As a lecture this is contradictory to the teaching of Buddha because it places emphasis on learning but Buddha himself emphasised his teachings were based on experience. It considers meditation as a means of enlightenment based on a number of principles. The followers that number over 376 Million follow what is called the noble eightfold path. As a religion like Christianity in the West it has been developing and evolving for centuries in countries such as China, Japan, Korea and Southwest Asia. There are two main sects Theravada and Mahayna. The main leader is the Dalai Lama from Tibet.Buddha was born in what is now modern Nepal. His Father was a King who was told by a fortuneteller when Buddha was a boy that his son would be a Monk or a King. The last thing his Father wanted his son to become was a king so he kept the young Buddha within the confines of the Palace Walls surrounded by Luxury. He made friends with Channa the Charioteer who took him outside the Palace walls, where the young prince saw old age and death by seeing an old man leaning over a stick and a funeral procession. He left the palace and his inheritance and bec
ame a Wondering Monk. His name latter changed from Siddhara Gutama to Buddha(the enlightened one)Buddha himself did not intend to begin a world religion and claimed that he could not change anyone only show them how to find the way to the way.The main place of worship would be in a temple or meditation hall.
The main premise of the teaching is that nothing is permanent and ever changing and that what we have is the here and now.
The four noble truths are:
- Suffering marks all life
- Suffering is caused by desire and attachment
- Suffering can be eliminated
- Following the Noble Eightfold Path ends suffering
The noble Eightfold path is
- Right beliefs
- Correct aspirations
- Correct speech
- Correct conduct
- Correct livelihood or profession
- Correct effort
- Right mindfulness
- Right mediational attainment
What are the 5 Precepts (morals)?
These are rules to live by. The main five are:
- Do not take the life of anything living. (Do not kill)
- Do not take anything not freely given. (Do not steal)
- Abstain from sexual misconduct and sensual overindulgence
- Refrain from untrue speech, (Do not lie)
- Do not consume alcohol or other drugs. The main concern here is that intoxicants cloud the mind.
What is Karma?
Karma is the law that every cause has an effect, i.e., our actions have results. This simple law explains a number of things: inequality in the world, why some are born handicapped and some gifted, why some live only a short life. Buddhists believe that are past actions have an effect on who or what we are in our next life.
Buddhism in the World
At present Buddhism is flourishing in some countries and facing difficulties in others. Theravada, for example, is the strongest in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma (Myanmar), but seriously weakened in Laos, Cambodia (Kampuchea) and Vietnam.
Sri Lankan monks have been helping revive Theravada Buddhism in Bali, other parts of Indonesia, and Malaysia, where it had slowly died out by the end of the fifteenth century. This is on an extremely limited scale.
In the 1950s, Ambedkar started a neo-Buddhist movement among untouchables in western India. Hundreds of thousands have joined, mostly to avoid the stigma of belonging to the lowest caste. The emphasis is on gaining political and social rights for themselves. Ambedkar died shortly after founding this revival. Since then it has been headed by Sangharakshita, an Englishman who founded the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order as a new form of Buddhism especially designed for Western practitioners.
In Thailand, influenced by the model of the Thai monarchy, the Buddhist monastic community has a Supreme Patriarch and a Council of Elders with responsibility for keeping the purity of the tradition. There are two types of monastic communities, those who dwell in the forests and those who live in the villages. Both are objects of great veneration and support by the lay community.
Buddhism in South Korea is still strong, although facing a growing challenge from Evangelic Christian movements. There are many monastic communities of monks and nuns with much popular support. The meditational tradition is particularly flourishing, especially of Son, the Korean form of Zen. In North Korea, on the other hand, except for a token monastery open for propaganda purposes, Buddhism is severely repressed.
Japan has many temples beautifully kept for tourists and visitors, but many are commercialized. Although there are some serious practitioners, for the most part the traditions are extremely formalized and weak. From the thirteenth century, the Japanese have had a tradition of married temple priests with no prohibition against drinking alcohol. Such priests gradually replaced the tradition of celibate monks. Most Japanese follow a combination of Buddhism and the traditional Japanese Shinto spirit religion.
