is buddhism a religion essay

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• Introduction

The cultural context

• The life of the Buddha
• Suffering, impermanence, and no-self
• The Four Noble Truths
• The law of dependent origination
• The Eightfold Path
• Expansion of Buddhism
• Buddhism under the Guptas and Palas
• The demise of Buddhism in India
• Contemporary revival
• Malaysia and Indonesia
• From Myanmar to the Mekong delta
• Central Asia
• The early centuries
• Developments during the Tang dynasty (618–907)
• Buddhism after the Tang
• Origins and introduction
• Nara and Heian periods
• New schools of the Kamakura period
• The premodern period to the present
• The Himalayan kingdoms
• Buddhism in the West
• Monastic institutions
• Internal organization of the sangha
• Society and state
• Classification of dhammas
• The stages leading to arhatship
• The Pali canon ( Tipitaka )
• Early noncanonical texts in Pali
• Later Theravada literature
• The Buddha: divinization and multiplicity
• The bodhisattva ideal
• The three Buddha bodies
• New revelations
• Madhyamika (Sanlun/Sanron)
• Yogachara/Vijnanavada (Faxiang/Hossō)
• Avatamsaka (Huayan/Kegon)
• Tiantai/Tendai
• Dhyana (Chan/Zen)
• Vajrayana literature
• Rnying-ma-pa
• Sa-skya-pa, Bka’-brgyud-pa, and related schools
• The Bka’-gdams-pa and Dge-lugs-pa
• Traditional literary accounts
• Shakyamuni in art and archaeology
• Literary references
• Art and archaeology
• Mythic figures in the Three Worlds cosmology
• Local gods and demons
• Female deities
• Kings and yogis
• Anniversaries
• Ullambana festival
• New Year and harvest festivals
• Buddhist pilgrimage
• Bodhisattva vows
• Funeral rites
• Protective rites
• Trends since the 19th century
• Challenges and opportunities

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Buddhism , religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to Central and Southeast Asia , China , Korea , and Japan , Buddhism has played a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of Asia , and, beginning in the 20th century, it spread to the West.

Ancient Buddhist scripture and doctrine developed in several closely related literary languages of ancient India, especially in Pali and Sanskrit . In this article Pali and Sanskrit words that have gained currency in English are treated as English words and are rendered in the form in which they appear in English-language dictionaries. Exceptions occur in special circumstances—as, for example, in the case of the Sanskrit term dharma (Pali: dhamma ), which has meanings that are not usually associated with the term dharma as it is often used in English. Pali forms are given in the sections on the core teachings of early Buddhism that are reconstructed primarily from Pali texts and in sections that deal with Buddhist traditions in which the primary sacred language is Pali. Sanskrit forms are given in the sections that deal with Buddhist traditions whose primary sacred language is Sanskrit and in other sections that deal with traditions whose primary sacred texts were translated from Sanskrit into a Central or East Asian language such as Tibetan or Chinese .

The foundations of Buddhism

Buddhism arose in northeastern India sometime between the late 6th century and the early 4th century bce , a period of great social change and intense religious activity. There is disagreement among scholars about the dates of the Buddha’s birth and death. Many modern scholars believe that the historical Buddha lived from about 563 to about 483 bce . Many others believe that he lived about 100 years later (from about 448 to 368 bce ). At this time in India, there was much discontent with Brahmanic ( Hindu high-caste) sacrifice and ritual . In northwestern India there were ascetics who tried to create a more personal and spiritual religious experience than that found in the Vedas (Hindu sacred scriptures). In the literature that grew out of this movement, the Upanishads , a new emphasis on renunciation and transcendental knowledge can be found. Northeastern India, which was less influenced by Vedic tradition, became the breeding ground of many new sects. Society in this area was troubled by the breakdown of tribal unity and the expansion of several petty kingdoms. Religiously, this was a time of doubt, turmoil, and experimentation.

A proto-Samkhya group (i.e., one based on the Samkhya school of Hinduism founded by Kapila ) was already well established in the area. New sects abounded, including various skeptics (e.g., Sanjaya Belatthiputta), atomists (e.g., Pakudha Kaccayana), materialists (e.g., Ajita Kesakambali), and antinomians (i.e., those against rules or laws—e.g., Purana Kassapa). The most important sects to arise at the time of the Buddha, however, were the Ajivikas (Ajivakas), who emphasized the rule of fate ( niyati ), and the Jains , who stressed the need to free the soul from matter. Although the Jains, like the Buddhists, have often been regarded as atheists, their beliefs are actually more complicated. Unlike early Buddhists, both the Ajivikas and the Jains believed in the permanence of the elements that constitute the universe, as well as in the existence of the soul.

Despite the bewildering variety of religious communities , many shared the same vocabulary— nirvana (transcendent freedom), atman (“self” or “soul”), yoga (“union”), karma (“causality”), Tathagata (“one who has come” or “one who has thus gone”), buddha (“enlightened one”), samsara (“eternal recurrence” or “becoming”), and dhamma (“rule” or “law”)—and most involved the practice of yoga. According to tradition, the Buddha himself was a yogi—that is, a miracle-working ascetic .

Buddhism, like many of the sects that developed in northeastern India at the time, was constituted by the presence of a charismatic teacher, by the teachings this leader promulgated , and by a community of adherents that was often made up of renunciant members and lay supporters. In the case of Buddhism, this pattern is reflected in the Triratna —i.e., the “Three Jewels” of Buddha (the teacher), dharma (the teaching), and sangha (the community).

In the centuries following the founder’s death, Buddhism developed in two directions represented by two different groups. One was called the Hinayana (Sanskrit: “Lesser Vehicle”), a term given to it by its Buddhist opponents. This more conservative group, which included what is now called the Theravada (Pali: “Way of the Elders”) community, compiled versions of the Buddha’s teachings that had been preserved in collections called the Sutta Pitaka and the Vinaya Pitaka and retained them as normative. The other major group, which calls itself the Mahayana (Sanskrit: “Greater Vehicle”), recognized the authority of other teachings that, from the group’s point of view, made salvation available to a greater number of people. These supposedly more advanced teachings were expressed in sutras that the Buddha purportedly made available only to his more advanced disciples .

As Buddhism spread, it encountered new currents of thought and religion. In some Mahayana communities, for example, the strict law of karma (the belief that virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and nonvirtuous actions create pain) was modified to accommodate new emphases on the efficacy of ritual actions and devotional practices. During the second half of the 1st millennium ce , a third major Buddhist movement, Vajrayana (Sanskrit: “Diamond Vehicle”; also called Tantric, or Esoteric , Buddhism), developed in India. This movement was influenced by gnostic and magical currents pervasive at that time, and its aim was to obtain spiritual liberation and purity more speedily.

Despite these vicissitudes , Buddhism did not abandon its basic principles. Instead, they were reinterpreted, rethought, and reformulated in a process that led to the creation of a great body of literature. This literature includes the Pali Tipitaka (“Three Baskets”)—the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of Discourse”), which contains the Buddha’s sermons; the Vinaya Pitaka (“Basket of Discipline”), which contains the rule governing the monastic order; and the Abhidhamma Pitaka (“Basket of Special [Further] Doctrine”), which contains doctrinal systematizations and summaries. These Pali texts have served as the basis for a long and very rich tradition of commentaries that were written and preserved by adherents of the Theravada community. The Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions have accepted as Buddhavachana (“the word of the Buddha”) many other sutras and tantras , along with extensive treatises and commentaries based on these texts. Consequently, from the first sermon of the Buddha at Sarnath to the most recent derivations, there is an indisputable continuity—a development or metamorphosis around a central nucleus—by virtue of which Buddhism is differentiated from other religions.

Buddhism: Philosophy or Religion?

• Origins and Developments
• Figures and Texts
• Becoming A Buddhist
• Tibetan and Vajrayana Buddhism
• B.J., Journalism, University of Missouri

Buddhism—some Buddhism, anyway—is a practice of contemplation and inquiry that doesn't depend on belief in God or a soul or anything supernatural. Therefore, the theory goes, it can't be a religion.

Sam Harris expressed this view of Buddhism in his essay " Killing the Buddha " ( Shambhala Sun , March 2006). Harris admires Buddhism, calling it "the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced." But he thinks it would be even better if it could be pried away from Buddhists.

"The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism," Harris laments. "Worse still, the continued identification of Buddhists with Buddhism lends tacit support to the religious differences in our world. ... Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, and impedes genuine inquiry, I believe that merely being a self-described 'Buddhist' is to be complicit in the world's violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree."

The phrase "Killing the Buddha" comes from a Zen saying, " If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Harris interprets this as a warning against turning the Buddha into a "religious fetish" and thereby missing the essence of his teachings.

But this is Harris's interpretation of the phrase. In Zen, "killing the Buddha" means to extinguish ideas and concepts about the Buddha in order to realize the True Buddha. Harris is not killing the Buddha; he is merely replacing a religious idea of the Buddha with a non-religious one more to his liking.

In many ways, the "religion versus philosophy" argument is an artificial one. The neat separation between religion and philosophy we insist on today didn't exist in western civilization until the 18th century or so, and there never was such a separation in eastern civilization. To insist that Buddhism must be one thing and not the other amounts to forcing an ancient product into modern packaging.

In Buddhism, this sort of conceptual packaging is considered to be a barrier to enlightenment. Without realizing it we use prefabricated concepts about ourselves and the world around us to organize and interpret what we learn and experience. One of the functions of Buddhist practice is to sweep away all the artificial filing cabinets in our heads so that we see the world as-it-is.

In the same way, arguing about whether Buddhism is a philosophy or a religion isn't an argument about Buddhism. It's an argument about our biases regarding philosophy and religion. Buddhism is what it is.

Dogma Versus Mysticism

The Buddhism-as-philosophy argument leans heavily on the fact that Buddhism is less dogmatic than most other religions. This argument, however, ignores mysticism.

Mysticism is hard to define, but very basically it is the direct and intimate experience of ultimate reality, or the Absolute, or God. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a more detailed explanation of mysticism.

Buddhism is deeply mystical, and mysticism belongs to religion more than philosophy. Through meditation, Siddhartha Gautama intimately experienced Thusness beyond subject and object, self and other, life and death. The enlightenment experience is the sine qua non of Buddhism.

Transcendence

What is religion? Those who argue that Buddhism is not a religion tend to define religion as a belief system, which is a western notion. Religious historian Karen Armstrong defines religion as a search for transcendence, going beyond the self.

It's said that the only way to understand Buddhism is to practice it. Through practice, one perceives its transformative power. A Buddhism that remains in the realm of concepts and ideas is not Buddhism. The robes, ritual and other trappings of religion are not a corruption of Buddhism, as some imagine, but expressions of it.

There's a Zen story in which a professor visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The master served tea. When the visitor's cup was full, the master kept pouring. Tea spilled out of the cup and over the table.

"The cup is full!" said the professor. "No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," said the master, "You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

If you want to understand Buddhism, empty your cup.

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Buddhism: Religion or Philosophy Essay

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There is much controversy and debate about whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy. The first inclination is to say that Buddhism is both a religion and a philosophy. However, after further exploration into Buddhist beliefs, one can conclude that Buddhism can be classified as a religion. Buddhists believe in a higher power and life after death, they have a moral code of ethics, and they perform rituals; these things are the definition of established religion.

One of the biggest problems in defining religion is that there are multiple sources and definitions of religion. Some definitions support Buddhist views; some do not. A compilation of ofvarious definitions regarding religion include the belief in a higher deity, and the implementation of values, traditions, or rituals.

Religion also involves a code of ethics, a common group view of an object or a being, a belief in supernatural powers, and a desire to better oneself. When the definitions are generalized, more facets of Buddhist beliefs can relate to religion. The confusion classification often arises among individual understanding; everyone is entitled to their own personal interpretation of religion (Robinson).

