BUDDHISM
Basic Information
 Began in India
 Sprang from Hinduism
 Indian prince – Siddhartha Gautama
 Unhappy with life and the sufferings of the world –
gave up wealth and prestige to seek
enlightenment/wisdom
 Attained it while meditating under a fig tree around
531 BC
 Buddha means “enlightened one”
 Gautama (Buddha) preached and spread his
ideas across India until his death.
 Buddhists believe he broke the endless cycle of
death and rebirth central to both Buddhism and
Hinduism and attained Nirvana (a state of
blissful non-existence)
Basic Information
 Four Noble Truths
 Eightfold Path
 Nirvana – asking a Buddhist to describe Nirvana is
similar to asking a Christian, Jew, or Muslim to
describe Heaven – thus hard to explain – people have
their own views
 Do no believe in a personal creator or personal God
 Buddha did not claim to be a god, nor did he claim to
have received any revelation from a god.
 Many statues of Buddha but Buddhists do not
worship him as a deity
 Controversial from other religions viewpoint
because they do not recognize the existence of an
all-powerful god thus they claim that Buddhism is
not a religion at all, but a way of life.
 Buddhists have no concept of a Savior or of a
heaven.
 Relate Nirvana to Heaven but, Nirvana is looked at
by Buddhists as being a state of non-existence
rather than a place where people spend eternity
 Nirvana is a state of nothingness, in which a person
escapes the wheel of rebirth and simply ceases to
exist.
 Believe in reincarnation, but they do not believe a soul is
transferred from one body or thing to another
 Karma determines what one will be reincarnated as
Worship
 Go to shrine room in temple to meditate
 Offerings are placed before a statue of
Buddha out of respect, do not consider him a
god
 Buddhists have no equivalent of a church,
synagogue, or mosque.
 Do not have ministers, rabbis, or imams.
 Can listen to monks whose job is to help
guide people in their quest to become
enlightened.
Ceremonies
 Birth and death are not important
 Emphasis is placed on being good and living a
righteous life in the hope of being born into a
higher state of goodness in the next life.
 Marriages are arranged. Regarded as social
not religious events – marriage performed by
family and friends
 Funerals are not sad affairs. They are
intended to help the dead person attain a
better birth.
Writings
 No single collection of writings
 Nothing comparable to Bible, Torah, or
Quran.
 Tipitaka is the most important of all Buddhist
writings
 400 years after Buddha’s death his teachings
had not been passed down by writings but by
word of mouth