Buddhism Research Paper Thesis

Buddhism
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Institution
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Buddhism
Introduction
Historians traced the origin of Buddhism in the northern part of India in the 5th BC.E originally founded by Siddhartha Gautama in Nepal around 2,500 years back. Historians approximates that Siddhartha Gautama lived between 566-486 BCE (Robinson & Willard, 1982). Siddhartha Gautama was born as a royal prince in Lumbini north of India currently known as Nepal. He grew up in a privileged life, his parents named him Siddhartha as an indication of wonderful predictions in future. As much as he lived as a royal child, his major turnaround in life came when he saw the first time an old man, a sick person, and a corpse. He became disturbed and realized that death, sickness and old age were very much inevitable for humans. This prompted Siddhartha Gautama to start searching for ways of escaping the inevitable death, old age, and pain by studying alongside religious men. Siddhartha Gautama did not get any answers from the religious leaders. He continued to search for the answer and on his path; he encountered an Indian ascetic who encouraged him to practice self-denial (Robinson & Willard, 1982).
Siddhartha Gautama abandoned the luxury life to seek for answers that he eventually found enlightenment under the Buddha tree. This happened one day when he sat under the tree as he was meditating and reflecting on his life. It is alleged that during meditation he saw an infinite succession of deaths and births in an endless flowing river of life. He suddenly developed an internal perception on how to be liberated from the cycle of rebirths. After understanding everything; he became enlightened. For Siddhartha to discover the path of enlightenment he passed through allots of suffering to realize a rebirth resulting to enlighten known as Buddha the awakened one. After being enlightened he spread what he had learned travelling all over India, teaching rather than worshiping. He was frequently referred to as the Arahants or the noble one. He gave sermons and also formed the Sangha; a community order composed of monks, nuns and several disciples (Robinson & Willard, 1982).
For forty years, Buddha traveled through India with his teachings commonly known as the Buddha-Dharma, which means the teachings of the enlightened one. The key principle of his teaching was how to undergo the rebirth cycle known as samsara or reincarnation to achieve Nirvana. Nirvana, according to Buddhism, represents heaven. Buddha taught his followers that the long journey to nirvana could only be achieved by following the four Nobel Truths called pativedhanana.
In total Buddha taught eighty-four thousand teachings to assist people to be permanently liberated from their suffering. He was mainly motivated by passion and love for people resulting to helping people finding a lasting peace or nirvana. With such strong passion, Buddha reached many people who gained enlighten and taught others that formed an unbroken chain of his teaching that have continued to date. Buddha cannot be considered as a god, but he was a human being who used tremendous efforts of his heart and mind to transform people (Robinson & Willard, 1982).
By the time Buddha died at the age of eighty years, his followers had established a community of monks in the northern part of India. Buddhism advanced to other regions of the world due to the support of King Asoka, who ruled much of India. During his reign, Buddhism spread to several Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Tibet among others. Buddhism remained the ancient popular religion in Asia mainly in Burma, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Today Buddhism can be found all over the world. However, its roots can be traced to India. When spreading, Buddhism has adopted the local beliefs and practices especially in the Europe. That is why there are different varieties of Buddhism with distinct teachings, traditions and scriptures. In addition, certain aspects of Buddhism have been incorporated into certain religious and social practices; therefore people can identify themselves with different name related to Buddhism, like Buddhist Jewish or Buddhist Christians However, the three main Buddhist schools are the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana (Willard et al., 1996).
Buddhism Beliefs
Buddhist believes that suffering also known as Dukkha comes in various forms, but there are three obvious kinds of suffering. The three types of suffering correspond to the first three sights that Buddha saw during his journey. These include old age, sickness, and death. Buddhist believes that life is not ideal because frequently people fail to live up the expectations. This comes about because human beings are prone to desires and craving that are temporary. To understand the origin of suffering the Buddhist teaching are divided into different forms starting with the four noble truths. The four noble truths are the main pillars of Buddhist teachings that Buddha realized during meditation. The first being suffering (Dukkha), followed by the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering ( nirodha) and the path to the cessation of suffering (magga) (Willard et al., 1996).
According to Buddha, the root of all suffering is desire that can be seen through three roots of evil deeds (Willard et al., 1996). In Buddha teachings, to extinguish desire is to liberate one from being attached to such situations. This is known as nirvana, meaning, reaching enlightenment by getting rid of three greed, delusion, and hatred. Nirvana is a condition when one experiences profound spiritual joy due to the absence of negative emotions and fear. As result an individual is full of compassion for every living thing on earth. According to Buddha, ending suffering lies upon the eightfold path (Dhammananada, 1994). The wheel of dharma well describes eight fold paths; the wheel represents an endless cycle of rebirth. Buddha teachings talks about the eight divisions of the wheel as right understanding, right intention, right speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.
Buddhist acknowledges the fact that people can control their ultimate fate that most people are ignorant about. To avoid suffering, it is important to take conscious control of our behavior. According to Buddha, bad actions in previous life, affects an individual in his next life resulting to the bad effects known as Karma. Our actions and motives lead to good or bad karmic results. Karma is a concept of natural law (Dhammananada, 1994). Some of the actions that lead to good karmic results are motives of generosity, compassion, kindness and sympathy, calls for mindfulness or wisdom. Some of the opposite motives are greed, aversion, delusion. The main purpose of Buddhism is to control conscious control of individual behavior; Buddha believed that life is a process that requires a constant change for the better. However, this change has to be in the mind. Buddha developed several methods of working with the mind. The most important practice is meditation. Buddhist practice meditation as the means of attaining a positive state of mind, which involves calmness, awareness and concentration to be able to have a better understanding of ourselves, others and general life (Dhammananada, 1994).
Part 2: Key elements of Buddhists teachings are practiced in Theravada Buddhism
Theravada Buddhism is considered the oldest school for Buddhist, Theravada philosophy and lifestyle is derived from Tipitaka or the Pali canon. Many scholars agree that it is the surviving record of Buddha teachings. Buddhist who practice Theravada live their lives in pursuit of Arhat meaning, someone who has vanquished his enemies through greed, hate and ignorance to be enlightened. For several centuries, Theravada dominated religion in Several Asia countries like Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand, moving late to Europe and other regions.
Origin of Theravada
After the death of Buddha, his followers tried to organize their master’s teachings into doctrines that reflected his teachings. This created some disagreements on the meaning of certain interpretation. There was no written teaching that was preserved. Eventually, Buddhism split into different groups with the main one being Theravada that held strict interpretation of Buddha teachings. Theravada preserved the original forms of Budd...