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BUDDHISM

            Buddhism is a major world religion that was founded by Gautama Buddha in the subcontinent around 600 B.C.E. Like many other religious leaders, Buddha saw himself as being more of a reformer than an innovator, and early Buddhism is clearly in the same religious "family" as Buddhism's parent religious tradition, Hinduism. However, to be considered within the Hindu fold, one must nominally acknowledge the authority of the four Vedas, Hinduism's most ancient religious texts.  Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas, and hence, despite its close relationship with Hinduism, Buddhism is technically non-Hindu. Interestingly, Buddhism almost completely disappeared from the land of its birth. Rather, it was transplanted and bore fruit in other parts of Asia to the north, south, and east of India

            . For many years, Buddha studied under spiritual teachers in the Upanishadic tradition. The religious texts collectively referred to as the Upanishads articulate worldview centered around release or liberation (moksha) from the cycle of death and rebirth (from the ongoing cycle of reincarnation). The Upanishads also postulated an eternal, changeless core of the self that was referred to as the Atman. This soul or deep self was viewed as being identical with the unchanging godhead, referred to as "Brahman" (the unitary ground of being that transcends particular gods and goddesses). Untouched by the variations of time and circumstance, the Atman was nevertheless entrapped in the world of samsara, the south Asian term for the world we experience in our everyday lives. This constantly changing, unstable world is contrasted with the spiritual realm of Atman/Brahman, which by contrast is stable and unchanging. Samsara also refers to the process of death and rebirth (reincarnation) through which we are "trapped" in this world.

             What keeps us trapped in the samsaric cycle is the law of karma. Karma operates impersonally like a natural law, ensuring that every good or bad deed eventually returns to the individual in the form of reward or punishment commensurate with the original deed. It is karma that compels human beings to reincarnate in successive lifetimes. In other words, if one dies before reaping the effects of one's actions, the karmic process demands that one come back in a future life. Moksha is the traditional Hindu term for release or liberation from the endless chain of deaths and rebirths. According to the Upanishadic view, what happens at the point of moksha is that the individual Atman merges into the cosmic Brahman, much like a drop of water which, when dropped into the ocean, loses its individuality and becomes one with the ocean.

            Buddha accepted the basic Hindu doctrines of reincarnation and karma, as well as the notion, common to most south Asian religions, that the ultimate goal of the religious life was to escape the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Buddha asserted that what kept us bound to the death/rebirth process was desire, in the generic sense of wanting or craving anything in the world of samsara. Hence the goal of getting off the ferris wheel of reincarnation necessarily involves freeing oneself from desire. Nibbana-- or, in later Buddhism, nirvana--is the Buddhist equivalent of moksha. Nirvana literally means "extinction," and it refers to the extinction of all craving, an extinction that allows one to break out of

             Where Buddha departed most radically from Upanishadic Hinduism was in his doctrine of anatta, the notion that individuals do not possess eternal souls. Instead of eternal souls, individuals consist of a "bundle" of habits, memories, sensations, desires, and so forth, which together delude one into thinking that he or she consists of a stable, lasting self. Despite its tranisitory nature, this false self hangs together as a unit, and even reincarnates in body after body. In Buddhism as well as in Hinduism, life in a corporeal body is viewed negatively, as the source of all suffering. Hence the goal is to obtain release from the samsaric process. In Buddhism, this means abandoning the false sense of self so that the bundle of memories and impulses disintegrates, leaving nothing to reincarnate and hence nothing to experience pain.

            From the perspective of present day, world-affirming Western society, the Buddhist vision cannot but appear distinctly unappealing: Not only is this life portrayed in an unattractive manner, but the prospect of nirvana, in which one dissolves into nothingness, seems even less desirable. A modern-day Buddha might respond, however, that our reaction to being confronted with the dark side of life merely shows how insulated we are from the pain and suffering that is so fundamental to human existence.

            But, someone might respond, why not just try to live life, despite its many flaws, as best one can, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure? Because, Buddha would respond, while we might be able to exercise a certain amount of control over this incarnation, we cannot foresee the circumstances in which our karma would compel us to incarnate in future lives, which might be as a starving child in a war-torn area of the Third World. Also, the Buddha would point out, if we closely examine our life, we can see that even the things that seem to bring us our greatest enjoyments also bring us the greatest pain. This aspect of Buddhist thought was embodied in that part of Buddha's system referred to as the Three Marks of Being: In the first place, Buddha points out, we have to contend with the experiences everyone recognizes as painful--illness, accidents, disappointments, and so forth. Second, the world is in a constant state of change, so even the things we experience as pleasurable do not last, and ultimately lead to pain. (Romantic relationships, for example, initially bring us great happiness, but usually end in greater suffering.) And third, because we ourselves are in a constant process of change, we ultimately lose everything we have gained, particularly in the transition we call death.