Although Buddhists do not worship a supreme being, they do seek enlightenment. They strive to emulate a set example or a set belief system. Buddhists follow the historical path of enlightenment set by Buddha. His example is a guide for Buddhists personal behavior. Buddhists do not worship Buddha; they strive to be the type of person he once was. Even though Buddhism lacks specific or established rules, guidelines, and historical figures, it emphasizes the need for informed decisions and personal responsibility.

Religion is supposed to be a positive experience. Positive experiences form the basis of a Buddhist belief system. In religion, personal standards are what matter most. The biggest difference between the western idea of religion and Buddhism is that Buddhists believe that an individual is the best indicator of what is good for them personally (Buddhism Beliefs).

Buddhists believe in life after death. They believe that life is a continuous predestined circle, created to reach enlightenment. They strive for their personal best. After death, the Buddhist’s next life will be chosen as a reward or a punishment for their previous life’s actions. When an individual reaches their highest potential, they can reach Nirvana. Nirvana is similar to the Christian view of Heaven.

When an individual becomes the best they can, they will be rewarded with peace and happiness in their next life. Religion is characteristically based upon the belief of a reward system. One difference is that Buddhist’s strive for greater personal happiness, not necessarily the happiness or expectations of others. They believe that the way they live has consequences, good or bad. The consequences are karma; karma is their fate. Karma will be a determining factor in their next life (Buddhism Beliefs).

Buddhists believe in a code of ethics. Buddhists are taught to encourage peace, justice, and love. They are to delight in themselves and are required to treat others the same way. They are not supposed to harm any living thing. This is similar to the Christian idea of doing unto others.

There is a code of morality and a belief in non-violent behavior. Compassion is encouraged in all aspects of life. The rules of conduct, morality, and virtue are based upon the belief of equality. Every living thing is equal and should be treated so; Buddhists are not to harm others or themselves(Robinson).

As another religious similarity, Buddhists have the guidance of the Five Precepts;the content is similar to the Ten Commandments. These precepts are called the rules to live by; they include not killing or harming others, not stealing or lying, not misusing sex, and not consuming drugs or alcohol.

The difference between the two guidelines is that the precepts are meant to be a guide. The precepts are a suggestion for a better life, not an actual requirement of the religion. The precepts are strongly suggested, but there are situations where the details become clouded; people must still have the freedom to do what is right for them and those around them (Robinson).

Buddhism has been called contemplative wisdom.This is because meditation plays a large role in Buddhist beliefs. Meditation is a ritual, a defining factor of established religion. Meditation calms and clears the mind and allows for personal reflection and inspiration. As another religious comparison, meditation is similar to prayer.

Buddhists also pray, but meditation is a deeper look into their soul. Buddhists believe that the mind holds all power; it controls individual thoughts and actions. The mind effects karma, it can heal and strengthen. Self-exploration can lead to increased wisdom and compassion. Nothing in life happens by itself; life is faith (Lewis).

In reality, it does do not matter if Buddhism is labeled as a religion or a philosophy. What is important is that Buddhist followers can strengthen their faith and live their lives in a manner that pleases them. Buddhism has many characteristics of religion; there are enough similarities that it can rightfully be defined as a religion. The belief in a higher power, life after death, a moral code of ethics, and the performance of rituals all combine to create an established religious entity.

Works Cited

Buddhism Beliefs, 2008.

Lewis, G.R. “21 Shin Buddhist Beliefs.” Buddhist Beliefs, Practices and Experiences.

Robinson, B.A. “Buddhism: Comparison of Buddhism & Christianity.” Religious Tolerance.org. 2009. Web.

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Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy?

If you were to go by the stream of psychology and neuroscience books published over the last two decades, you’d think Buddhism is an intricate philosophical system designed by a man with a keen insight for the emergence of psychoanalysis and philosophy some 2,400 years down the road.

Indeed, Buddhism lends itself to emergent sciences in ways no other faith has. In fact, many modern thinkers, including Sam Harris and Stephen Batchelor, question if faith is even necessary to understand Buddhism. The question of faith is one Siddhartha Gotama generally avoided. As Batchelor writes :

Gotama’s dharma opened the door to an emergent civilization rather than the establishment of a “religion.”

In an early instance of transcending tribalism, Buddha opened up his teachings to the entire world; it was not a gender- or race-dependent practice. Monks and nuns were in a co-dependent relationship with the public: the clergy offered spiritual sustenance while commoners provided them with food and money. Anyone could partake in the Three Jewels, either for a lifetime or, in some nations (such as Japan), for a season: dharma , Buddha’s teachings; sangha , the community; and the Buddha. Faith in these three aspects offers ground-floor entry into the Buddhist life.

Yet, if faith is required, how is it not a religion? There is a notable difference in the way that Buddha treated religion and the ways in which his followers translated his teachings. Buddha was skeptical of the Indian faiths surrounding him. Buddhism arose thanks to Siddhartha’s incessant questioning of traditions and spiritual authorities. He abandoned his two yoga teachers upon realizing they wanted him to believe what they taught without experiencing it for himself. In Buddhism, faith is dependent on experience and reasoning, not unexperienced hopes or wishful thinking.

Yet in practice, Buddhism is very much a religion. As of 2010, there were 488 million Buddhists, representing seven percent of the planet’s population. The bulk resides in Asia, some 481 million, with North America coming in second at just under four million. Half of all Buddhists live in China, with Thailand, Japan, and Myanmar rounding out the top four countries.

Within the teachings, there is plenty of examples of metaphysical ideology, which links Buddhism to other religions. One of the most relevant genres of Buddhist literature is Abhidharmakosa , or “metaphysics.” The lessons inside of these texts were said to be spoken by Buddha directly to the gods—his deceased mother being the main listener.

Despite a growing pile of clinical literature regarding the efficacy of mindfulness meditation, Buddhist rituals and beliefs do not always jive with modern science. In the Agganna Sutta , a Buddhist origin myth, the gods live on Mount Meru’s slopes and atop the summit; one part of the mountain is made of lapis lazuli, which is why the ocean is blue. For these deities, one year is equivalent to one hundred human years; they get a thousand god years until death.

There’s also the most contentious philosophy in Buddhism, rebirth. Of the 14 questions Buddha refused to answer, whether the universe has a beginning or end comprise two. During the cycles of existence ( samsara ), “you” can be born (and reborn) a god, demigod, human, animal, ghost, or denizen of hell. Displaying charity during your life makes it likely you’ll be reborn a god, some of which have no physical form but exist only at the level of consciousness—a direct contradiction to our current understanding of embodied consciousness.

There are plenty of taboos and praying going on in Buddhism as well. There’s even a scam ring based in New York City’s Chinatown (that has spread outward) in which “ghost marriages” drain money from susceptible parents and grandparents. Buddhist ghosts live 500 leagues beneath the surface of the planet, emerging randomly to toy with human affairs. Only monks with supernormal powers can spot them.

Despite the Buddha’s refusal to acknowledge a beginning or end to the universe, Buddhist cosmology is intricate and intense. Eight hot and eight cold hells await those who don’t follow their vows, and those aren’t even the only hells. Sentences are everything but lenient: getting thrown into a hot hell costs you millions of years. You’ll receive such a sentence if you kill your mother, father, or an arhat (an enlightened being that will achieve nirvana upon death). You’ll also reach this blazing cauldron if you wound the Buddha or cause a ruckus amongst monks and nuns.

Since the Buddha taught for 45 years after his awakening, there is no “book” that represents the totality of his teachings. Buddhism is even called a “religion of the books.” Just as the Bible was written by numerous people over the course of centuries, Buddhist texts better represent the mindset of each particular author than any comprehensive overview of what Buddhism entails.

Is Buddhism a religion? To many, certainly. Like other world religions, it offers a set of ethical codes to be followed, best practices used to instill empathy, calm, and compassion into your day. It also has its system of metaphysics. What follows life—the heavens and hells—is specific to Buddhism, yet every religious system has devised its own mystical taxonomy. In this sense, Buddhism is not alone.

Yet Buddhism is also uniquely positioned to impact the growing secularism manifesting across the planet. And for this, there is plenty to learn from Buddhist ideology. As the writer Pankaj Mishra notes regarding one of Buddhism’s main exports:

As with any kind of mental training, the discipline of meditation steadily equips the individual with a new sensibility. It shows him how the craving for things that are transient, essence-less and flawed leads to suffering.

Instead of craving an afterlife, Buddhism’s intensive focus on the present moment, as well as developing an awareness that your actions ( karma ) produce consequences, prepares the initiate to face any trouble life presents them with. In this way Buddhism is not tribal, even if it’s been turned into in- and out-groups waging wars. The sangha is more a collection of individuals sharing the perspective that desire is the root of suffering and your accumulated actions affect the world we all inhabit. Personal responsibility and social decorum interact.

These are lessons as applicable to our world today as during the days when Siddhartha spent over half of his life teaching them. For the religious, there is plenty to contemplate in this tradition. Regardless of spiritual affiliation, the knowledge that we suffer and that techniques exist for overcoming this suffering is of immense value, no metaphysical beliefs required. The faith is in the proof.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 5, 2024 | Original: October 12, 2017

Buddhism is a faith that was founded by Siddhartha Gautama—also known as “the Buddha”—more than 2,500 years ago in India. With an estimated 500 million to one billion followers, scholars consider Buddhism one of the major world religions. As a non-theistic faith with no god or deity to worship, some scholars describe Buddhism as a philosophy or a moral code rather than an organized religion.

Many of the beliefs and practices of Buddhism revolve around the concept of suffering and its causes. Buddhism has historically been most prominent in East and Southeast Asia, but its influence is growing throughout the West. Many Buddhist ideas and philosophies overlap with those of other faiths.

Buddhism Beliefs and Practices

Some key Buddhism beliefs include:

• Followers of Buddhism don’t acknowledge a supreme god or deity. They instead focus on achieving enlightenment—a state of inner peace and wisdom. When followers reach this spiritual echelon, they’re said to have experienced nirvana.
• The religion’s founder, Buddha, is considered an extraordinary being, but not a god. The word Buddha means “enlightened.”
• The path to enlightenment is attained by utilizing morality, meditation and wisdom. Buddhists often meditate because they believe it helps awaken truth.
• There are many philosophies and interpretations within Buddhism, making it a tolerant and evolving religion.
• Some scholars don’t recognize Buddhism as an organized religion, but rather, a “way of life” or a “spiritual tradition.”
• Buddhism encourages its people to avoid self-indulgence but also self-denial.
• Buddha’s most important teachings, known as The Four Noble Truths, are essential to understanding the religion.
• Buddhists embrace the concepts of karma (the law of cause and effect) and reincarnation (the continuous cycle of rebirth).
• Followers of Buddhism can worship in temples or in their own homes.
• Buddhist monks, or bhikkhus, follow a strict code of conduct, which includes celibacy.
• There is no single Buddhist symbol, but a number of images have evolved that represent Buddhist beliefs, including the lotus flower, the eight-spoked dharma wheel, the Bodhi tree and the  swastika  (an ancient symbol whose name means "well-being" or "good fortune" in Sanskrit). 

Who Was the Buddha?

Siddhartha Gautama , the founder of Buddhism who later became known as “the Buddha,” lived during the 5th century B.C. 

Gautama was born into a wealthy family as a prince in present-day Nepal. Although he had an easy life, Gautama was moved by suffering in the world. 

He decided to give up his lavish lifestyle and endure poverty. For nearly six years, he undertook fasting and other austerities, but these techniques proved ineffectual and he abandoned them. He eventually promoted the idea of the “Middle Way,” which means existing between two extremes. Thus, he sought a life without social indulgences but also without deprivation.

After regaining his strength, he seated himself under a Bodhi tree in west-central India and promised not to rise until he had attained the supreme enlightenment. After fighting off Mara, an evil spirit who tempted him with worldly comforts and desires, Siddhartha reached enlightenment, becoming a Buddha at the age of 35. He spent the rest of his life teaching others about how to achieve this spiritual state.

When Gautama passed away around 483 B.C., his followers began to organize a religious movement. Buddha’s teachings became the foundation for what would develop into Buddhism.