Among the Tibetan traditions of Central Asia, the strongest is with the Tibetan refugee community around His Holiness the Dalai Lama in exile in India since the 1959 popular uprising against the Chinese military occupation of Tibet. They have restarted most of the major monasteries and several of the nunneries of Tibet, and have the traditional full training program for monk scholars, master meditators and teachers. There are educational, research and publication facilities to preserve all aspects of each of the schools of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Dalai Lama Video
The Tibetans in exile have helped revitalize Buddhism in the Himalayan regions of India, Nepal and Bhutan, including Ladakh and Sikkim by sending teachers and retransmitting the lineages. Many monks and nuns from these regions are receiving their education and training in the Tibetan refugee monasteries and nunneries.
Although the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism is followed among the Sherpa people of eastern Nepal and among the Tibetan refugees in the central part of the country, the traditional form of Nepalese Buddhism still exists on a limited level among the Newari people of the Kathmandu Valley. Following a blend of the late Indian form of Mahayana and Hinduism, they are the only Buddhist society that keeps caste distinctions within the monasteries. Since the sixteenth century, the monks are allowed to marry and there is a hereditary caste among them of keepers of the temples and leaders of rituals. Those who perform these functions must come from these castes.
The situation of Buddhism in Tibet itself, which the People's Republic of China has divided among the five provinces of Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, is still very grim. Of 6500 monasteries and nunneries before 1959, all but 150 were destroyed, mostly before the Cultural Revolution. The vast majority of learned monastics were either executed or died in concentration camps, and most monastics in general were forced to disrobe. Starting in 1979, the Chinese have allowed the Tibetans to reconstruct their monasteries, and much has already been rebuilt. The Chinese government has helped with two or three of them, but the vast majority has been through the efforts and finance of the former monks, the local populace and Tibetans in exile abroad. Thousands of young people have become monks and nuns, but the Chinese government is now imposing severe limitations and restrictions once more. Many police and government spies are disguised as monks and keep a close check in the monasteries. Monks and nuns have often led protests against the Chinese policies of suppression of human rights, demanding true autonomy and freedom of religion.
The Chinese communist authorities effort to control Buddhism in Tibet has surfaced most prominently with respect to the finding of the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. The first Panchen Lama, living in the seventeenth century, was the tutor of the Fifth Dalai Lama and is considered the second highest spiritual leader among the Tibetans after the Dalai Lama. Upon the death of a Dalai Lama or Panchen Lama, the successor is chosen as a small child recognized as the reincarnation of his predecessor. The child is found upon consultation with oracles and thoroughly tested for accurate memories of people and objects from his former life.
Although the Dalai Lamas, since the time of the Fifth, have been both the spiritual and temporal heads of Tibet, the Panchen Lamas have never held a political position. Since the early twentieth century, however, the Chinese have tried unsuccessfully to split the Tibetans by supporting the Panchen Lama as a political rival to the Dalai Lama.
The most serious problem facing Buddhism in Mongolia today, however, is the aggressive American Mormon and Baptist Christian missionaries. Coming initially to teach English, they offer money and aid for people's children to study in America if they convert. They pass out beautifully printed, free booklets on Jesus in the colloquial Mongol language and show films. The Buddhists cannot compete. There are no books on Buddhism yet in the colloquial language, only classical, hardly anyone who could make such translations, and no money to print such books even if they were made. So young people and intellectuals are being drawn away from Buddhism to Christianity.
All forms of Buddhism are also found throughout the world in nontraditionally Buddhist countries. There are two major groups involved: Asian immigrants and non-Asian practitioners. Asian immigrants, particularly in the United States and Australia, have many ethnic temples. This is also the case on a smaller scale in Canada, Brazil, Peru and several Western European countries particularly France. The main emphasis is on devotional practice and providing a community center to help the immigrant communities maintain their individual cultural and national identities.
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