Buddhism is a religion founded by an ex-Prince Siddhartha Gaumata. Gaumata was a prince who was brought up in a perfect surrounding. When the prince left the palace he saw all the poverty. At the age of twenty nine, the prince left his wife and his infant son to meditate and practice Yoga to find peace and enlightenment. Gaumata was meditating for a long time when finally while he was sitting under a Bo tree he had attained the enlightenment he was looking for. It is for this reason he got the name Buddha, meaning the enlightened one. Buddha ecame a traveling teacher and taught everyone his discovery.
Buddha did not write any of his lessons down. He taught about the Four Noble Truths, (1) life is suffering, (2) all suffering is caused by ignorance, (3) Ending ignorance will end suffering, and (4) The path to the destruction of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path consists of (1) Knowledge of the truth, (2) the intention to resist evil, (3) not saying anything that will hurt someone else, (4) respecting life, (5) having a job that doesn’t injure anyone, (6) triving free one’s mind of evil, (7) controlling one’s feelings, and (8) concentrating properly.
Buddha preached that the life was a continuing cycle of death and rebirth. The well-being of oneself was determined on your behavior in your previous life. Buddha said that by ridding oneself of worldly things he would be in nirvana, peace and happiness. After Buddha’s death, his followers collected his teachings that became the dharma. The sangha is what sometimes referred to as an ideal Buddhist community. All the eople in the community follow all the laws and seek nirvana. The arrangement of the monks that had a role in the sangha.
The monks’ arrangement kept the preserving and the spreading of Buddhism. In many Buddhist countries the monks had to live in poverty and meditate. The monks wore very long robes. In a sangha everyone, including the common Buddhists. The Buddhists have a book called Tripitika, meaning three baskets. The first part of the book is about the Basket of Discipline, which talks about regulating the order of Buddhist monks. The second part is the Basket of Discourses, which talks about the sermons of Buddha.
The last part is about the Basket of the Higher Dharma, which talks about systematic discussions of principle. All Buddhists have the obligation to pray to Buddha whenever they see a statue of him. There are different customs in Buddhism. The three places that these different customs come from are from the Theravadas, the Mahayanas, and the Zens. The Zens are the group that originated in China. The marriage and death follow the different customs. The Theravadas have a wedding by going to a monastery, after the legal wedding.
There they give a generous gift to the sangha. They get a special chant for themselves to have a great future. When someone dies their body is sent to the monastery and is burned by the monks. Wesak is a Tibetan holiday. It is celebrated in may to honor the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha. Some people fast, but others are picnicking, dancing, acting and playing sports. Buddhism sounds like a funny religion, but in fact there are about 300 million Buddhists in the world.