In the 3rd century B.C., Ashoka the Great, the Mauryan Indian emperor, made Buddhism the state religion of India. Buddhist monasteries were built, and missionary work was encouraged.

Over the next few centuries, Buddhism began to spread beyond India. The thoughts and philosophies of Buddhists became diverse, with some followers interpreting ideas differently than others.

In the sixth century, the Huns invaded India and destroyed hundreds of Buddhist monasteries, but the intruders were eventually driven out of the country.

Islam began to spread quickly in the region during the Middle Ages , forcing Buddhism into the background. Nonetheless, Buddhism eventually spread to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan and, in the 20th century, to the West.

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Types of Buddhism

Today, many forms of Buddhism exist around the world. The three main types that represent specific geographical areas include:

• Theravada Buddhism : Prevalent in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Burma
• Mahayana Buddhism : Prevalent in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Vietnam
• Tibetan Buddhism : Prevalent in Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, Bhutan, and parts of Russia and northern India
• Zen Buddhism is a form of Mahayana Buddhism that’s practiced in many of the same areas. It emphasizes simplicity and meditation—the word “zen” means meditation—in lieu of religious scripture, ceremonies or doctrines.
• Nirvana Buddhism is closely related to Theravada Buddhism, but the concept of nirvana is also central to many paths of Buddhism. The term nirvana means “blowing out,” as a candle is blown out, thus ending all attachment and desire to achieve a state of pure enlightenment.

Each of these types reveres certain texts and has slightly different interpretations of Buddha’s teachings.

Some forms of Buddhism incorporate ideas of other religions and philosophies, such as Taoism and Bon.

Buddha’s teachings are known as “dharma.” He taught that wisdom, kindness, patience, generosity and compassion were important virtues.

Specifically, all Buddhists live by five moral precepts, which prohibit:

• Killing living things
• Taking what is not given
• Sexual misconduct
• Using drugs or alcohol

Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths, which Buddha taught, are:

• The truth of suffering (dukkha)
• The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
• The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
• The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)

Collectively, these principles explain why humans hurt and how to overcome suffering.

Eightfold Path

The Buddha taught his followers that the end of suffering, as described in the fourth Noble Truths, could be achieved by following an Eightfold Path. 

In no particular order, the Eightfold Path of Buddhism teaches the following ideals for ethical conduct, mental disciple and achieving wisdom:

• Right understanding (Samma ditthi)
• Right thought (Samma sankappa)
• Right speech (Samma vaca)
• Right action (Samma kammanta)
• Right livelihood (Samma ajiva)
• Right effort (Samma vayama)
• Right mindfulness (Samma sati)
• Right concentration (Samma samadhi)

Buddhist Holy Book

Buddhists revere many sacred texts and scriptures. Some of the most important are:

• Tipitaka: These texts, known as the “three baskets,” are thought to be the earliest collection of Buddhist writings.
• Sutras: There are more than 2,000 sutras, which are sacred teachings embraced mainly by Mahayana Buddhists.
• The Book of the Dead : This Tibetan text describes the stages of death in detail.

The Dalai Lama is the leading monk in Tibetan Buddhism. Followers of the religion believe the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of a past lama that has agreed to be born again to help humanity. There have been 14 Dalai Lamas throughout history.

The Dalai Lama also governed Tibet until the Chinese took control in 1959. The current Dalai Lama, Lhamo Thondup, was born in 1935.

Buddhist Holidays

Every year, Buddhists celebrate Vesak, a festival that commemorates Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death.

During each quarter of the moon, followers of Buddhism participate in a ceremony called Uposatha. This observance allows Buddhists to renew their commitment to their teachings.

They also celebrate the Buddhist New Year and participate in several other yearly festivals.

Buddhism: An Introduction, PBS . Buddhism, Ancient History Encyclopedia . The History of Buddha, History Cooperative . Demographics of Buddhism, Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs . Religions: Buddhism, BBC . Buddhist Scriptures, Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs . The Noble Eightfold Path: Tricycle . What Is Zen Buddhism and How Do You Practice It? Lion’s Roar .

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Teachings 10 Misconceptions about Buddhism

Buddhism: Philosophy or Religion?

In Asian religious traditions, religion—with its myths, magic, and miracles—goes hand in hand with philosophy.

[ This article is part of the 10 Misconceptions about Buddhism series ]

The Buddhist philosophical literature produced over the last 2,600 years is so astounding in both breadth and depth that it is little wonder Westerners have often claimed that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. Scores of different philosophical schools have developed within Buddhism, from the Abhidharma schools of Burma, with their careful analysis of the constituents of reality ( dharma ); to the Huayan school of China, with its elaborate outline of a universal causality in which all things are creating, and being created, by all other things ( shishi wu’ai fajie ); to the Gelug school of Tibet, with its precise delineations of the relationship between emptiness ( sunyata ) and dependent origination ( pratityasamutpada ).

The sophistication and rigor of Buddhist philosophical analysis rival that of any philosophical school that developed in Europe. Indeed, The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism is replete with entries on the ideas and terminology of these many philosophical systems.

Related: Was Buddha God or Human?  

Despite this wealth of philosophy, Buddhism is also a religion by any definition of that indefinable term—unless one narrowly defines religion as belief in a creator god. Magic and miracles, which we often associate with religion, fill Buddhist texts. As we wrote the dictionary, we were continually surprised at how central magic and miracles were to the biographies and legends of the Buddha, his disciples, and their eminent successors throughout history. Of eight major pilgrimage sites in Indian Buddhism, which commemorate important events in the Buddha’s career, four are concerned with miracles he performed. Among these sites is Sravasti, where the Buddha performed the “dual miracles” ( yamakapratiharya ) to vanquish a rival group of yogins by flying into the air and releasing fire from his head and water from his feet, and vice versa.

Such miracles were not only performed by the Buddha. Mastery of the fourth stage of meditative absorption ( dhyana ) is said to enable the meditator to deploy a set of psychic powers ( rddhi ) that includes the ability to pass through mountains, walk on water, fly through the air in full-lotus position, and “touch the sun and the moon with one’s hand.” Mahamaudgalyayana, one of the Buddha’s two main disciples, was the acknowledged master of such psychic powers. He once flew off to the Himalayas to find a medicinal plant to cure his sick friend Shariputra, and was renowned for his ability to travel anywhere in the universe as easily as flexing his arm. During a severe famine, Mahamaudgalyayana offered to turn over the earth’s crust to expose the ambrosia beneath it, but the Buddha wisely dissuaded him, saying that this would confound the earth’s creatures.

The very same monks who are the most renowned philosophers of Buddhism are commonly associated with such religious miracles. Nagarjuna, the traditional founder of the Madhyamaka school of Indian philosophy, retrieved the Prajnaparamita (“Perfection of Wisdom”) Sutras, the textual basis of that school, by traveling underwater to the Dragon King’s palace at the bottom of the sea. Kumarajiva, the Kuchean monk whose translation of Buddhist texts into Chinese laid the foundation for Madhyamaka philosophy in China, was a renowned thaumaturge who could ingest needles without injuring himself (a talent he used to justify why he could have sex when other monks could not). His tongue did not burn during his cremation—proof, his biographer claimed, of the accuracy and eloquence of his translations. (We leave to the reader’s imagination why the Chinese Chan monk Fori Qisong’s penis did not burn during cremation.)

Heaven and hell, and how to get to one and avoid the other, is another common feature of religions. And throughout history, the vast majority of Buddhist practices for both monks and laypeople has been focused on gaining a better rebirth in the next lifetime, whether for oneself, one’s family, or for all beings in the universe, and avoiding the baleful destiny of one of the infernal realms.

Related: Losing Our Religion

Indeed, separating philosophy from religion does not work well in the case of Buddhism. Trying to tease apart these two strands of the dispensation would have seemed a futile endeavor to most Buddhists over the long history of the tradition. We in the West need to get over this false dichotomy, which has no significance in speaking about Buddhism or other Asian religions.

The story behind the pilgrimage place of Samkasya illustrates this point nicely. After the Buddha magically flies to the heaven on the summit of Mount Sumeru to meet his mother Mahamaya, who has been reborn there as a deva, the gods build a bejeweled staircase so that he may descend back down to earth at Samkasya—a famous scene called “the descent from the realm of the divinities” ( devavatara ). The reason for this supernal visit? To teach his mother the Abhidharma, the highest form of Buddhist philosophy.

[ This story was first published in 2014 ]

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To answer the question, Is Buddhism a Religion or a Philosophy? requires a comparison of two definitions. The answer may be of academic interest to some. But whichever answer is preferred, it ultimately is the outcome of an exercise in futility.

The question asks the responder to discriminate. This is the very thing a true Buddhist does not do. The process of discrimination is initiated by the “Self”, the artificial construct through which we give ourselves the illusion of independence and control.

If by “religion”, you mean a system that worships a deity, then a true Buddhist has no religion. A true Buddhist does not discriminate between man and God (or gods). The Diamond Sutra explains how people use the “sword of discrimination” to divide reality into arbitrary chunks in their minds. This gives rise to dualism – me and you, them and us, black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. Dualism is the source of the suffering mankind brings upon itself. Dualism breeds envy, hatred and war.

A true Buddhist does not discriminate. He or she does not view life through the prism of an artificial self. She or he knows that appearances are just that, a flow of data that can be perceived via the 5 senses, which are only capable of perceiving a very limited range of data from the spectrum comprising reality. A true Buddhist recognises that a person’s relationship with reality is like a drop of water splashed from a pond by the leaping of a fish. The drop appears to have a separate existence from the pond, but it will fall back again and merge into the pond from which it was temporarily separated.

Another way of saying this is that a person’s life is a blossom which appears and flowers and ultimately falls to rejoin the earth. The blossom becomes part of the endless recycling of matter into vast arrays of life forms that create the truly wondrous beauty and variety of the world.

How would a person who understood all this answer the question of whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy? Personally, I don’t think he or she would find it necessary to form a view on the matter.

We are all believers! More deeply, we are all nobodies! We should hold our beliefs ‘carefully’.

The Buddha taught ’emptiness’ (shunyata). Where there is not-self and therefore, not-other. The ‘Buddha’s teachings’ (Buddhism) are not a philosophy or religion. It is the uncommon sense of the Buddha’s awakened intelligence!

The Buddha encouraged us to explode our own myths! Any kind of reified ‘identity’ is one of the myths he exposed. The Buddha referred to his mendicant followers as nobodies. How can I be a ‘nobody’ (akinchana) if I am overly concerned with that which sets me apart – from others? How am I going to follow the Buddha’s advice, and realise that I am a nobody? If, I am concerned with affirming who I am, in contrast, to who I am not?

The Buddha was not a philosopher or a religious zealot. He was a pan-dimensional map maker. Many feel that the Buddha was an explorer and discoverer without equal. The problem is: we have disciplines like philosophy and science! So we try to squeeze the Buddha into our known categories of learning. The awakened one uncovered – made clear – the Dharma that liberates. A discovery like no other!

