19 facts about Aristotle
Although not much is known about Aristotle’s life, scholars worldwide agree his contribution to science was like no other. Bearing many nicknames, Ari ...
Buddhism is a philosophical and religious system that originated in India around 500 BC. Its founder was Siddhartha Gautama of the Śakya lineage, known as Sakyamuni Buddha. Over five centuries, his teachings spread from within India to much of Asia before reaching the West in the 20th century. Today, Buddhism is the fourth religion globally, with some 500 million adherents.
It is a non-theistic system that neither affirms nor denies the existence of a god.
Buddhism does not emphasize philosophical speculation but the direct experience gained through various practices that allow one to understand the nature of reality and the mind.
He was probably the son of a prince of the Śāky family, the ruler of one of the city-states in northern India. However, his social background and details of his life are difficult to prove. Some stories about his life may have been invented and later inserted into Buddhist texts.
Earlier in the East, the name dharma, sasana or buddahasasana was used to describe these practices.
The Four Noble Truths arose from Buddha Siddhartha Gautama's " Awakening " experience (Enlightenment). Awakening is realized after prolonged meditation practice or suddenly. "Awakened" is "Buddha" in Sanskrit, and this was the name Gautama took when he began preaching his teachings.
He left no direct transmissions; all his knowledge was passed on to his disciples, who wrote it down or passed it on orally after his death.
He preached his teachings while traveling through northern India. At first, he mainly transmitted the teachings of Theravada (the longest-established Buddhist school among the early Buddhist schools, and its teachers derived their teachings directly from the Buddha), which were used to free oneself from one's suffering. The Great Way teachings, which emphasize the importance of wisdom and compassion to help oneself and others, are based on them. Finally, the Buddha gave the Vajrayana teachings (related to the practice of tantras), recognizing the nature of the mind.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Theravada Buddhism (Southern Buddhism) was known in Southeast Asian countries (Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and Bali). In contrast, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism (so-called Northern Buddhism) appeared in China, Japan, parts of Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, and in the early 16th century, also in Mongolia.
This was associated with Islamic aggression against India. By 1100, Buddhism had been eliminated from Kashmir. Teachers and practitioners fled to Tibet and those countries that opened up to Buddhism, among others. Within a century, Muslims had overrun India, but Buddhist teachings survived in other countries, and books burned by Islamic followers were translated into other languages in Asian countries.
Buddhist teachings spread thanks to merchants moving through various countries, and the Buddhist University of Nalanda became the center of India's intellectual life for many centuries. Moreover, the teachings of Buddhism were often supported by the rulers of the countries concerned, such as the Chinese emperors.
Buddhist scriptures were codified, which had a significant impact on the spread of these teachings outside India and provided a basis for the study of Buddhist philosophy.
It happened that, influenced by the study of these texts, many Europeans abandoned their religion and converted to Buddhism, and in this way, the first Buddhist communities in Europe were established.
With the expulsion of lamas (spiritual teachers in Tibetan Buddhism) from Tibet by the Chinese, Buddhist teachings made their way to the West. In Western society in the 1960s, there were changes in the way of thinking, and perception of the world, and the search for the meaning and content of life began. Buddhism answered many of the questions asked by people in Western culture at the time, which led thousands of people in the 20th century to practice Buddhism and join Buddhist communities.
Today, the greatest spiritual opening to Buddhist teachings is in the western part of the world - in Asia interest in Buddhism is declining, especially after the destruction of Tibetan culture by the Chinese invasion in the 1950s and 1960s.
The basic tenets of Buddhism are based on the Four Noble Truths, which were formulated by Shakyamuni Buddha during his first sermon to the five Ascetics in Gazelle Park, Sarnath (one of the four holiest sites in Buddhism), and are accepted by all Buddhist traditions. The sermon is called "Sermons on Getting the Dharma Wheel in Motion.
They are seen in Buddhism as a profound psychological analysis of reality and a methodology of conduct, not a philosophy. The Buddha told his monks that these Truths are real, and precise, which is why they are called noble.
