Anyone familiar with the Buddhist religion, can you tell me anything about your religious/spiritual beliefs?

Question

I am interested in learning more about this religion

does this religion have a higher life expectancy that others and is that important? Or is it a mute point?

Answer 1

There are many kinds and styles of Buddhism. I can say a little about what I am familar with.

Practice is rather more important that beliefs. The Buddha tended not to focus on metaphysical arguments, but instead on how to cultivate sensitivity and awareness. Those qualities are often referred to with the words "compassion" and "wisdom."

Meditation is typically an emphasis in many Buddhist currents, both to cultivate kindness and insight.

It was an oral tradition for several centuries, so a lot of the teachings have come down in memorizable formulas and lists. One basic summary of the teaching is The Four Noble Truths:

1) our typical experience of existence is unsatisfactory (a.k.a. the truth of "suffering")
2) there is a reason for this, namely our lack of clarity and our tendency to be motivated by self-centered hankerings (ignorance plus desire).
3) there can be an end to our unsatisfactory experience of life
4) the path to realzing that end has 8 facets:

1. wholesome outlooks
2. wholesome intentions
3. wholesome speech
4. wholesome actions
5. wholesome livelihood
6. wholesome effort and energy
7. wholseome mindfulness
8. wholesome concentration and meditation

To me, the practice comes down to engaging our lives with a deep, soft-hearted honesty. A kind of fancy word for it is "deconstruction" ... where we question our static presumptions and allow a more organic, ever-learning engagement with life ... and seeing that many of our constructed notions are "empty" of substance.

The Buddhists tend to be very psychologically insightful, attentive to process and "impermanence", how our actions affect the quality of our experience (karma), and overall just very, very attuned to how our hearts and minds behave and function.
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Answer 2

The foundation of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths:

1. Duhkha. This is commonly translated as suffering. To be alive is to suffer.
2. Samudaya. The origin of dukkha is desire (craving, want, thirst, hunger, need, and so on and so forth).
3. Nirvana. It's also known as Enlightenment. The end or cessation of dukkha. It's not heaven, as many believe, but a state where on does not suffer. You do not have to die to go to nirvana. You just have to understand.
4. Magga. The path to nirvana is the Eightfold Path.

Then there is the Eightfold Path (in three categories):

Prajna or Wisdom
1. Samma-Ditthi Complete or Right View
2. Samma-Sankapa Complete or Right Intention/Emotion

Sila or Ethics
3. Samma-Vaca Whole or Right Speech
4. Samma-Kammanta Whole or Right Action
5. Samma-Ajiva Proper or Right Livelihood

Samadhi or Mental Discipline
6. Samma-Vayama Complete or Right Effort
7. Samma-Sati Thorough or Right Mindfulness/Awareness
8. Samma-Samadhi Integral, Holistic, or Right Concentration/One-Pointedness of Mind/Absorption/Meditation

There are the Five Precepts that essentially expound on ahimsa or do no harm:

1. Refrain from taking the life of living beings. This includes all living beings, not just humans.
2. Refrain from stealing.
3. Refrain from engaging in sexual misconduct.
4. Refrain from making false speech.
5. Refrain from intoxicants, which lead to mindlessness.

Finally, there are the Three Jewels:

1. Buddha: the ideal within all beings (not just the guy).
2. Dharma: the teachings of Buddha (the guy, who is just a guy and not a deity).
3. Sangha: the community or the people.

These are the foundations. Every sect has their own doctrines and dogmas. They have their own thoughts about what is important.

The important thing boils down to this. You gain Enlightenment (Nirvana), or the end of suffering when you see reality for what it is, not as you expect, want, desire, crave it to be. It's a lot harder than it sounds. The only way to Enlightenment is to have the right mindfulness through your own experience. That's essentially it in a nutshell.

The above referenced http://www.buddhanet.net has a very good basic guide to Buddhism in the study section if you want to browse around a little more. It has some well written and short essays on the essentials and what they mean. There's too much to put here.

Answer 3

I'm new to it, but I'll tell you what I like about it. The central notion is that to be human is to suffer, and at the core of our suffering is desire. Through meditation one is able to see one's own thoughts and patterns and tame one's own nature. Giving up desire does not mean becoming an ascetic or giving up all worldly possessions, but giving up the attachment to them; a car is a car, a house is a house, not a "dream come true" or a "ball and chain".
One practices the law of not harming other living beings(sounds a lot like Jesus, huh?) which is why many Buddhists are vegetarian.
Good and evil are from the same source; there is no Satan to tempt us, just our own desires. What we do comes back to us: that's the law of Karma.
There are organized Buddhist Temples and associations and others who simply practice the Dharma with a teacher or themselves.
Belief in God is welcome, but you can be an atheist and be a Buddhist, because Buddha was just a very enlightened human, not a "god" or variation thereof. You can be as happy or miserable as you want.
Buddhists do believe in rebirth and that we are evolving beings.
This is general and may even be inaccurate, but it came to me recently when I did "belief-o-matic" on beliefnet.com; I tested highest as a "neopagan" but very high on "Mahayana Buddhism"
I've wanted to be a Buddhist since I was fifteen and couldn't really figure out why I needed Jesus to talk to God. Those who follow the teachings of Christ follow the Buddha, too. I just couldn't take the lecturing, brow-beating, fear mongering and elitism of the Churches anymore: "we're going to heaven and you aren't, neener neener neener!"
If suffering is part of life, then you don't need to "explain" it, just handle it gracefully.

