacred/royal.
p.s. this is a great thread – keep it up 8)
Wow, I had no idea Buhddism was so interesting.
PS: That thing about the elephant is just creepy.
10. What book ??- give me the ATL (author, title, length)
I like buddist art. The people are always very calm.
17. Thats really cool. The middle path sounds like a good way to live.
Two of the main things central to all forms of buddhism are the eight-fold path and the four noble truths.
The Four Noble Truths:
Life is suffering
Suffering is caused by desire.
To end suffering you must end desire.
The way to end desire is to follow the eight-fold path.
The Eight-Fold Path:
Right View- accepting the 4 Noble Truths
Right Intention- realizing that they apply to yourself
Right Speech- do not lie, engage in idle chatter, insult people, etc.
Right Action- Do not steal, kill, you get the point
Right Livelihood- Do not do a job that degrades yourself or others
Right Mindfullness- Be aware and in control of yourself.
Right Meditation- Meditate often and properly.
20 – Cool! I didn’t know that.
24 – That’s great! I could never become Buddhist with all these rules. Amazing, though. I like the Four Noble Truths. They make sense. It kind of reminds me of that part in Star Wars, where Yoda says something like:
Fear leads to something,
something leads to something,
something leads to something else,
And something else leads to suffering.
(23) The discussion on this thread comes from the book The World’s Religions by Huston Smith.
Mara has made me come on here again when I should be starting on my homework. So I will refrain from staying any longer… I’ll come back later tonight when I’ve finished my work
(haha- I make funny joke- “finish work”- haha- it’s funny, see?)
26-Yep, you are just like the programmers on neopets.
about reincarnation, we belive in samsara, which means wandering, where you are reincarnated over and over until you attain enlightenment.
Otzi: we don’t believe in heaven or hell, or the transmogrification of souls. in Buddhism reincarnation is a bad thing, a sign that you are still Clinging.
That’s very interesting to me. Here in America, many people like the idea of reincarnation because they don’t want to die. But Siddhartha Gautama was born into a Hindu culture, in which everybody believed in reincarnation that went on forever. One reason people there liked his new religion was that he taught that you could make it stop. You could get off the merry-go-round–you could die.
28 – Wow. That’s strange, at least to how most people think of reincarnation. It also makes sense.
29 – I didn’t know that either. Very interesting.
but if you think about reincarnation as being comparable to living forever, many Americans might not like it so much.
sorry to double post, but about Buddhist tolerance of other religions, most buddhists are pretty tolerant. I think it partly stems from the fact that in buddhism, there is no god to serve, and so harder to say you did something in the name of your religion. there are also places where buddhism has merged with tribal religions that were there first, so i guess you could say sometimes it hard to say where the borderlands of “buddhism” are.
My impression is that Buddhists don’t care whether or not you’re a Buddhist; they just think you’ll be happier if you do things their way. Does that about sum it up, Cotton?
Robert’s 25-words-or-fewer summary of what Buddhism says: “You’re confused and unhappy. We can help you fix that, but you’ll have to do some work.”
I’m not gonna read through all the posts now, but from what I know fo Buddhism, it’s one of the few religions that earns my respect in that there aren’t hypocritical or violent tendencies in their teachings (unlike the 2 major religions today- I’m not trying to offend, just stating fact) and that they are total pacifists. I mean, the chinese were blowing up their temples and what did they do? Not yell bloody vengeance and become violent, no, they just went further into the mountains to meditate. Now THAT’S pacifism.
I myself am what I call a Luciferian, but what you might understand better as… a “Radical Atheist”.
33 – Exactly. I think Buddhism wants people to do their thing for the person’s good, not the religions’.
Let’s keep moving. There’s more.
For example, I’m sure you super-well-informed Musers don’t need to be told that “Buddha” isn’t a name, but a title. It’s a Sanskrit word meaning “enlightened one.” In referring to Siddhartha Gautama by his title, many (most? help me here, please, Cotton) English-speaking Buddhists call him the Buddha, not just “Buddha.”
All right, now who wants to explain the main different types of Buddhism, Theravada and Mahayana? Some of you wound up classified (much to your surprise) as one or the other when you took the Belief-o-Matic quiz on Belief.net.
34 – Get the book and read the chapter! Or at least some of it. I haven’t read all of it, just the first two sections.
Sorry, Robert. I have no idea what those are (yet). When I get the book, I’ll read about it. I’m assuming that it’s there, of course?
33- that’s right.
36- also correct. anybody who has attained enlightenment is a Buddha, and Siddhartha Gautama is the Buddha, at least for english speakers.
Theravada buddhism is mostly for monks and nuns (mildly random aside: buddhist monks and nuns give up all possesions and live in a temple meditation all day and beg for food to live off from people in nearby towns and have approximatley 300 rules each to follow) theravada buddhists do not believe in any sort of god at all, they think that if you want to attain enlightenment you have to do it all yourself. They say the mind is more important then the heart. Mahayanists, on the other hand, believe in boddhisattvas, people who have attained enlightenment yet remain in this world to help others along. They believe the heart is more important then the mind. Mahayanists are more liberal in the area of their religion, theravadists more conservative.
It would be cool to be Buddhist. A lot of the things in the religion match what I think about stuff.
I’m so glad that you’re here, Cotton. Even if we didn’t know about some of the things you told us, we’ve done a lot better with your helpful information.
For some reason, that didn’t sound like what I was trying to say. Oh, well.
39- *blushes* aww, thanks.*
What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything.
When he asked for his change the vendor replied “Change comes from within”
My Results:
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (89%)
3. Mahayana Buddhism (86%)
4. Neo-Pagan (83%)
5. Reform Judaism (79%)
6. New Age (77%)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (74%)
8. Hinduism (72%)
9. Sikhism (68%)
10. Jainism (68%)
11. New Thought (68%)
12. Theravada Buddhism (65%)
13. Bahá’à Faith (63%)
14. Scientology (58%)
15. Secular Humanism (57%)
16. Orthodox Judaism (56%)
17. Orthodox Quaker (54%)
18. Taoism (53%)
19. Islam (49%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (48%)
21. Nontheist (35%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (31%)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (29%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (27%)
25. Jehovah’s Witness (23%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (18%)
27. Roman Catholic (18%)
People seemed to have stopped posting. And the thread’s not even off the front page yet. C’MON, YA SLACKERS!!!!!!
Maybe it’s time to move on to the next religion. I’ll create World Religions, Part 4: Judaism.