Buddhism

Buddhism

Many people interpret Buddha as a big fat guy, that will give you luck if you rub his belly. This may be true, but Buddhism is much bigger than that. Buddhism began in Himalaya region and has been around since the first century. In Buddhism, the nature of God is a man named Shakyamuni Buddha. In this paper, we are going to look a little more into Buddhism. We will review responses from an actual Buddhism worshipper. We will also compare Buddhism to other religions.

Although the Buddha was apparently an historical figure, what we know about him is sketchy. His prolific teachings were probably not collected in written form until at least four hundred years after his death. One example of a sacred biography is Buddhacarita, by Asvaghosa. Some of the other texts that describe Buddha are Tripitaka, Mahayana sutras, and The Tibetan book of the dead. Buddhism is a religion of wisdom, enlightenment, and compassion. Buddha is said to be an immanent presence in the universe with three aspects, or “bodies”: first, the enlightened wisdom of a Buddha, which is formless; second, the body of bliss, celestial aspect of Buddha hood that communicates the dharma to bodhisattvas; and the third body of transformation, by which the Buddha principle becomes human to help liberate humanity. It was in this third body that the Buddha appeared for a time on the earth as the historical figure Shakyamuni Buddha. (Fisher, M.P. 2005)

After taking a look into what Buddhism is and learning about the history, I have decided to go out in the world and meet with a real follower of Buddhism. I had the pleasure of interviewing a guy by the name of Carlos Requejo. The interview went as follows:

Q: What made you decide to follow this religion?

A: T...

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...o not worry about punishment for making bad decisions. One other thing we learned from the interview is the law of Karma and reincarnation. We also looked at Buddhism compared to the biggest religion in the world which is Christianity. We learned that Buddhism does not share many of the same beliefs that Christian followers do. We also learned that many Christians have become more interested in the Buddhist ways and have tried to adopt some of there beliefs.

Reference:

Fisher, M.P. (2005). Living religions (6th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Mclnerney, W. (2003). Instructor’s manual with tests: Living religions (5th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Robinson, B.A. (2007). Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: Buddhism: Comparison of Buddhism and Christianity. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism4.htm