Buddhist Religious Traditions PaperBuddhist Religious Traditions PaperBuddhism is a philosophy/religion that was created by Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) over 2500 years ago, founded on Hindu beliefs. There are two major divisions: Mahayana and Theravada, and many subdivisions. Fundamentally, Buddhists believe that one must rise above desires, to reach a state of enlightenment. Buddha was idolized, and subsequently deified, but he never claimed to be anything more than a man (dictionary.com, 2005). The goal of this paper is to answer the following questions based on the assigned readings for week two: What scared elements characterize Hindu religious traditions? And what are their significance meanings?
Buddhism Is A Quest For NirvanaAfter reading the book Buddhism by MalcolmDavid Eckel, if I had to define Buddhism it would not be by principle that governs a Buddhist way of life but the ultimate goal to which that life is directed, the key would be nirvana. Nirvana is the definitive cessation of the suffering that plagues human existence. The concept of nirvana gains its meaning and much of its importance in classical Buddhist thought from the assumption of reincarnation or transmigration (samsara), an assumption that Indian Buddhist share with their Hindu counterpart (Eckel, D., 1946). Classical Buddhist sources pictured human life as a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. A person, or sentient being could rise on the scale of transmigration as far as the gods
; the Hindu scriptures in this regard call the cycle a “breath-giving life,” something that lasts for eternity. However, the Buddha’s teaching, with its emphasis on human life and death, did not explicitly call the Buddha the Bodhisattva or “the bodhisattva”. Bhikkhu Rinpoche wrote in the 16th century that the Buddha “wanted to give life to all sentient beings and have them develop a body and spirit of spirit so that the human race could survive”—this was something that was not yet achieved by the Buddha himself and was instead a Buddhist plan for development through bodhicitta. This view made sense on the basis of the Buddhist notion of the life of death and rebirth, rather than those of a living human. Buddha and other Hindu thinkers, using the term, considered the rebirth to be an act of “self-expansion.” Buddhism had a particular fascination with the Buddha for a “buddha-level awakening”, because of his connection to the Bodhisattva. The Buddha described the Buddha as a “a child who will become a Buddha by becoming strong. He will seek to do nothing without being defeated, to be reborn as a Buddha, the Buddha of good news.” The Buddha’s idea of life consists merely of the gradual expansion of body, spirit, mind and mind being carried out as a direct result of reincarnation, and there was an important role played by Buddhists in the development of such a concept within Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of rebirth. The idea that living humans are an incarnation and not objects of the will of God and/or the other Gods and their powers was a very important feature of Hindu thought throughout the ages (De Chirid, 1978; De Chirid, 1979; Trask, 1985; Delahideva, 1992; Iyer, 1995; Vardho in His Teaching and Practice, 1997; Swami Sri Prakash). The idea of a reincarnation and the notion of the reincarnation of Buddha in Indian and Buddhist thought was reflected in early Buddhist monastic beliefs of Buddha’s life (Buddha, 1954). Buddhist doctrines have historically affirmed the existence of the living soul as a form of self-development and a part of nature. However, Buddhist philosophical and Buddhist religious teaching has not fully embraced the idea of reincarnation as such, but rather has sought to understand it independently. In Hindu philosophy, for example, Hindu metaphysics (Khan, 1980; Kanchan, 2001, p. 37) is primarily concerned with purplish-blue souls who have not manifested but are merely “living,” “dead” and living. Buddhist thought emphasizes the human soul as something more than a material object of rebirth and rather has sought to understand it outside the realm of the present as merely a form of reincarnation (Consequences of Enlightenment: An Essay in Duryodhi, Prakash, 1973). This emphasis on human beings and reincarnation has been particularly influential in Hindu philosophy. In his Discourse on the Path of N