“The Buddha likens spiritual liberation to a long-forgotten, overgrown city deep in the forest. Just as it’s possible to reclaim and then inhabit this city once the path to it is found, it’s possible to live a liberated life when we discover and follow a path that will take us there.” – (Gil Fronsdal)

While indeed this is an important question as to what is essential in the Buddha’s teaching – I say Buddha’s teachings refer to a well established doctrine used for over two thousand years- the authors drop the ball. While saying that religion is difficult if not impossible to define- a well know fact- they use only three uncommon factors to define Buddhism as a religion- magic, miracles, and heaven/hell. They say throughout the Buddhist writings there are ample examples of the Buddha and others demonstrating magic/miracles (can they be the same thing?) and the description of heaven/hell. Well, even if one accepts that very narrow defination of religion, as a psychologist I can also very easily- similar to what the emphasis of the Buddha was throughout his teachings- say that most of the evidence of those phenomena is that they are psychologically inspired and inconsequential, and in fact are called hindrances, in the following the Buddha’s teachings of liberation through Awakening.For example, do the authors of this essay really take at face value the ‘miracle’ of the tree voluntarily bending to allow the Buddha’s mother give birth to him easily or that the infant Buddha walked easily and where he placed his foot, a lotus flower bloomed or immediately after the birth of Siddhartha he stood up, took seven steps north, and uttered: ‘I am chief of the world, Eldest am I in the world, Foremost am I in the world. This is the last birth. There is now no more coming to be.’ To understand the profundity of the Buddha’s teachings is through a psychological point of view not mythology. The Buddha even reportedly responded to a request for miracles by saying, “…I dislike, reject and despise them,” let’s follow his lead and instead focus on the teaching- “To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to purify one’s mind—this is the teaching of the Buddhas” (Dhammapada 183).

of course it’s just philosophy. perhaps “sidartha gautama” was a prophet IMHO because there were approximately 124.000 prophets all total that God sent into this world to make humankind follow the obedience of God.

I agree with the “philosophy” aspect of Buddhism. Ideas as these originating with a scholar/profit “Sid”– establish a historical link. Just as religions change over the centuries, so has Buddhism. Today with the Western influence, it is seen as a philosophy, a spiritual path, a mental health plan if you will. And bits and pieces from the buffet table are discussed in higher conceptual terms, developing into sophisticated debates. Each of us can choose what we like about the delicious items on the table and add them to our personal views. Then defending and debating over their truths. It is the Way. We westerners like to defend our interpretations, personal choices and beliefs. Silly us. 🙂

…a grey, fuzzy little world of restrained emotions and the constant drone of multiple outbursts of expounding and bickering, orchestrated by finger-wagging; the denizens’ bodies consisting solely of a large head wobbling atop one absurdly tiny foot, as they talk forever but are incapable of going anywhere — welcome to the Loka of the Scholar, the intellectual masturpergatory.

Oh really, simon blemings? Exactly what are you calling “the Loka of the scholar”? I think it would behoove you to read again the first line of the article.

“If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” – Benjamin Franklin I guess Simon is ‘just thinking’. Thinking – colorfully! Or, his perspective may also be that of a scholar. The ‘Loka of the Scholar’ sounds like someone who has some knowledge of sanskrit. I dont know to many uneducated folk who know obscure sanskrit definitions. He might be a scholar in hiding! As he is such an articulate fellow. He probably should take up some serious study. He sounds like a scholar to me? Or, perhaps he would advocate rounding them all up and liquidating them. As ‘Pol Pot’ did? Any way, I give him 10 points for poetic licence. Could ‘one footed’ folk still hop to get around? xxoo

Thank you for your feedback sangha dassa. I’m trying to advocate for a better balance between intellectual knowledge and practice-based knowledge – perhaps starting with a 50-50 Middle Way split would be better than articles like these which are high on claimed ‘scholasticism’, but low on practice-derived insight; and subsequently offer amateurish statements such as ‘Buddhism is a religion by any definition of the term’ and demonstrate limited undertanding of so-called ‘magic and miracles’. More heat than light is generated by articles such as these.

Dear Simon, I understand your concerns! I think the problem might be with the way our study and learning develops. We can give the Buddha a fair hearing on his own terms, without criticism or judgement – merely listening. Without coming to conclusions – we do the same with others! This is what meditation is – reaction free attention. In this way, we come to hold knowledge/information lightly. Our own understanding will develop as a result of this open listening. We need to hold our own understanding lightly – as well. This does not mean that we do not stay true to the insights that emerge in Dharma inquiry. Liberating insight is not encoded in the knowledge we imbibe through open listening. It is a consequence of open listening – itself!

We give ourselves a fair hearing. This is all we ever really hear – anyway. We listen with a loving heart to ourselves. We have a tentative commitment to our own perceptions and thoughts. Our inquiry into the theory of practice – and all aspects of the teaching – can be a kind of meditation. If we listen to the teachings with care and gratitude – with joy. When we receive the teachings in this way they come to life! That which we ‘call’ practice is really a gift.

Our personal commitment – energy and resources – will not wake us up! We still need to make the effort! Right effort really means the courage to be with the unfolding of life without running away. The energy of awakening is an enlightenment factor. Investigation is also an enlightenment factor. But more important than the study of Dharma teachings is the ‘direct’ investigation of – being present to – clinging, letting go etc.

The Buddha’s teachings are a gift just like our next breath – and everything else that nurtures and sustains. A gift that comes out of an open loving heart/mind – which is emptiness itself.

It is probably a good idea not to respond directly to anyone who equates thinking with the erotic stimulation of ones own sexual organs resulting in orgasm, so I’ll just say I think the article generates plenty of light, and clears up the common misconception that Buddhism is a philosophy, and not really a religious practice. Indeed, as the article suggests, it is both. I would also suggest that anyone who feels the need to advocate for a more anti-intellectual approach to the practice, at least from what I’ve seen of Buddhism here in the states, will have a very easy row to hoe. Looking forward to the next article in the series, thanks.

Someone once told me of a sea monster with rows and rows of teeth which eats people voraciously and slides just under the water’s surface with one fin sticking out. I saw so many references that I began to wonder if there was something behind them, so I went looking and found a shark. If stories have substance, the evidence is there to find.

All that is listed in religious myth is, indeed, possible in any human mind. And any of the myths can be great teaching tools to spark understanding. I sometimes wonder if wise men have used them for such purposes, confident that listeners would look deeply into the lessons because the myths were so obviously exaggerated and embellished that it would always be obvious they were not literally true.

I very much agree. Buddhism holds up just fine to science. At least the pieces that are relevant to me. I am tired of hearing people say all the myths must be interpreted literally for Buddhism to have any intrinsic value. That argument simply doesn’t hold up.

3.000 years ago people had a better talent and ear for metaphors. The 21st Century has devolved in that respect.

As much as I would like to think that buddhism is a post superstition, compatible with science system, my experience around Tibetans seems to indicate that it is simply not the case. Everyone has their favorite stories, especially about Kalu rinpoche, Karmapa 16, and Trungpa about miracles, rain making, bi-location, Tumo, rainbows, etc. At some point science may come up with explanations for this stuff, but right now it is pretty out there. . Also, the whole Tulku system, which is the foundation of Tibetan buddhism, is certainly not within the realm of science. I am a devoted Karma Kagyu practitioner, but a lot of the stuff we sign on for is definitely not within the realm of science.

Buddhism is knowledge-based and befits the times. What was understood about life 3,000 years ago is quite different than today. As such, Buddhism has also (or should have) progressed to keep up with a changing society.

When I first started practicing Buddhism (I’m also a Karma Kagyu practitioner), I took great comfort that the highest lamas and Buddha himself said to not to take anything on faith, but rather believe in what aligns with your own experience and/or critical judgement. Buddhism is not a practice of dogma – but one of a universal, constant truth. What we take refuge in (where we can confidently place our trust) – is what we need to practice and develop. We don’t take refuge in the stories or even in reincarnation. Different lineages, different baskets of teachings work with a wide variety of methods and views that work with the wide variety of different capacities and tendencies that people hold, in different societies and at different times. Working with the freedom of mind and seeing it in action works for me. Working with a regimented program of conduct and hearing extraordinary stories may work for others. We’re probably looking at each other, scratching our heads and saying: “Really? That’s what gives you confidence and motivation?” For me, I’ve come to the point where these other paths don’t undermine my confidence in my own experience. Instead they show me that even my own dharma path is working within its own conceptual level, and these other paths express the free play of space and its unlimited nature.

I’ve found it pretty easy to separate the wheat of wisdom in Buddhism from the spooky and kooky chaff of religion.

re: chaff of religion–some of the more insidious being guilt, holier than thou-ness, mutual exclusivity of good and evil, etc.

And the most insidious being unnecessary violence inflicted on the innocent “justified” by religious teachings: jihad, inquisition, religious wars, witch burnings, human slavery, and animal slavery /exploitation.

Those human activities are not religion anymore. They’re man’s inhumanity to man. What Buddhism defines as the 3 poisons of greed, belligerence and ignorance.

We agree that the root is greed, [aversion], and ignorance [or delusion].

However, all of those activities I mentioned in the comment to which you replied, with the exception of inquisition and witch burnings, are still going on today, and in some cases thriving today, under religious “justification.” Yes, religion, overall, has progressed morally over the past couple hundred years, but that is due mostly, if not entirely, to secular criticism of its practices in the environment of free, liberal democracies.

Your choice of words — “man’s inhumanity to man” is revealing. What about man’s inhumanity to women? What about “man’s” inhumanity to other species (which I did mention)? Sexism (or patriarchy) and speciesism are other forms of prejudice promoted by religion — including Buddhism — for millennia. “Man’s” inhumanity to women is probably only one of several cases of religiously inspired prejudice and violence I failed to mention.

Religion, by its nature of being generally parochial, culturally biased, defending tradition and belief and dogma instead of challenging it, is uniquely susceptible unnecessary exclusion, violence, and cruelty based on prejudice.

This is why we still have — today — jihad, religious wars, human slavery (or exploitation or subjugation in the case of women today worldwide), and animal exploitation. Animal exploitation is a unique case based on extreme anthropocentrism and speciesism (an anthropocentrism strongly encouraged by all religions, even today!). In racism, sexism, heterosexism, and speciesism, those who hold the dogma of superiority of the “other” are usually, if not always, blind to it, if for no other reason that they believe there is nothing wrong with it. They do not see the *irrelevance* of the characteristic(s) they hold to be relevant.

The racist or sexist doesn’t acknowledge the fact that intelligence, not race or sex, is the morally *relevant* characteristic for a university education. Just so, the speciesist doesn’t acknowledge the fact that sentience, not humanity, is the morally *relevant* characteristic for basic protection against unnecessary violence and harm.

If someone — regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, species, or any other accident of birth — can benefit from kindness and protection, why shouldn’t we acknowledge it in our thoughts, speech, and behavior?

Well said, candor! It is right to point out how religious practitioners have/do carry out senseless acts of cruelty and indifference – in the past – and on a regular basis. Now, in order to avoid the use of ’empty Panglossian platitudes’ [thanks for the sharing of this phrase elsewhere – i love it] we need to ‘at least’ draw some attention to past and present acts of violence and cruelty, that are perpetrated for entirely non-religious reasons. Stalin famously declared ‘religion is poison’. No phoney pretence of religious piety with good old Stalin – oh no! I heard that he liked to be given lists of all the possible ‘class enemies’ his subservient apparatchik’s could identify. He would go down the list and put crosses next to the ones that required liquidation. He put one cross next to the ‘womens lawn tennis association’. I think it would lack ‘objectivity’ if we were to suggest that religion is a source of harm, and neglect to mention that it holds no ‘patent’ on violence. Religious people can be kind, wise, and intelligent. Science buffs and the devoted followers of scientism can be insensitive, careless, and unreflective. It works both ways. Just think of the horrendous soughts of things that happen – to animals – in science. In the name of research! There is no shortage of religious bigotry and violence in this world. It is important for thoughtful people to ‘come out of’ unhelpful stereotypes. Especially intelligent people who have so much to offer us all. I think Dominic was trying to say, that it is ‘people’ who do violent and insensitive things. They may justify those acts through an appeal to so-called ‘religious authority’. Or, through some other kind of specious reasoning. Religion can be used as a justification for mass slaughter or, housing the homeless. It depends on a lot of other variables as well – in order to choose violence or, some other course of action. If this were not the case we could declare unequivocally, ‘religion is poison’. Good old Stalin would be more than happy to chime in on that one – ‘may he rest in peace’. It is really quite unfair to characterize people as mindless believers and beliefless science enthusiasts. Many of us simply do not fit these characterizations. Particularly, in Buddhist circles. It is quite often the case that people listen to the religious ‘models’ and world views, and don’t believe them at all. We simply listen and keep an open mind. Many of us listen with equal degrees of interest to scientific accounts of reality. Many of us do this without feeling any need to disparage or, dismiss anyone as a crank, a fool, as delusional, as mindless sheep who just conform to religious edicts, and surrender their critical intelligence. So when people declare that religious folks believe in myths, and stupid archaic ways of seeing the world. We know that this is not relevant to our own ‘inner life’. Many of us, also question the wisdom of dealing with ‘people of faith’ in a dismissive and divisive way. There are really good reasons not to do this! It can actually comfirm people in there particularity! I never feel inclined to listen ‘sympathetically’ to anyone who is quick to point out how deluded I am. It is more important to care than it is to be right! I rest my case! xxoo

The first sentence in what you’re replying to here is “we agree that the root is greed, aversion and delusion.”

