What about buddihst?

Question

Buddist is a religion,but can any one tell me more about buddishm?

i actually mean BUDDHISM.

Answer 1

First of all, there are many sects of Buddhism, Mahayana and Theravada and Zen among others. A big misconception is that Buddha is a God , he is not, we bow in respect to the Buddha , not in worship. For some it is just a "way of life" for others it is a religion. Buddhists do not believe in Heaven or Hell or God for that matter. We believe in the cycles of birth and death until one becomes "enlightened" and is no longer reborn. You just cease to "be". This is Nirvana. We learn that people fear death because of Ego and attachments to material and sensual things. When you learn to let go of attachments and practice compassion for all sentient beings, you move toward "enlightenment". That is but a very small description of one sect of Buddhism, but it changes depending on the sect. For more info you can check out buddhanet or e-sangha.

Lindy... I have read your other answers to questions. You are apparently a Christian yet you sow seeds of religious intolerance yourself. You create your own suffering in your intolerance, bitterness and hatred. I pity you.Life itself is suffering because of it's impermanent nature. Nothing is permanent, neither happiness nor sadness. You don't have to live a terrible life to suffer. Even the rich are subject to old age , sickness and death, no one can escape. Learning to live life in the present and realize every precious moment is enlightenement.

Answer 2

Buddhism is not always treated as a religion. There is no God, nor is Buddha related to a God.
Really in very simple terms you could say that:
1. You shoud seek to become a Buddha or elightened
2. Study the law or natural law - also study yourself - meditate look within.
3. Join with a community that is also seeking to become elightened.

Nothing about a God or some belief in the afterlife. Just how to make your current life better.

Much of the other stuff was added by the surrounding culture at that time.

Answer 3

You mean Buddhism?

There are different sects of Buddhism, much like in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Paganism.

Buddhism encourages people to be calm, enlightened pacifists.

Why not read about it on Wikipedia?

- 16 yo Pagan

Answer 4

Buddhist is not a religion, but rather Buddhism is a "religion". A Buddhist is one who abides by Buddhism laws.

Answer 5

Buddhism is a pipe dream. There are no professing buddhists who actually adhere to the buddhist philosophy. Buddhism is all about suffering in this life. The people in this country who "claim" to be buddhists like to make people think that they have attained the "enlightenment" status. Yet none of them can tell you what that is, because none of them have devoted their lives to suffering. (In reality, they know how stupid it is to spend thier whole life in lack and suffering.) Yet they think that tossing the word "enlightenment" around makes them sound smart.

Here's the kicker - No buddhist ever - not now, not ever, not even Siddhartha Gautama (the original buddha) has ever achieved "nirvana."

Buddhism - what a waste of time.

Answer 6

Well, it is a religion with moral values like the Abrahamic religions, but leaves God the "right to exist" but does not address His existence, and also leaves the afterlife ambiguous.

Answer 7

Buddhism is not so much a religion as it is a philosophy.

www.buddhanet.net/

This link will give you all the info you want.

Answer 8

http://www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism.htm
http://www.fwbo.org/buddhism.html

Just a few sites...Buddhists are very peaceful people.....

Answer 9

I was raised Buddhist, as a matter of fact. Let me see what I can do. First, let me recommend a book by a scholar (not a Buddhist himself). It really explains Buddhism well.

_Buddhism: Its Essence and Development_ by Edward Conze

Buddhism is perhaps both the most complicated religion and the simplest in the world. It's complicated until you really get deep into the practice of it, and then all the complexity falls away and you realize that it's simple. But, then, it's a life long persuit. Much of Buddhist scripture was written with the idea that people would spend their whole lives contemplating it, rather than that it be easy to understand. The Buddha himself, after he became enlightened (at least according to legend), spent several years in which he had trouble explaining what he had come to understand to others.

Here are some Buddhist ideas to start you out with. All of us are to some extent ignorant about the truth and in a state of delusion. Our souls are clouded by our upbringing (particularly for those of us who were raised by abusive parents or who came from dysfunctional families), by our emotions, by our perceptions, by what we've learned and what we have not. Because of this, we often create our own suffering. We act on assumptions from a clouded and mirky soul and often lash out at others because we think that we're right and they're wrong. But, our actions have natural consequences. When we lash out at others, we may fail to see that we're the ones who are wrong. Or, we may fail to see, when they hurt us, that they thought THEY were right and WE were wrong. Regardless of who's right and who's wrong, lashing out with anger and hatred at another only makes things worse. So, we must clear our souls of all of this garbage and we must do so continually, because garbage keeps collecting. This can be done through practices, like meditation or contemplating riddles that have no answer. Our minds and souls can ultimately become still and in that stillness we can perceive things much more clearly. Finally, we can come to have compassion for the suffering of others, because we realize that they're at least as ignorant and dillusional as we are. Ultimately, it is the hope of Buddhism that humans can stop fighting one another over arrogance, greed, anger and hatred, and join together in a great community through understanding and compassion.

