Buddhism

Buddhism is one of the biggest religions founded in India in the 6th

and 5th century B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama, also known as “the

Buddha.” As one of the greatest Asian religion, it teaches the

practice and the observance of moral perceptions.

“Buddhism begins with a man. In his later years, when India was afire

with his message, people came to him asking what he was. Not ‘Who are

you?’ but ‘What are you?’ ‘Are you god?’ they asked. ‘No.’ ‘An angel?’

‘No.’ ‘A saint?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then, what are you?’ Buddha answered, ‘I am

awake.’ His answer became his title, for this is what Buddha means.

The Sanskrit root budh means to awake and to know. While the rest of

humanity was dreaming the dream we call the waking human state, one of

their number roused himself. Buddhism begins with a man who woke up.

Buddha was born a prince named Siddhartha Gautama in a small kingdom

in what is now Nepal. Siddharta’s birth is described as a miraculous

event, his birth being the result of his mother's impregnation by a

sacred white elephant that touched her left side with a lotus flower.

The scriptures claim that when Gautama was born “immeasurable light

spread through ten thousand worlds; the blind recovering their sight,

as if from desire to see his glory" (Evans 141) Shortly after his

birth, his father consulted with a number of astrologers, all of whom

declared that the newborn prince would become a great king and that he

would rule the world in truth and righteousness. Among these

astrologers, there was one who declared that if the prince were to see

a sick person, an old person, a corpse, and a world-renouncing

ascetic, he w...

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...he physical world and one's perceptions of it as a

means towards enlightenment. All activities, including sex, can be

used as a meditative technique. This was called Vajrayana, or "The

Vehicle of the Thunder-Bolt." The Vajrayanans believed that each

bodhisattva had consorts or wives, called taras These female

counterparts embodied the active aspects of the bodhisattva, and so

were worshipped. One learned the teachings of Tantrism from a master,

and then one joined a group of others who had been trained. There one

would practice the rituals learned from the master. For the Tantrists,

the physical world was identical with the Void and human perception

was identical with Nirvana. Buddhism, however, was slowly fading off

of the Indian landscape; Tantrism came on the scene just as Buddhism

began to slowly lose its vitality.