If that’s the first sentence, then obviously I don’t think religion is the root (or primary cause) of those negative things. I’ve also admitted elsewhere that religion can have good effects. My point was that, at its worst (read the exchange between me and Dominic again), religion encourages those negative things due to its nature of defending tradition, belief, and dogma, especially when they cause harm, instead of being open to challenge old beliefs.

By contrast, the attitude and encouragement of modern (and ancient Greek) philosophy and science is to challenge ideas, old and new. I don’t claim this always happens, but the skeptical and critical attitude exists in modern philosophy and science far more than in religion. In religion, the skeptical and critic attitude is, at best, discouraged, and at worst, absolutely prohibited (often, especially historically, by threats of torture and death).

Dear Candor, I think I understand your point about scepticism. I have also been given the impression that there was a large variety – as with the Greeks – of philosophical and religious positions, and forms of inquiry, being espoused and practiced, in what we now call India – in the same time frame. There were versions of what we now call, idealists, realists, atomists, empiricists, phenomenologists, atheists, theists, pantheists, monists, orthodoxies, heterodoxies etc. The Buddha was aware of a lot of these philosophical and religious musings – as you know. We owe a lot to the Buddha’s contemporaries for the gift of his teachings. Although Greek culture is so important to the subsequent developments in Europe – and the world. I would be indulging in a kind of prejudicial cultural and historical dialogue, if I were to elevate the thought of Ancient Greece and its further development in Europe – and beyond. And disparage or dismiss the development of thought in the period that the Buddha lived in, and the subsequent developments in that thought in his region of origin, and throughout the world. Including our musings in this thread. I am not a cultural imperialist – or a europhile. I tend to give everyone a fair hearing. I may disagree with their conclusions. But I rarely take a dogmatic position and insist that people see things like me. I ‘make my case’ and don’t suggest to them, if they do not share my perspective, that they are delusional, blind and mindless conformists etc. I may have a sneaking suspicion that it is indeed the case, that the people I am talking to are ‘not clear’ about a lot of things. However, I do not tell them that their convictions are ‘fairy tales’, archaic myths, complete nonsense! I do this because I am a practicing Buddhist. And his eightfold path contains elements that tends to discourage this kind of speech and behavior. I also do it because – I believe – it is ‘common sense’ and it is something I would not appreciate – if done to me. I feel that what I have found to be important is best conveyed in a way that does not step on peoples’ toes. That does not leave them feeling that their entitlement to a ‘different way of looking’ – that results in a different point of view – is not being respected. Even if, it differs radically from my own. I find this facilitates open inquiry of a phiosophical and scientific nature. I would not discourage open inquiry in either. I am not willing to say emphatically to anyone, that I have all the significant answers to life, the universe, and everything. I am willing to keep an open mind. I encourage others to do the same. With regard to Buddhist teachings and science. LUV YA MADLY, sangha dassa.

Are you saying I’m a closed-minded, unfair, dogmatic, insistent, rude, insulting, toe-stomping, calloused, disrespectful, emphatic, know-it-all, cultural imperialist, but that nevertheless, you luv me madly?

Because if I’m not mistaken, when one eliminates the first person (I’m not like dis and I’m not like dat) in a long winded, monoblock paragraph addressed specifically “Dear Candor,” it seems like you are saying all that in way too many words.

Goodbye and good luck, Sangha, you won’t hear much, if anything from me again. I chimed in with candid thoughts on the beggars can’t be choosers and science articles admittedly more than my better judgment counseled and indeed more than I should have. I’m going back to mental hygiene from now on by generally avoiding the comments section. I mostly won’t even read comments from here on out, the main exception being the beggars can’t be choosers article, on which I may (or may not) deem it appropriate to clear up any future confusion.

May you be well and happy, and live at ease!

Religious justification is a straw man. The real reason is power. Aryanist-fueled Nazism could be considered a religion. A more accurate label would be “the human proclivity to be inhuman”. People don’t have to be that way, especially in today’s global environment. But for many folks in many parts of the world, there just aren’t any effective alternatives to becoming inhuman in order to justify and safeguard one’s existence. (FYI, that’s why I’ve been practicing Buddhism for 41 years. It’s a powerful alternative.)

“Greed, aversion, and ignorance,” “power,” and “religious justification” are not mutually exclusive. They often happen together. I see the first as primary, the second as a manifestation of the first, and the third as creating a very favorable environment.

I agree that there are secular ideologies, such as Nazism, Maoist Communism, and Soviet Communism, that play the same role of creating an environment of dogma and a lack of skepticism and criticism that nurtures atrocities, totalitarianism, and ongoing oppression and violence as religious ideologies often have.

Among many reasons I am heavily influenced by Buddhist philosophy is that I see it — or at least the parts of it I admittedly cherry pick — as striking at the root of many problems of prejudice and unnecessary violence. I also like the Buddha’s teaching that we “see for ourselves,” an attitude, unlike typical religion, that fosters skepticism and criticism. The Buddha was very critical of the Brahmanism and caste system he was born into. The Buddha was also skeptical of his teachers. I consider these all good qualities.

Shakyamuni was a revolutionary on the deepest level, that of human life itself. He rebelled against the greed, belligerence and ignorance that enslave humans from within.

That’s for sure.

Traditional definitions of both philosophy and religion need to be updated to work in today’s intellectual and spiritual landscape. Times have changed in 3,000 years. Rather than vanquishing rivals by flying in the air and releasing fire and water, these days we use drones.

There’s no problem with Buddhist philosophy. We just have to be clear that philosophy is the menu and not the meal. In the Zen sect, the practice of zazen—seated, still, silent inquiry—begins where the dirt road of philosophy ends. In fact, the entire enterprise of Zen is one of realizing and actualizing the Buddha’s teachings of wisdom and compassion as a living experience: the ineffable Tao beyond words, beyond thoughts and philosophy, and yet right here as close as our hands. Then why say anything at all? Why all the Zen texts? In the Zen tradition, words are tools that inspire, goad, spur, support, move, and encourage. The songs of birds, the sound of traffic, and the laugh of a neighbor all articulate the BuddhaDharma more profoundly than any sutra, sacred text, or philosophy.

I wonder if these professor’s practice? I would hesitate, if I were writing such an article, to make such an all encompassing claim about buddhism. It is true that most if not all of the traditions within buddhism have such stories as they cite. But different traditions may view them differently–the nuances are lost. Many who think of themselves as belonging to the Zen tradition take a very different approach to the “scriptures” and the stories recounted here. I can’t speak for all who follow the zen path for sure, in fact I know I do not, but I also know that my views are well within the “mainstream.” The way I look at it, the buddhist scriptures and commentaries have no more claim to universal truth than the christian bible. We become acquainted with what is real, valuable and universal through experience of practice. For me, scriptures are valuable as “teaching stories,” skillful means, upaya, and as a link with our tradition (and for their beauty as poetry). This isn’t to denigrate the teachings for sure, but it is to realize where their value lies. What matters is what we know based on our own experience, not what we read in the sutras or the commentaries. I have no idea whether buddha vanquished some yogis by flying through the air and gushing water or blazing light–and quite frankly its not a question I’m exactly burning with desire to answer. If reading such an account arouses the bodhicita in the reader, then it serves a purpose I suppose–but realization of who we are always already–our own true nature–is something we must look for within ourselves.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Buddha, from Kalama Sutta Soooo, with this I confidently do not believe that the Buddha was “flying into the air and releasing fire from his head” This one quote is what attracted me to Buddhism in the first place: not taking things in blind faith (this to me is the definition of religion) Namaste

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/lost-quotation

Oh thank you to previous responders! My blood pressure goes up in a very unbuddhist way when we get preoccupied with thinking and labeling and being precise and such. Scholarship has its place, of course, but isn’t the important thing not the words we use but how we live our lives?

Perhaps, there is another difference with Buddhism. Did the Buddha not strongly suggest that one develops their faith based on their own experience, rather than by the words of anyone else, including the Buddha? Is this not different than most religions?

For me, while interesting, the mythology distracts from understanding the Dharma and does little to further one’s release from suffering. Indeed, it may hinder one if taken as “gospel”. For example, the writing of the superhuman powers of jhana allude to amazing feats, although there is no evidence of this actually being the case, other than the old texts and superstition. Indeed, some practitioners may wrongly be attracted to deeper states of concentration for that reason, or conversely, may shy away from jhana training for fear what may lie beyond. Much opportunity for deeper clarity is lost in both cases.

I suppose that at the end of the day, Buddhism is what one makes of it, be it philosophy or religion.

Although unusual for me to do so, I read most all of the comments here. Your perspective was the only one that echoed my initial thoughts exactly!

I’ve only been practicing for a little over three years, but I am very devoted take it completely seriously. Being very turned off to god religions, particularly Christianity, the first time I heard reference to the powers of jhana I was instantly disheartened, as I wondered what was down this road. (The same holds true to the concept of reincarnation) Instead of either turning away from Buddhist practice or believing everything I hear about it, I have kept my focus on each step of my practice and my only concern is following the Buddha’s explicit instructions and see what happens. So far, I have found nothing to doubt. If and when I train to the fourth absorption, I’ll see for myself if I have mastery over the elements, but I certainly don’t want to fall into the trap of unworldly craving for it.

Ah and if the author had only said “this is what the texts say” or “this is what tradition holds” instead of basically saying so-and-so happened, it would be a bit more honest of an exposition.

I had the same thought.

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Buddhism: Philosophy or Religion?

Religion and philosophy have long been held as mutually exclusive concepts due to their antagonistic focus on faith, on the one hand, and reason-guided logical analysis on the other. In fact, such understanding has led to the much-debated question (especially among Westerners) of whether Buddhism, as based on the teachings of the historical Buddha Gautama, is to be classified as a religion or a philosophy. This paper aims to engage in the debate by firstly defining the terms ‘religion’ and ‘philosophy’. Due to its limited size, this paper cannot provide a comprehensive review of all the rival definitions and will only briefly touch upon problems arising through such conceptualisation. In a second step, a literature review, based on a variety of Buddhist scriptures originating in both the Pali and Sanskrit canons, will shed light on the main concerns of Buddhism and classify their nature as either religious or philosophical. Here, I will argue that Buddhism incorporates both religious and philosophical concerns into a unified and coherent network of thought.

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LINDSAY FALVEY

This book introduces Buddhism by describing its approach to spiritual development and those who undertake the Buddhist path. It aims to make Buddhism more easily understood by those who might be unfamiliar with its objectives – and this task is made easier by the pragmatic ways in which Buddhism meets our enduring urge for happiness. Among the various spiritual traditions that have been developed over the past three thousand years to relieve humans of their suffering and distress, Buddhism is perhaps the most methodical, practical and comprehensive. As a function of its essential tolerance and loving kindness, the Buddhist tradition is expressed in a variety of forms that recognise different individual needs, and diverse cultural environments throughout the world. Our appreciation of this tradition, as it expands in the West, will increase as we understand some of its insights and key principles of spiritual development.