The Buddha said that each one of us is under three basic dillusions. First, we think that things either are or are not. The truth, he said, is that things are always changing. Consider our lives. We think that we came to be when we were born and cease to be when we die. The truth is that we were other things (like our dad's sperm and our mother's egg) before we were us. When we die, we will be a decomposing body, but perhaps a plant or tree will grow up on the soil we fertilize. Perhaps a bird will live in that tree. Perhaps another human being will prosper from the wood of the tree or from the bird. So, the cycle of life continues. Matter is preserved. We only really keep changing - constantly changing.

The second dillusion is that we think there is such a thing as "self" and "ownership". We think the names we were given mean something. But, they only mean something to our society. In reality, we are each nothing more than subsets of the universe. We think we own things, but it's only because members of society agree on ownership. But, really we own nothing because ownership has no universal meaning. So, we are nothing more than subsets of the universe.

Third, we think that it's possible to live lives of pleasure without suffering. The truth is that all life is suffering. First of all, all life CONTAINS suffering, but it also contains pleasure. But, we're always trying to avoid suffering and only ever have pleasure. We create more suffering for ourselves in this way. We might make lots of money only to find that our relationships go rotten, or what have you. There are countless ways in which striving to only ever have pleasure and be devoid of suffering only create more suffering. All pleasure must come to an end (but so must all suffering!). Therefore, whenever we have pleasure, we're somewhat fearful that the pleasure will end. So, really, if we stay in this dillusion, we'll suffer every moment of our lives: either suffering for real, being afraid of suffering or wondering when our pleasure will end.

That's the bad news, but there's good news. That is that we can face reality fearlessly. We can let go of our egos. We can stop trying to have pleasure all the time. We can accept the suffering with the pleasure. We can let go of our anger, hatred, greed, jealousy and fear. But, we must not repress our emotions or beat ourselves up over being human. Instead, we can simply sit and observe ourselves with all of our imperfections. We can sit down and observe ourselves being angry, hateful or what have you. We can observe our suffering. We can be fully present in our pleasure and free ourselves from worry. We can do this through mystical practices, such as meditation.

I know that doesn't sound all that great, but try it. You can't really understand Buddhism without practicing it. Because, something remarkable happens when we really practice it hard and for a good long time. There's a happiness that's beyond mundane pleasure and pain. There's a joy and bliss that comes. Because, by doing all this work on ourselves to liberate ourselves from our dillusions and having compassion for others, our lives improve. By letting go, oddly, we gain treasures that we never knew existed, like self-control, loving relationships, community and taking joy in the midst of the craziness of life in things we seldom took joy in before.

But, the Buddha said we must live in what he called the Middle Way. A common mistake among new Buddhist students is to give up everything until you're a bum on the street or to give up everything until you're not taking care of your needs. This ISN'T Buddhism. True Buddhism means striking a balance between letting go on the one hand and also having what we need (food, shelter, water, etc.) on the other. If we die, we won't be able to gain wisdom or improve our lives.

Buddhist ethics can be summarized as follows: (1) take responsibility for your actions, because actions have natural consequences (if you punch someone and they punch back, it's your own darn fault), (2) improve yourself so that you can be the best person you can be, practically and ethically and (3) have compassion for others (we're all in this crazy life together - we're all suffering together).

Here's a simple form of meditation you might try practicing. Sit and set a time for a reasonable amount of time, say 10 minutes. Breath and as you breath be aware of everything you can. Be aware of your emotions, your thoughts, your perceptions, your bodily sensations, etc. Just sit with those things and observe them without judgement. Do this every day. If you like, you might try expanding the time to 15, 20 or even 30 minutes. Serious Buddhists will do this for 30-60 minutes on a regular basis. They'll also often go on retreats in which they do this for days, or even a week or two, stopping only for silent meals, sleep and walking meditation.

Hope that gives you a sense of Buddhism. There are a lot of varieties out there. Many of them have native religion mixed in with them, like the worship of native Deities and the like, but that really came in afterwards. My religion professor in college defined Buddhism as a religion, because he said that religions are really defined in terms of practice rather than belief, and Buddhism definitely has religious practices and a religious structure. It's more than just philosophy, because you actually have to do mystical practices to gain its benifit.

Peace.