According to the Fourth Noble Truth, the path leads to liberation, peace, the extinction of suffering (dukkha), direct knowledge, Enlightenment, and nirvana (the term for a very advanced level of realization). It leads to the eradication of desires, aversions, and illusions. It consists of eight parts.
Monks must not touch a woman. To keep the body and mind pure, monks learn to respect all women and treat older women as mothers, peers as sisters, and younger women as daughters. In addition, monks don't use money ("gold and silver") and follow a series of rules of ethical behavior. They do not go to bed late, as this leads to suffering.
This means that all phenomena lack a permanent "essence," that they exist in mutual interdependence and never independently of conditions.
"Awakening" or "Enlightenment" is the understanding, the awakening from sleep, of ignorance and the experience of the Three Characteristics of Existence: impermanence, painfulness, and the absence of an unchanging self. Buddhists believe that upon reaching the state of bodhi, a being is freed from samsara, or the perpetual cycle of birth and death - awakening here means freedom from suffering.
To attain bodhi, one develops full perfection by skillfully applying 37 factors of liberation, called "Wings Toward Enlightenment." They consist of:
All Buddhist traditions recognize three types of Awakening:
It is a state of liberation from the cycle of birth and death or samsara. A person who has attained the state of nirvana is said to be liberated from suffering and its causes because he or she has removed the ignorance that is the source of suffering, and there is no subsequent incarnation after death.
After each incarnation, the next incarnation is chosen according to the accumulated karma (cause understood in terms of the law of cause and effect). Liberation from samsara is achieved by walking the noble eightfold path, which leads to nirvana.
These are gods, titans, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell. The first three are the lands of happy birth, the other three are the lands of unhappy birth. These lands are depicted on the wheel of life, the happy ones at the top, the unhappy ones at the bottom of the wheel.
Buddhists accept that there is nothing unchanging that can pass into the next life. There is no eternal personal self, soul, or "atman" (soul understood as individual self). However, karma from a previous life can affect the next, according to the law of cause and effect.
Emptiness means the absence of a phenomenon's nature. Phenomena that have no essence of their manifest because they are dependent on many factors. They exist in a dependent way and have no real existence. This impermanence also applies to living beings, which also lack their substance (soul).
According to Buddhism, human beings are composed of five clusters, which disintegrate at the death of the physical body. In addition to these five clusters, there is the mind ("pure consciousness"), which is the only one that does not annihilate.
According to them, people are entangled by their passions and sufferings in the world of illusions (Maya) and thus do not perceive the truth. If they reached it, they would not experience suffering, since all mental suffering is the result of seeing the world incorrectly. In the world of illusions, there is no lasting happiness, since every positive is loaded with a negative (birth - death, love - fear of losing it, pleasure - addiction, etc.) To truly live one must see things as they are.
These jewels are:
They are like a voluntary commitment and, according to the Buddha, it is good to follow them, but they cannot be imposed on anyone.
The main means of doing this is meditation, which is meant to give insight into the workings of the mind and the opportunity to develop concentration, mental clarity, and positive feelings. Through meditation, a person can gain insight into the nature of the world and can see the emptiness of all phenomena and the absence of self. Through it, he can get rid of desires and attachments.
The Buddha preached that liberation should be sought within oneself and that he achieved Enlightenment through meditation. In Buddhism, there are two main types of meditation: tranquility meditation (Samatha) and insight meditation (vipassana).
This art includes sculptures, statues, bas-reliefs, paintings, mandalas (symbolic diagrams), architecture (stupas, monasteries, rock-cut caves), and its frequent subjects are scenes from the Buddha's life. Sculptures, statues, or paintings depicting the Buddha are called buddharupa in Sanskrit. They are meant not so much to commemorate a historical figure as to remind people of the latent potential to achieve Enlightenment, and to fill the viewer with peace of mind, to inspire him to achieve happiness.
Statues of Buddha depict him in various positions called Mundra, but the most common is the lotus position, symbolizing the perfect balance of thought.
Another monument is the Aśoka column in Lumbini, dating back to 249 BC. One of the earliest works of Buddhist art was the stupas, where relics of the Buddha would be kept.