Yugendar Nathi

James K Powell II

Refutation of essentialist approaches found among Western scholars of religion. Essentialism in Occidental approaches to the study of religion von Harnack, Loisy and Troeltsch: the essence of Christianity. Modern theories concerning the 'essence' of religion Towards a Madhyamaka Historiography. A Nāgārjunan critique of essentialism.. The first leg of the tetralemma: negation of essence The second leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'no-essence' The third leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'there both is and is not an essence' Fourth leg of the tetralemma: negation of 'neither essence nor non-essence' Conventional essentialism relative to ultimate non-essentialism A MahĀyĀnist Methodology for the study of religion Occidental sympathizers: van der Leeuw and Bourdieu Proposal of a Mahayanist metatheory YogĀcĀrin insights into the relationship of religious praxis to non-essentialism The three natures and their implications for the relationship of theory to practice in the Mahāyāna tradition and for religious studies in general. The application of these for our study

Christopher W . Gowans

1. Observing the Stream 2. The Life of the Buddha 3. The Teaching in Brief 4. Practical Dimensions of the Teaching 5. Theoretical Dimensions of the Teaching 6. An Interpretation of the Not-Self Doctrine 7. The Rationale for Thinking There are No Substance-Selves 8. Some Philosophical Issues: Are We Substance-Selves or Process-Selves? 9. Kamma, Rebirth and the Not-Self Doctrine 10. The Nature and Extent of Suffering 11. The Origin of Suffering 12. The Cessation of Suffering: Nibbana-in-Life 13. The Cessation of Suffering: Nibbana-after-Death 14. The Eightfold Path: Wisdom 15. The Eightfold Path: Virtue 16. The Eightfold Path: Concentration 17. A Message of Hope: The Buddha's Invitation to Live Selflessly

Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy

The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is the first scholarly reference volume to highlight the diversity and individuality of a large number of the most influential philosophers to have contributed to the evolution of Buddhist thought in India. By placing the author at the center of inquiry, the volume highlights the often unrecognized innovation and multiplicity of India’s Buddhist thinkers, whose unique contributions are commonly subsumed in more general doctrinal presentations of philosophical schools. Here, instead, the reader is invited to explore the works and ideas of India’s most important Buddhist philosophers in a manner that takes seriously the weight of their philosophical thought. The forty chapters by an international and interdisciplinary team of renowned contributors each seek to offer both a wide-ranging overview and a philosophically astute reading of the works of the most seminal Indian Buddhist authors from the earliest writings to the twentieth century. The volume thus also provides thorough coverage of all the main figures, texts, traditions, and debates animating Indian Buddhist thought, and as such can serve as an in-depth introduction to Buddhist philosophy in India for those new to the field. Essential reading for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy, The Routledge Handbook of Indian Buddhist Philosophy is also an excellent resource for specialists in Buddhist philosophy, as well as for contemporary philosophers interested in learning about the rigorous and rich traditions of Buddhist philosophy in India.

Dr. Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya

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It’s hard to find a self-help book today that doesn’t praise the benefits of meditation, mindfulness and yoga.

Many individuals engage in meditation and other practices associated with Buddhism. But not all realize the complexities of the religion, according to Stanford expert Paul Harrison. (Image credit: FatCamera / Getty Images)

Many of these practices are rooted in the ancient tradition of Buddhism, a religion first developed by people in India sometime in the fifth century BCE.

But according to Stanford Buddhist scholar Paul Harrison , Buddhism is more than finding zen: It is a religious tradition with a complicated history that has expanded and evolved over centuries. Harrison has dedicated his career to studying the history of this religion, which is now practiced by over 530 million people.

In a recent book he edited, Setting Out on the Great Way: Essays on Early Mahāyāna Buddhism , Harrison brings together the latest perspectives on the origins and early history of a type of Buddhism that has influenced most of today’s Buddhist practices around the world.

This new work focuses on the rise of Mahayana Buddhism, which evolved about 400 years after the birth of Buddhism. It is an elaborate web of ideas that has seen other types of Buddhism branch from its traditions. Unlike other Buddhists, Mahayana followers aspire to not only liberate themselves from suffering but also lead other people toward liberation and enlightenment.

Stanford News Service interviewed Harrison, the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, about Buddhism and the latest research on its origins.

What are some things that people may not know about Buddhism?

Some people, especially those in the Western world, seem to be bewitched and mesmerized by the spell of Buddhism and the way it’s represented in the media. We’re now saturated with the promotion of mindfulness meditation, which comes from Buddhism.

Paul Harrison (Image credit: Connor Crutcher)

But Buddhism is not all about meditation. Buddhism is an amazingly complex religious tradition. Buddhist monks don’t just sit there and meditate all day. A lot of them don’t do any meditation at all. They’re studying texts, doing administrative work, raising funds and performing rituals for the lay people, with a particular emphasis on funerals.

Buddhism has extremely good press. I try to show my students that Buddhism is not so nice and fluffy as they might think. Buddhism has a dark side, which, for example, we’ve been seeing in Myanmar with the recent persecution of the Rohingya people there.

It’s as if we need to believe that there is a religion out there that’s not as dark and black as everything else around us. But every religion is a human instrument, and it can be used for good and for bad. And that’s just as true of Buddhism as of any other faith.

Why is it important to study the origin of Buddhism and other religions?

Religion plays a hugely important role in our world today. Sometimes it has extremely negative consequences, as evidenced by terrorism incidents such as the Sept. 11 attacks. But sometimes it has positive consequences, when it’s used to promote selfless behavior and compassion.

Religion is important to our politics. So, we need to understand how religions work. And part of that understanding involves trying to grasp how religions developed and became what they became.

This new book of essays on Mahayana Buddhism is just a small part of figuring out how Buddhism developed over time.

What is Mahayana Buddhism and what are its distinct features?

The word Mahayana is usually translated as “the great vehicle.” The word maha means “great,” but the yana bit is trickier. It can mean both “vehicle” and “way,” hence the title of this book.

As far as we know, Mahayana Buddhism began to take shape in the first century BCE. This religious movement then rapidly developed in a number of different places in and around what is now India, the birthplace of Buddhism.

Buddhism itself started sometime in the fifth century BCE. We now think that the Buddha, who founded the religion, died sometime toward the year 400 BCE. As Buddhism developed, it spread beyond India. A number of different schools emerged. And out of that already complicated situation, we had the rise of a number of currents, or ways of thinking, which eventually started being labeled as Mahayana.

The kind of Buddhism before Mahayana, which I call mainstream Buddhism, is more or less a direct continuation of the teachings of the founder. Its primary ideal is attaining liberation from suffering and the cycle of life and rebirth by achieving a state called nirvana. You can achieve nirvana through moral striving, the use of various meditation techniques and learning the Dharma, which is the Buddha’s teachings.

Eventually, some people said that mainstream Buddhism is all fine and well but that it doesn’t go far enough. They believed that people need to not just liberate themselves from suffering but also liberate others and become Buddhas too.

Mahayana Buddhists strive to copy the life of the Buddha and to replicate it infinitely. That effort was the origin of the bodhisattva ideal. A bodhisattva is a person who wants to become a Buddha by setting out on the great way. This meant that Mahayana Buddhists were allegedly motivated by greater compassion than the normal kind of Buddhists and aimed for a complete understanding of reality and greater wisdom.

That’s Mahayana in a nutshell. But along with that goes a whole lot of new techniques of meditation, an elaborate cosmology and mythology, and a huge number of texts that were written around the time of the birth of Mahayana.

What’s the biggest takeaway from the latest research on the origin of Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism?

The development of Buddhism and its literature is much more complicated than we have realized. In the middle of the 20th century, scholars thought Mahayana Buddhism was developed by lay people who wanted to make a Buddhism for everybody. It was compared to the Protestant movement in Christianity. But we now know that this picture is not true.

The evidence shows that Mahayana Buddhism was spearheaded by the renunciants, the Buddhist monks and nuns. These were the hardcore practitioners of the religion, and they were responsible for writing the Mahayana scriptures and promoting these new ideas. The lay people were not the initiators.

But the full story is even more complicated than that. Buddhism’s development is more like a tumbleweed than a tree. And Mahayana Buddhism is sort of like a braided stream of several river currents, without one main current.

Why is it challenging to figure out how Mahayana Buddhism came about?

What’s special about Buddhist studies and makes it different from studying religions like Christianity is that there is still a huge amount of material that has not been translated or studied properly.

In the last two or three decades, scholars have also discovered a whole lot of texts in a long-lost language, called Gandhari, some of which are related to the Mahayana. These documents, the oldest of which date to the first century BCE, have been found in a region that now includes Pakistan and parts of North India, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

A lot of these texts are very hard to translate and understand. And there is more material that keeps surfacing. All of that is changing our view of the early history of Buddhism.

Media Contacts

Alex Shashkevich, Stanford News Service: (650) 497-4419, [email protected]

What is Buddhism? Is it a religion, a worldview, a philosophy, a way of life, a spiritual path? Does it even exist?

One way of answering ‘what is Buddhism?’ would be to say that Buddhism is one of largest and most influential religious traditions in the world, sharing with Christianity and Islam the vision of spreading to the whole of humanity rather than being limited to a particular ethnic or national group. In the nineteenth century it was estimated that Buddhism was a major influence on 40% of the world’s population. Even after the upheavals of the twentieth century, especially the adoption of non-religious Marxist/Maoist ideologies in China and several other countries where Buddhism was previously important, it is claimed by most sources (such as Wikipedia, adherents.com, worldpopulation.com) that there are about 500-535 million adherents, or somewhere between 7-10% of the world’s population. An alternative view is that there could be really more like 1.6 billion or 22%, mainly reliant on counting much larger numbers of Chinese people as Buddhists, and counting people who include some Buddhist practices in their lives (buddhaweekly.com). Perhaps the figure is somewhere between the two, and of course, it depends on who you count as a Buddhist and the methods of collecting the data.

Another way of answering this would be to query whether there is even such a thing as ‘Buddh-ism’, whether it is correct to classify it as a religion or religious tradition, and whether it is possible to separate it out from other traditions. Many contemporary scholars consider that the idea of ‘religions’ as clearly defined separate belief systems is a Western notion dating back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century and thus that the idea of something called ‘Buddh-ism’ is an invention of Western scholars. Given that many Buddhist countries were colonised by Western powers, this means that accounts read by Westerners were first written by or for the foreign rulers. However, as the colonised (especially indigenous elites) were not just passive recipients of labels given by others, but joined in the process of definition with their own agenda, it might be better to say that ‘Buddh-ism’ as most people imagine it, and many textbooks describe it, is a product of the colonial encounter. For example, in the UK, there is a tendency to see Theravada Buddhism as the more mainstream because of British involvement with Sri Lanka, and of Buddhism as rational, playing down the more ritual or mystical elements, because of the efforts of Buddhist modernisers in Sri Lanka. Many Buddhists would prefer to talk about the Dharma/Dhamma or truth about the way things are rather than an ‘ism’. Some Theravada Buddhists would distinguish between Buddhamarga ‘the way of the Buddha’ and Buddhasasana , Buddhism as an institution, the latter subject to the problems of the human condition.   A helpful phrase from leading scholar Richard Gombrich (1996:7) is ‘Buddhism is not an inert object, it is a chain of events’ (which fits in well with Buddhist teaching). Having said all this, in this essay, in spite of the issues above, the term ‘Buddhism’ continues to be used but only for convenience. This is quite a Buddhist approach to take.

Whether Buddhism is a religion depends on what you mean by ‘religion’. If ‘religion’ is a Western category as argued above, it is easy to see that the label might not fit an ‘Eastern’ tradition, and if ‘religion’ (as some argue) has negative image, it is easy to see that people might prefer another label. If religion is modelled narrowly on Christianity – centred on belief in God, one sacred text, salvation through faith – then Buddhism doesn’t really fit. Calling Buddhism a philosophy sounds both more rational and more sophisticated, but perhaps ignores much of Buddhism as lived in practice. The historical Buddha himself refused to discuss many ‘philosophical’ questions, stressing the need to get on with practice. In contrast, ‘way of life’ stresses that it is not some theoretical ‘ism’, but a practical, ethical lifestyle (but many – if not all – other traditions can also be found saying that they are ‘not a religion but a way of life’). For some people ‘spirituality’ has a more positive feel than ‘religion’, suggesting a more personal, experiential, meditative awareness than an organised bureaucracy, and there is a common stereotype that ‘Eastern’ traditions are more ‘spiritual’ than ‘Western’ religions, but this is a stereotype, and ignores the institutional, political, and social aspects of the tradition. Some contemporary Buddhists have attempted to strip away the ‘religious trappings’ of Buddhism (such as metaphysical beliefs, myths, deities, rituals, even beliefs in any life after death) and recast it as a practical secular philosophy or way of life that minimises suffering for all (though the division between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ is also a product of ‘Western’ thought). However, if a wider, vaguer and more flexible view of the label ‘religion’ is taken, without the centrality of God, then Buddhism does seem to have similar concerns to other religious worldviews.