            Buddha, as it should be clear by this point, was less inclined to speculative metaphysics, and was more a practical psychologist. Someone once asked him about the nature of ultimate reality, and Buddha responded that his question was insignificant. The human condition is comparable to someone who has been shot by an arrow, and metaphysical questions are like the wounded person asking about the type of wood out of which the arrow was made, the kind of bird from which the feathers came, and the name and occupation of the person who shot the arrow. If one insisted on knowing the answers to all of these queries before having the arrow extracted, one would surely die. Buddha concluded this discourse by saying that what concerned him was extracting arrows and healing wounds; everything else was unimportant. For similar reasons, he refused to speculate on the nature of the afterlife state of one who had experienced nirvana. The practical, no nonsense approach of the Buddha is particularly evident in the Four Noble Truths, which constitute the core of his teaching: 

1.Life is suffering. The original word Buddha used for suffering was dukkha, which means "out of joint." Dukkha is a comprehensive term which covers everything from physical pain to vague psychological dissatisfactions.

 2. The cause of suffering is desire. The word for desire here is Tanha (literally "thirst"), which refers to any craving, from sexual desire to even mild desires to help humanity.

3. To eliminate suffering, one must eliminate desire. A logical corollary to the second Noble Truth.

 4. To eliminate desire, one must following the Eight-fold Path. Buddha outlined the process of overcoming one's cravings under eight principal headings; everything from proper meditation procedure to following a proper career that did not interfere with the goal of reaching nirvana. As befits Buddha's practical emphasis, these four points present a one-to-one correspondence with medical practice, In other words, the first Noble Truth corresponds with symptoms, the second with diagnosis, the third with prognosis, and the fourth with prescription.

            While Buddha himself was profoundly antispeculative and antimetaphysical, many of his later followers were not. Particularly after Buddhism split into Theravada (southern Buddhism, found today in Sri Lanka and southeast Asia) and Mahayana (northern Buddhism, found today in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan), metaphysical speculation flowered in Mahayana Buddhism. Various forms of devotional Buddhism also developed within the Mahayana fold. Devotional Buddhism focused on different Bodhisattvas (enlightened souls who delayed the final stages of their nirvana so that they could stay around and help ordinary mortals) who, like the great gods and goddesses of later Hinduism, could help their devotees. The notion of heaven-worlds was also developed in these forms of Buddhism, heaven-worlds where the earnest devotee would find her- or himself after death, and where she or he could continue the quest for enlightenment, less hindered by the demands of this world.

            In these developments, it is clear that popular theism has re-emerged in the worship of godlike Bodhisattvas. The development of heaven-realms is also interesting. While devotees continue to express an ideology of regarding such realms as temporary way stations on the journey to nirvana, de facto such realms occupy the foreground in devotees' contemplation of the afterlife, and nirvana is pushed to the background. Pure-land Buddhism is perhaps the widely known form of popular Buddhism. When a Pure-land Buddhist is on the edge of death, a scroll depicting the Pure-land is unrolled and placed in the dying person's field of vision so that it will be easier for her or him to make it to the Pure-land after death

            Tibetan Buddhism is the most prominent living school of Tantric Buddhism. Tantric Buddhism is a difficult strand of the Buddhist tradition to explain briefly. Sometimes it is viewed as a form of Mahayana Buddhism, at others as a third form of Buddhism. However it is classified. Tantric Buddhism is characterized by an elaborately developed mythology, and exotic spiritual practices.

            Wherever Buddhism was carried, it tended to merge with, or at least to pick up elements of, tile local, indigenous religion. Tibet's indigenous religion was, or included, a rather elaborate form of shamanism. Shamanism is a form of spiritual expression that involves, among other elements, ecstatic journeys to other realms--including the realm of the dead--by a religious specialist known in the disciplines of anthropology and religious studies as a shaman.

http://www.buddhanet.net

http://members.tripod.com/~Arumugarn/buddhiststudies

References

Conze, Edward, ed. Buddhist Scriptures. New York: Penguin, 1959.

Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Kornfield, Jack, ed. Teachings of the Buddha. Boston: Shambhala u, 1996. Seager, Richard Hughes. Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.