Buddhism - Rebekah Pewitt

     Buddhism can be considered the world’s first great religion. Following the teachings and life of Buddha was the first philosophy and religion to fully move out of it’s own region and country and into others. Buddha was a man named Siddharta Gautama, and he was raised Hindu. However, Buddha throughout his life searched for more answers than the Hindu faith could provide. Most surrounding the human condition of suffering. So he set out on his own path to end this suffering within our own consciousness and mental state.

Buddhism sees the human condition as one of suffering. A state in which all things must end and never remain constant. For Buddha the solution to this problem was enlightenment. Yet it was a path to enlightenment no one had ever gone down before, through meditation of his own mental state and conscious. He taught the way to reach this enlightenment outside of meditation is to implement the eight fold path within the four noble truths. These truths being... 1. Dukkha - all of life is suffering, the suffering in physical pain and emotional pain and the suffering of death and rebirth. We as humans are all trapped in a cycle of suffering. 2. Trishna - We are all driven by desire. It is the craving for all things (wealth, food, love, success, happiness, etc.) that leads us to suffer. 3. Nirvana - The end of suffering. This is the state at which our suffering of life can end while we are still human; the mental state in which we strive for. and 4. The 8fold path is the only way to obtain nirvana.

So now followers of Buddhism must live within the guidelines of the path if they want to achieve a trues sense of enlightenment. Each part of the path is the “right” or “true way” in which each part of one’s life should be lived, and each of these are also lived in such a way as to which no harm is done to others, so that we don’t cause any one else additional suffering. The path includes right intent, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

There are many different sects of Buddhism throughout the world. The religion took on different aspects and importance when spreading through other countries. It has also now taken on new meanings in the western world as well. Many question that it is even a religion, but rather a form of philosophy or and type of psycho spiritual therapy, since in the religion there is no figure regarded as a god or deity nor is there as “soul” in people that they are trying to better or save (for lack of a better word.)

I would be more likely to be a follower of the Hindu faith before I would be a Buddhist. There are too many loose ends that haven’t been tied up for me as far as people not having a “soul or atman.” There are also so many different version of this one original mindset that it seems to be a religion that can adapt to whatever you want it to be, which for me is the complete antithesis of what religion is. For me Buddhism seems to be more like a type of psycho-spiritual therapy, and in that respect I can buy into that. However I can’t buy into the Buddhism ideals as a religion.