What does it mean to call Buddhism a worldview, whether labelled religious or not (or neither or both)? In the most general sense, ‘worldview’ refers to an overall approach to life. But ‘worldview’, like ‘religion,’ is another term that means different things to different people. It can mean the intellectual or cognitive ideas, teachings and beliefs of a tradition, put together in a systematic way by scholars within the tradition. Buddhism does have these, but they are diverse, and do not form a single ‘ism’, and many Buddhists would not see the teachings (Dharma/Dhamma) as ‘beliefs’ or ‘views’ (in the sense of opinions) but the truth (Dharma/Dhamma) or ‘right view’. It can also mean something much wider, including emotions, experience, ethical and ritual practice, sense of identity, and the Buddhist tradition includes these too. It can mean an ‘institutional’ worldview, so would refer to the official versions of teachings, ethical expectations, approved practices, definitions of membership, or views on contemporary issues put forward by accepted authorities within the tradition.   Buddhism has these too, but they are many and varied, and in any case, individuals and smaller groups identifying with a particular institution do not always accept or live by the whole ‘package’. ‘Worldview’ then can be communal so that instead of talking about one Buddhist worldview, we should talk about worldviews plural for the many different Buddhist groups. Our worldviews are also personal, so we might talk about the worldview of an individual, in which Buddhist ideas, values, practices and identity might form a major or just a contributory part alongside other influences. ‘Worldview’ also can be used in a narrow sense to mean just views about the ‘world’ or cosmos, rather than other aspects of human experience, or to refer to the taken-for-granted assumptions of any particular society – so that some might talk about gods and spirits (both good and evil, such as the tempter Mara) being part of the ‘worldview’ (it might be called a ‘mythological worldview’) at the time of the Buddha, but not generally accepted in contemporary Western society.

One of the problems with the Western notion of religion (or worldview) is the idea that they are separate and distinct, whereas in the ‘Dharmic’ religions with origins in India, the boundaries between traditions are (or perhaps were, in the light of relatively recent attempts at ‘fundamentalist’ purity) much less defined than in Western thought. This is illustrated by the story of the Nepali who answered ‘yes’ when asked they were Hindu or Buddhist. This is not just because as Buddhism spread it did not insist that people gave up their previous beliefs and customs, so that local deities still feature in practices, but that elements that have later been separated out as ‘Hindu’ are present from the beginning – such as the deities Brahma and Indra who are said to have persuaded the Buddha to teach. There are many aspects of Buddhism that could be said to be part of a ‘shared Indian worldview’ and can also be found in what have become labelled as ‘Hinduism’, ‘Jainism’ or ‘Sikhism’ – traditional cosmologies, the idea of samsara or many lives, ideas of karma (results of actions), the problem of delusion and the aim of liberation. The historical figure who has become known as ‘the Buddha’ lived at a particular time and place, and scholars have pointed out a shared heritage of what later became viewed as separate ‘religions’ in what has been labelled ‘ shramana culture’, the ferment of ideas, values and practices of groups and individuals who renounced both everyday life and the institutional religion of the time and sought spiritual liberation, generally through ascetic practices.

Download the entire essay here

Buddhist worldview traditions

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Buddhism is one of the world’s largest religions and originated 2,500 years ago in India. Buddhists believe in reincarnation of the soul, and that, by following the teachings of Buddha, or dharma, people can reach an enlightened state called nirvana and stop the cycle of reincarnation.

Religion, Social Studies, Storytelling

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Buddhism is one of the world’s major religions. It originated in South Asia around the fifth century B.C.E., and over the next millennia, it spread across Asia and to the rest of the world.

Buddhists believe that human life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of enlightenment (nirvana), it is possible to escape this cycle forever. Siddhartha Gautama was the first person to reach this state of enlightenment and is still known today as the Buddha. Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity or god, although there are supernatural figures who can help or hinder people on the path toward enlightenment.

Born in Nepal, Siddhartha Gautama was an Indian prince who, upon seeing people poor and dying, realized that human life is suffering. He renounced his wealth and adopted the life of a poor beggar, spending his time meditating and traveling. Ultimately, he remained unsatisfied and settled on “the Middle Way”—the idea that the path to enlightenment was neither asceticism nor wealth, but rather, a way of life between the two extremes. Eventually, in a state of deep meditation, Gautama achieved enlightenment underneath the Bodhi tree (the tree of awakening). The Mahabodhi Temple in Bihar, India—the site of his enlightenment—is now a major Buddhist pilgrimage site.

The Buddha taught about the Four Noble Truths. The first truth is called “suffering (dukkha),” which teaches that everyone in life is suffering in some way. The second truth is the “origin of suffering (samudāya).” This states that all suffering comes from desire (tanhā). The third truth is the “cessation of suffering (nirodha),” and it says that it is possible to stop suffering and achieve enlightenment. The fourth truth, the “path to the cessation of suffering (magga)” is about the Middle Way and the steps to achieve enlightenment. Buddhists believe in a wheel of rebirth into different bodies. This is connected to “karma,” which refers to how a person’s good or bad actions in their present or past lives can impact their future. Buddhists strive for serenity amid chaos and place a high value on ethical conduct and compassion, which are reflected in the ideals of service and community.

There are three main schools of Buddhism: Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana. Mahayana Buddhism is common in China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan and Tibet. It emphasizes the role models of bodhisattvas (beings that have achieved enlightenment but return to teach humans). Theravada Buddhism is common in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand. It emphasizes a monastic lifestyle and meditation as the way to enlightenment. Vajrayana is the major school of Buddhism in the region of Tibet as well as in Nepal and Mongolia. It offers followers a faster path to enlightenment than Mahayana or Theravada, because a person can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime through specific rituals.

Buddhists face persecution in some places. For instance, because many Tibetan Buddhists have actively resisted China’s control of the region, the Chinese government has suppressed their religious freedoms and civil rights in the past and has continued to do so throughout the 21st century. In 1959, the Dalai Lama—the head of the Tibetan school of Buddhism and traditional leader of Tibet—fled from China-controlled Tibet to India in fear of his life. The current Dalai Lama, understood to be the 14th reincarnation of the first Dalai Lama, has raised questions over whether and where he will choose to reincarnate. In 2022, Tibetan Buddhists faced increased oppression from the Chinese government. The news media reported that temples and religious symbols were being destroyed, religious gatherings and access to important sites were being suppressed, and monks were being tortured. Similarly, the Vietnamese Communist government has maintained strict control over Buddhist practices. Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) leaders and followers have been persecuted, arrested and detained for their religious beliefs and activities. When faced with persecution, Buddhists have largely responded with nonviolent resistance, which suits their fundamental belief in promoting peace.

Like other religions, Buddhist ideals are spread through art and culture. Buddhist art is known for embodying the Buddha’s teachings and reflecting the thriving Buddhist community. National Geographic Explorer Monica López-Prat is a cultural heritage conservator studying monumental terracruda (air-dried clay) sculptures, a type of Buddhist sculpture widespread among the Silk Roads. López-Prat investigates how traditional knowledge can inform conservation strategies for ancient sculptures, and her research has shown that the technique underlying the construction of Bamiyan Buddhas is still practiced in the making of sacred images in some regions of Bengal and the Himalayas. In addition to the spiritual realm, Buddhism has impacted cultural norms, in particular through its emphasis on service and community. Buddhist monasteries are often sites for community action, giving back to the community and spearheading political action. The National Geographic Society is making this content available under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA   license . The License excludes the National Geographic Logo (meaning the words National Geographic + the Yellow Border Logo) and any images that are included as part of each content piece. For clarity the Logo and images may not be removed, altered, or changed in any way.

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Part 4: Indian Sub-Continent Origins

4.3 Buddhism

Originating in northern India in the 5th-6th century BCE Buddhism is concerned with the universal searching for enlightenment. The Buddha lived as Prince Siddhartha Gautama before renouncing his family as an adult and leaving his life of privilege in search of enlightenment. The Buddha lived and taught in north-east India in the 5th century BCE, dying in his eightieth year. The Theravāda tradition puts his death in 486 BCE, while the Mahāyāna tradition has it in 368 BCE. Recent scholarly research suggests his most likely dates were 484–404 BCE.

Telling the Story of Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama

 The excellent PBS documentary film: The Buddha  (there are transcripts beneath the video if you would rather read this material)

Buddhism teaches that all of life is suffering, caused by desire. To cease suffering one must end desire and this can be achieved through following the Noble Eight-fold Path (eight rules that guides the life and morals of a follower). Buddhists believe that all actions bring reward or retribution.

Buddha rejected many aspects of the Hinduism traditions and beliefs of his day. These included rejecting the caste system, an emphasis on rituals, and the belief in a permanent spiritual reality. He accepted Hindu ideas on karma and rebirth and the notion of liberation, which he called nirvana instead of moksha. In the centuries after his death, several schools emerged that eventually crystallized into the great branches of Buddhism recognized today: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.

Associated with Tibetan Buddhism,  Vajrayana combines Mahayana principles of living and teaching with various ritual practices incorporating mantras, mudras, and mandalas. An interesting feature is the transmission of leadership through reincarnations of other lamas (leaders). “Tibetan Buddhism is to be found not only in Tibet, but right across the Himalayan region from Ladakh to Sikkim, as well as parts of Nepal. It is the state religion of the kingdom of Bhutan. It also spread to Mongolia and parts of Russia (Kalmykia, Buryatia and Tuva) Tibetan refugees have brought it back to India, where it can be found in all the many Tibetan settlements. In modern times it has become very popular in the West. Tibetan Buddhism takes as its motivating spiritual ideal the way of the bodhisattva, the altruistic intention to attain enlightenment for all beings. All Tibetan traditions place special emphasis on the teacher-student relationship. This distinctive approach is based on the Indian ideal of the guru (Lama in Tibetan). The Vajrayana or Tantra is not considered separate from the Mahayana, but has a special connection within it, as it is based on an altruistic Mahayana motivation. Tantra is a path of transformation in which you work under the guidance of a suitably qualified teacher to allow you to access subtler and deeper states of consciousness such as transforming the emotions and ego.” [2]

Four Noble Truths

• Dukkha –all life is suffering, as one is incapable of finding ultimate satisfaction. This is an innate characteristic of existence in the realm of samsara (the life cycle that includes reincarnation) ;
• Samudaya– the origin, the arising of this suffering is craving, desire, wanting.  Dukkha comes together with this taṇhā   (“craving, desire or attachment”);
• Nirodha–   the cessation, the ending of this dukkha, this suffering ,  can be attained by the renouncement or letting go of this  taṇhā, the craving and desire ;
• Magga– the way one gets rid of craving is through the path, the Noble Eightfold Path.  This is the path leading to renouncement of tanha  and cessation of  dukkha .