Answer 4

some Buddhists are Christians. As a Buddhist, i would be attentive to the way this is a threat, because of the fact Buddhism does not forbid any sort of different theory. so so a ways as Buddhists are in contact (Zen Buddhist specially often undertake this view) the different theory could be universal or rejected because of the fact metaphysical ideals are no longer on the middle of Buddhism. in my opinion, i think of this is complicated because of the fact between different issues, the Buddha warned against attaching to metaphysical ideals that did no longer foster liberation. yet consistent with possibility a individual can strengthen the two philosophies by ability of adhering to the two and by way of this sense, this is a plus. it may desire to paintings from a Christian attitude in that Buddhism does not require worship as such. we don't worship Buddha. We purely revere him as an wonderful instructor. Christianity won't be so agreeable to the Tibetan college, because it worships quite a few deities, yet on the different hand, the college isn't very insistent on their existence as self sustaining beings. some ideals of Buddhism could conflict with Christianity. Nirvana, as an occasion, isn't a place of judgment and there is not any judging entity. you purely exchange into what you regulate into by way of your movements. So purely you are able to greater powerful your self and for that reason attain a greater powerful state. however the fast answer is particular, some human beings declare to stick to the two paths. this is a complicated project, in spite of the undeniable fact that it is not impossible.

Answer 5

http://www.buddhanet.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm

http://buddhism.about.com/

http://americanbuddhist.net/taxonomy/term/51

Answer 6

Buddhism is one of the leading world religions in terms of adherents, geographical distribution, and socio-cultural influence. While largely an "Eastern" religion, it is becoming increasingly popular and influential in the Western world as well. It is a unique world religion in its own right though it has much in common with Hinduism in that both can be called "eastern" religions, believing in Karma (cause and effect ethics), Maya (illusory nature of the world), and Samsara (the cycle of reincarnation) among other things. Its founder Siddhartha Guatama was born into royalty in India nearly 600 years before Christ. As the story goes he lived luxuriously growing up and even marrying and having children with little exposure to the outside world. His parents intended for him to be spared from influence by religion and any exposure to pain and suffering. However it was not long before his thin shelter was penetrated and he caught a glimpse of an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse. His fourth vision was of a peaceful ascetic monk (one who denies luxury and comfort). Seeing his peacefulness he decided to become an ascetic himself. He abandoned his life of wealth and affluence to pursue enlightenment through austerity. He was very skilled at this sort of self-mortification and intense meditation. He was a leader among his peers. Eventually he let his efforts culminate in one final gesture. He "indulged" himself with one bowl of rice and then sat beneath a fig tree (also called the Bodhi tree) to meditate till he either reached enlightenment or died trying. Despite his travails and temptations, by the next morning, he had achieved enlightment. Thus he became known as the 'enlightened one' or the 'Buddha.' He took his new realization and began to teach his fellow monks, with whom he had already gained great influence. Five of his peers become the first of his disciples.

What had the Gautama discovered? Enlightenment lay in the "middle way," not in luxurious indulgence or self-mortification. Moreover he discovered what would become known as the ‘Four Noble Truths’ – (1) to live is to suffer (Dukha), 2) suffering is caused by desire (Tanha, or "attachment"), 3) one can eliminate suffering by eliminating all attachments, and 4) this is achieved by following the noble eightfold path. The "eightfold path" consists of having [a] right 1) view, 2) intention, 3) speech, 4) action, 5) livelihood (being a monk), 6) effort (properly direct energies), 7) mindfulness (meditation), and 8) concentration (focus). The Buddha's teachings were collected into the Tripitaka or "three baskets." [Win Corduan, Neighboring Faiths (IVP, 1998): 220-224].

Back of these distinguishing teachings are teachings common to Hinduism, namely Reincarnation, Karma, Maya, and a tendency to understand reality as being Pantheistic in its orientation. Buddhism also offers an elaborate theology of deities and exalted beings. However, like Hinduism, Buddhism can be hard to pin down in regards to its view of God. Some streams of Buddhism could legitimately be called atheistic, while others could be called pantheistic, and still others theistic such as with Pure Land Buddhism. Classical Buddhism however tends to be silent on the knowability or reality of an ultimate being and is therefore considered atheistic.

