Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion that started in Asia between 560-480 BCE. The religion was founded by a prince named Siddhartha Guatauma, who later came to be known as "the Buddha." Legend asserts that "the Buddha" was conceived through virginal implications as an elephant rested its trunk upon the body of Siddhartha's mother and revealed to her that the son she would give birth to would either be a great political leader in Asia, or he would be a great relgious leader. As the son of a king- Siddhartha felt the pressure from his father who was striving for him to take his place on the throne as a political leader. That pressure was with him all the way up until his adulthood when he was living in the palace with his own wife and kids and he decided to leave and run into the wilderness on a serach for the true meaning of life. As the "the Buddha" went on his journey he witnessed incidents of mourning at funerals and through poor people. Later, he witnessed a poor person though that was happy. He saw four particular sights known as the four passing sights. As he sat up against the Bodhi tree meditating on the meaning of life, the Buddha felt a sense of "Nirvana," which is enlightenment or liberation from the cyclic existence of moksha which is the beginningless cycle of all sentient beings. Siddhartha then came to conclusions that the way to achieve enlightenment was through following four noble truths
1) Human beings suffer
2)the cause of suffering is craving
3) the cessation of suffering occurs with the cessation of craving
4) the eightfold noble path= cultivation of correct views, actions and meditative practices in order to bring an end to suffering.
Buddhist belief that there is no permanent self or soul but rather five aggregates which lead us to impute the false notion of a self. These are form, feelings, discriminations, consciousness, and compositional factors. Buddhist hold to the teaching of Hinduism which states that all sentient beings are enmeshed in the beginningless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The goal is nirvana, or liberation from this state of cyclic existence. Because of the belief in cyclic existence, Buddhists also hold to the concept of reincarnation. There are two major sects of Buddhism. the Mahayanas who believe in the concept of the Bodhisattva(a being who refuse to enter into enlightenment until all sentient beings have recognized nirvana.) Mahayanas believe that there could be numerous Buddhas per each eon of time and that rather than attaining enlightenment in a state in which you transcend the cycle of life, death, and rebirth- enlightenment is here within the cycle. The other school of Buddhism is the school of monks known as Theravada or Hinayana. This school consists of those who insist that there is only one Buddha per eon and that enlightenment must be attained in a manner in which you transcend the cycle of moksha. Two other popular groups are Tantrism and Zen. Zen Buddhism is a more philosophic form, while Tantrism is a sect that tries to reverse the process of nature through unnatural processes such as the drawing of semen out of woman's body back into the body of the man. There are several splinter groups and cults within Buddhism all of which will be added with their own seperate pages in the near future. There are a number of different discourses attributed to the historical Buddha called Sutras, all of which serve as the scriptures for members of the Buddhist faith.
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