The eight Buddhist practices in the Noble Eightfold Path are:

• Right View : our actions have consequences, death is not the end, and our actions and beliefs have consequences after death. 
• Right Resolve or Intention : the giving up of home and adopting the life of a religious mendicant in order to follow the path; this concept aims at peaceful renunciation, into an environment of non-sensuality, non-ill-will (to loving kindness), away from cruelty (to compassion).
• Right Speech : no lying, no rude speech, no telling one person what another says about him to cause discord or harm their relationship.
• Right Conduct or Action : no killing or injuring, no taking what is not given, no sexual acts, no material desires.
• Right Livelihood: beg to feed, only possessing what is essential to sustain life;
• Right Effort: preventing the arising of unwholesome states, and generating wholesome states, 
• Right Mindfulness : “retention”, being mindful of the  dhammas (“teachings”, “elements”) that are beneficial to the Buddhist path.
• Right Concentration: practicing four stages of  dhyāna (“meditation”), which culminates into equanimity and mindfulness.  In the Theravada tradition and the Vipassana movement, this is interpreted as  concentration or one-pointedness of the mind, and supplemented with meditation, which aims at insight.

The Three Fires

(1) Desire/Thirst, (2) Anger (3) Delusion

“Your house is on fire, burns with the Three Fires; there is no dwelling in it’ – thus spoke the Buddha in his great Fire Sermon. The house he speaks of here is the human body; the three fires that burn it are (1) Desire/Thirst, (2) Anger and (3) Delusion. They are all kinds of energy and are called ‘fires’ because, untamed, they can rage through us and hurt us and other people too! Properly calmed through spiritual training, however, they can be transformed into the genuine warmth of real humanity.” [3]

Buddhists promotes virtues such as  kindness, patience and generosity. The virtues of wisdom and compassion are valued most of all. Ahimsa or harmlessness, connected with a respect for all things,  is described, in part, by the term compassion. This desire to cause no harm to all beings includes animals, plants, and the world in general.  In addition, this is a tradition that asks one to think and reflect on all one’s actions.  Buddha himself told his followers not to believe statements or teachings without questioning, but to test each one for themselves.

Buddhists try to practice these Buddhist virtues actively in their everyday lives. The final goal of all Buddhist practice is to bring about that same awakening that the Buddha himself achieved through an active transformation of the heart and passions and the letting go of “self”.

Summary information about Buddhism: Harvard University

The term ‘Buddha’ is not a name but a title, meaning ‘Awakened One’ or ‘Enlightened One’.  The man Siddhartha Gautama is not seen as unique in being a Buddha, as Buddhas are seen to have arisen in past eons of the world, and will do so in future. They are not incarnations of a God, but humans who have developed ethical and spiritual perfections over many lives. A Buddha is seen as one who becomes awakened to the true nature of reality, and awakened from  ingrained greed, hatred and delusion. They are enlightened in being able to clearly see the nature of the conditioned world, with its many worlds in which beings are reborn, and Nirvana, the timeless state beyond all rebirths. Moreover a Buddha is seen as a wise and compassionate teacher who shows people the path beyond suffering.

Devotees founded temples and monasteries and sponsored the writing of holy texts.

Read  and watch a short video about the development of Buddhist Texts

Peter Harvey [4] has written for the British Library about the development of sacred texts within the varied branches of Buddhism. The article begins with a longer description of the enlightenment of Buddha, and then moves into talking about Buddhist Texts.

“ How were the Buddha’s teachings collected?

Soon after his death, 500 disciples who were enlightened  Arahats , free of further rebirth, gathered to agree what he had taught, and arranged these into two kinds of text that could be communally chanted:  Vinaya , on monastic discipline, and the  Suttas , or discourses. At that time, writing was little used in India, but there was a well-developed tradition of passing on detailed texts orally. Different group of monks in time had slightly different versions that they passed on, but there is a remarkable overall agreement. The form preserved by the Theravāda school, in Pāli, was written down for the first time around 20 BCE in Sri Lanka, running to over 40 modern volumes.

The  Suttas  do not focus on the person of the Buddha, but his  Dhamma  (Pāli, Sanskrit  Dharma ): his teachings, the realities they point to, especially the nature of the world and the Path to Nirvana, and experiences on the Path, culminating in Nirvana. The Buddha said, though, that ‘he who sees the  Dhamma  sees me’.”

• The Buddha and Sacred Texts

As the Buddha’s teachings spread across Asia, different sects stressed particular aspects of the quest for enlightenment.  In addition to spreading the practices and beliefs of Buddha, it is also true that Buddhism had a strong influence on the early trade routes in Asia. Buddhism started its development from India, and reached other regions along what are known as the Silk Roads.  Because beliefs moved along the trade routes, as well as material goods,  Buddhism practices changed from place to place, developing within particular communities according to the traditions of those cultures. Buddhist monasteries were built and established along the developing trade routes, so that one would say that these faith communities were linked to economic growth.  The commercial exchanges that occurred contributed  to the improvement of the Buddhist monks’ lives. Because of the Buddhist concept of Dāna (generosity), monks received contributions from the merchants and traders along the Silk Roads. In return, monks provided spiritual guidance.

The development of trade amongst merchants of the region along the Silk Roads resulted in a further expansion of Buddhism towards eastern Asian lands, including in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.  In addition, Buddhism moved north, to Japan, Korea, and areas in northern China.  Goods and travelers from the Silk Roads moved north and Buddhism was one of the most influential imports brought to Japan along the trade routes. The ancient capital city of Nara, Japan,  contains many Buddhist temples. Valuable items from the Silk Roads merchants and travelers are found in Nara’s Shosoin Treasure Repository of the Emperor.

Ted Talks from practitioners of Buddhism

Buddhism has spread well beyond Asia, and is somewhat familiar even in Western Countries.  Check out these stories and reflections from Western Buddhists.

• All It Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes
• The Habits of Happiness
• We Can Be Buddhas

“Buddhism.” The British Library , The British Library, 20 Sept. 2018, www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/themes/buddhism.

Harvey, Peter. “The Buddha and Buddhist Sacred Texts.” Discovering Sacred Texts , The British Library, 21 Sept. 2019, www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/articles/the-buddha-and-buddhist-sacred-texts.

The Buddhist Society: The Spread of Buddhism , 2021, www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/the-spread-of-buddhism.

“The Silk Roads Programme.” UNESCO Silk Roads Programme | Silk Roads Programme , 2021, en.unesco.org/silkroad/.

“Buddhism in Brief.” Buddhism in Brief , Harvard University, 19 Apr. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG4R-rmX7HA.

“The Buddha.” PBS , Public Broadcasting Service, 2010, www.pbs.org/thebuddha/.

“The Buddhist Review – The Independent Voice of Buddhism in the West.” Tricycle , 2021, tricycle.org/.

Puddicombe, Andy. “All It Takes Is 10 Mindful Minutes.” TED , Ted Talks, 2012, www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes.

Ricard, Matthieu. “The Habits of Happiness.” TED , Ted Talks, 2004, www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_the_habits_of_happiness.

Thurman, Robert. “We Can Be Buddhas.” TED , Ted Talks, 2006, www.ted.com/talks/robert_thurman_we_can_be_buddhas.

• https://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/the-spread-of-buddhism ↵
• https://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/tibetan-buddhism/ ↵
• https://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/fundamental-teachings ↵
• Peter Harvey is Emeritus Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sunderland. He was one of the two founders of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies and edits its journal, Buddhist Studies Review. His books include An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge University Press, 1990, and 2013), An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism (Curzon, 1995), and he has published many papers on early Buddhist thought and practice and on Buddhist ethics. Most recently, he edited an extensive integrated anthology of Buddhist texts, Common Buddhist Text: Guidance and Insight from the Buddha (2017) published for free distribution by Mahachulalongkorn-rajavidyalaya University, Thailand. ↵

World Religions: the Spirit Searching by Jody Ondich and Stephen C. Cory is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Essay on Buddhism

Students are often asked to write an essay on Buddhism in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Buddhism

Introduction to buddhism.

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy that emerged from the teachings of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) around 2,500 years ago in India. It emphasizes personal spiritual development and the attainment of a deep insight into the true nature of life.

Key Beliefs of Buddhism

Buddhism’s main beliefs include the Four Noble Truths, which explain suffering and how to overcome it, and the Noble Eightfold Path, a guide to moral and mindful living.

Buddhist Practices

Buddhist practices like meditation and mindfulness help followers to understand themselves and the world. It encourages love, kindness, and compassion towards all beings.

Impact of Buddhism

Buddhism has greatly influenced cultures worldwide, promoting peace, non-violence, and harmony. It’s a path of practice and spiritual development leading to insight into the true nature of reality.

250 Words Essay on Buddhism

The four noble truths.

At the heart of Buddhism lie the Four Noble Truths. The first truth recognizes the existence of suffering (Dukkha). The second identifies the cause of suffering, primarily desire or attachment (Samudaya). The third truth, cessation (Nirodha), asserts that ending this desire eliminates suffering. The fourth, the path (Magga), outlines the Eightfold Path as a guide to achieve this cessation.

The Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path, as prescribed by Buddha, is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing individuals from attachments and delusions; ultimately leading to understanding, compassion, and enlightenment (Nirvana). The path includes Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Buddhists practice meditation and mindfulness to achieve clarity and tranquility of mind. They follow the Five Precepts, basic ethical guidelines to refrain from harming living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication.

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to insight into the true nature of reality. It encourages individuals to lead a moral life, be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and to develop wisdom and understanding. The ultimate goal is the attainment of enlightenment and liberation from the cycle of rebirth and death.

500 Words Essay on Buddhism

Introduction.

Buddhism, a religion and philosophy that emerged from the teachings of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), has become a spiritual path followed by millions worldwide. It is a system of thought that offers practical methodologies and profound insights into the nature of existence.

The Life of Buddha

The Four Noble Truths are the cornerstone of Buddhism. They outline the nature of suffering (Dukkha), its origin (Samudaya), its cessation (Nirodha), and the path leading to its cessation (Magga). These truths present a pragmatic approach, asserting that suffering is an inherent part of existence, but it can be overcome by following the Eightfold Path.

The Eightfold Path, as taught by Buddha, is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing individuals from attachments and delusions, ultimately leading to understanding, compassion, and enlightenment. It includes Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Buddhist Schools of Thought

Buddhism and modern science.

The compatibility of Buddhism with modern science has been a topic of interest in recent years. Concepts like impermanence, interconnectedness, and the nature of consciousness in Buddhism resonate with findings in quantum physics, neuroscience, and psychology. This convergence has led to the development of fields like neurodharma and contemplative science, exploring the impact of meditation and mindfulness on the human brain.

Buddhism, with its profound philosophical insights and practical methodologies, continues to influence millions of people worldwide. Its teachings provide a framework for understanding the nature of existence, leading to compassion, wisdom, and ultimately, liberation. As we delve deeper into the realms of modern science, the Buddhist worldview continues to offer valuable perspectives, underscoring its enduring relevance in our contemporary world.

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Is Buddhism A Philosophy Or Religion?

According to statistics, “The percentage of total world population following Buddhism is at 6%… he number of people following Buddhism is 360 million” (Statistics of Buddhism). Regarding the statistics surrounding Buddhism in the perspective of the world, the percentages seem to get even slimmer when it comes to the United States . According to statistics conducted in the United States , “The percentage of Americans who know members of smaller religious groups varies widely… Buddhists comprise of 1% of the U. S population but many Americans say they know a Buddhist (23%)” (Lipka).

For centuries leading up to today, there is a strong debate on whether or not Buddhism falls unders these three definitions. During the Meiji era, “ Inoue Enryo interpreted Buddhism usually as a ‘religion based on philosophy’… Some prominent Buddhist modernizers disagreed with the trend of turning Buddhism into a philosophy… we see figures like Ou-yang Ching-wu declaring that Buddhism was ‘neither a religion nor a philosophy’ (Godart). Even in the Meiji era dating back to the late 19th century , many different point of views altered what Buddhism should fall under as.

An individual has the right to their own point of view of Buddhism although one must first understand what a religion is, what philosophy is and the concepts and purposes of Buddhism. To developing a perspective on Buddhism one must understand what a religion is, “a religion is a conceptual system that provides an interpretation of the world and the place of human beings in it, bases an account of how life should be lived given that interpretation, and expresses this interpretation and lifestyle in a set of rituals, institutions, and practices” (Yandell).

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