Buddhism today is quite diverse. It is roughly divisible into the two broad categories of Theravada (small vessel) and Mahayana (large vessel). Theravada is the monastic form which reserves ultimate enlightenment and nirvana for monks while Mahayana Buddhism extends this goal of enlightenment to the laity as well, that is, to non-monks. Under these categories can be found numerous branches including Tendai, Vajrayana, Nichiren, Shingon, Pure Land, Zen, and Ryobu among others. Therefore it is important for outsiders seeking to understand Buddhism that they not presume to know all the details of a particular school of Buddhism when all they have studied is classical historic Buddhism. (Corduan, 230).

It is important to be aware that the Buddha never considered himself to be a god, or a divine being of any type, rather he considered himself to be a ‘way-shower' for others. Only after his death was he exalted to God-like status by some of his followers, though not all of his followers viewed him that way. With Christianity however, it is stated quite clearly in the bible that Jesus was the Son of God (Matthew: 3 [17] and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased) and that He and God are one (John 10: [30] I and my Father are one). One cannot rightfully consider himself or herself Christian without professing faith in Jesus as God.

Jesus taught that He is the way, and not simply one who showed the way as John 14:6 confirms, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me." By the time Guatama died Buddhism had become a major influence in India; three hundred years after his death Buddhism had spread so far that it encompassed most of Asia. The scriptures and sayings attributed to the Buddha were written about four hundred years after his death. This delayed period between his death and the writing or commentary containing his message allows for several scholarly challenges to arise over the authenticity and reliability of Buddhist scriptures.

The Buddha lived and died well before the time of Jesus. His travels never took him more than a couple of hundred kilometers from his home. The bible and its message do not appear to have been known by the Buddha, and in fact he never spoke of God, or Jesus; consequently Buddhists, generally don’t speak out for God as Christians do. In its classical form, Buddhism does not speak of any personal God or Divine Being.

Sin is largely understood to be ignorance. And where it is understood as somehow "moral error" the context in which "evil" and "good" are understood is amoral. Karma is understood as nature's balance and is not personally enforced. Nature isn't moral, therefore karma is not a moral code, therefore sin is not ultimately moral. Thus we can say, by Buddhist thought, that our error is never ultimately moral since it is ultimately just an impersonal mistake and not an interpersonal violation. The consequence of this understanding is devastating. For the Buddhist, sin is more akin to a typo than to transgression against the nature of omnipotent God. This understanding of sin does not accord with the innate moral consciousness that men stand condemned because of their sin before a holy God (Rom. 1-2).

Since sin is impersonal and fixable error, it does not issue in the doctrine of depravity as it does in Christianity. With Christianity, man's sin is a problem of eternal and infinite consequence. Buddhist views of sin do not compare. Therefore there is no need for a Jesus' character to rescue people from their damning sins. For the Christian Jesus is the only means of rescue from eternal damnation over our personal (and imputed) sins. For the Buddhist there is only ethical living and meditative appeals to exalted beings for the hope of perhaps achieving enlightenment and ultimate Nirvana. But more than likely one will have to go through a number of reincarnations to pay off their vast accumulation of karmic debt. For the true followers of Buddhism the religion is a philosophy of morality and ethics, encapsulated within a life of renunciation of the ego-self. One may appeal to countless Boddhisatvas ("Buddhas in the making") or Buddhas (Gautama is later viewed as being one among many Buddhas) (Ibid., 229). But ultimately reality is impersonal and non-relational therefore it is not loving. Not only is God seen as illusory, but in dissolving sin into non-moral error and by rejecting all material reality as maya ("illusion") even we ourselves lose our "selves." Personality itself becomes an illusion.

When asked how the world started, who/what created the universe, the Buddha is said to have kept silent because in Buddhism there is no beginning, and no end, instead there is an endless circle of birth and death. One would have to ask what kind of being created us to live, endure so much pain and suffering, and then die, over and over again? It may cause one to contemplate, what’s the point, why bother? Christians know that God sent His Son to die for us, just the one time, so that we don’t have to suffer for an eternity. He sent His Son to give us the knowledge that we aren’t alone, and that we are loved. Christians know there is more to life than suffering, and dying (2 Timothy: 1[10] But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel).

Buddhism teaches that Nirvana is the highest state of being, a state of pure being. And it is achieved by means relative to the individual. Nirvana defies rational explanation and logical ordering therefore it cannot be taught, only realized. Jesus in contrast was quite specific, He taught us that our physical bodies die but our souls ascend to be with Him in heaven (Mark: 12 [25] for when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven). For Buddhists there is no merciful Father in heaven who sent His Son to die for our souls, for our salvation, to provide the way for us to reach His glory. The Buddha taught that people don’t have individual souls for the individual self or ego is an illusion.

Recommended Resource: Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias.