Transcript Buddhism PPP

Growth and
Development
of World Religions
Growth and Development of
World Religions
Explain how world religions or belief systems
grew and their significance.
- Hinduism
- Judaism
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- Islam
Five of the world’s major faiths and ethical
systems emerged establishing institutions,
systems of thought, and cultural styles that
would influence neighboring peoples and
endure for centuries.
Buddhism
• A religious belief system which stems from
Hinduism.
• Buddhism deals with finding the peace within.
Buddhism
www.mahindarama.com
www.physics.adelaide.edu
• Buddhism still popular in India, and has spread to all of Asia.
Continues to expand around the world
• Comes from the teachings of a great man; stresses the
humanity of their teacher (rather than his divinity); teaches
non-violence; developed simple traditions of resisting
temptations and getting rid of materialistic possessions.
• But Buddhism has a modern appeal and remains popular
all over the world in the 21st Century
– 2nd fastest growing religion in the world today
• Buddha means ‘someone who has awakened from sleep’
• It was the Buddha’s ‘Great Awakening’ that resulted in the
discovery of the eternal secret of the meaning of life
Siddhartha Gautama: Early Life
• Founder of Buddhism came from
a kshatriya family, and he gave
up his privileged position to seek
enlightenment
• He was born Siddhartha
Gautama in 563 BC in a small
state in the foothills of the
Himalayas
• His wealthy father kept him in
a sheltered life of luxury,
determined that he would
never know misery
• Siddhartha married his cousin
and excelled in his studies; he
was being groomed to follow in
his father’s footsteps as governor
Humans
and
Suffering
pagecount.burningbird.net
• Siddhartha became dissatisfied with his comfortable life, and on
short journeys in his chariot around the palace he became aware
for the first time of how fragile humans were
• He saw more and more misery and suffering amongst the
ordinary people, and learned of monks who have withdrawn
from the world to lead holy lives and perfect their souls
• He became determined to take up the simple life himself, and
wander the land in the hope it would give him insight into
suffering
Search for Enlightenment
• About 524 BC Siddhartha left his
wife, family and luxurious home
to lead the life of a holy man
• He wandered the Ganges Valley
seeking an understanding of
suffering.
• He lived a simple life, practicing a
form of fasting (practically
starving) and constantly
meditating
• However, none of these tactics
gave him the answers he was
seeking
Siddhartha as Meditating Ascetic
– Gandharan 2nd Century BC
www.exoticindiaart.com
Enlightenment Under the Banyan Tree
• Eventually abandoned his lifestyle
because it was leading nowhere
• According to legend he sat down
under a huge banyan tree to
meditate upon a better path
• Determined to stay seated until he
understood the problem of human
suffering
• For 49 days he sat in meditation,
tempted by demons with the
pleasures of the flesh
• Just before dawn on the 50th day
he gained the knowledge he was
looking for on how to eliminate
suffering
• At that point he became the
Buddha – ‘the enlightened
one’
www.acay.com.au/~silkroad/buddha
Banyan Tree Buddhist Shrine
He realized suffering
comes from…
– Wanting what we like but do not have
– Wanting to keep what we like and already have
– Not wanting what we dislike but have
Buddha and
the ‘Turning of
the Wheel’
• Buddha publicly
announced his doctrine in
528 BC, near the holy
city of Banaras (modern
Varanasi)
• Buddhists refer to this
sermon as the ‘Turning
of the Wheel of Law’
because it was the
beginning of his quest to
spread the laws of
righteousness
Disciples
and Death
Death of the Buddha. Gandharan 2nd C CE
• He quickly attracted disciples from all over the Ganges valley
• He taught them to live simple lives and wear yellow robes and
travel the land preaching Buddhism, living off donations
• For more than 40 years the Buddha himself led his disciples all
over northern India
• Around 438 BC he died at the age of 80, leaving his disciples
with a final message:
• ‘Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your
salvation with diligence’
• Buddhism called the ‘Middle Way’
because it lies between normal
human life and desire, and extreme
simplicity
• Demands only a moderate form of
rejection and simplicity
• Philosophy is called Dharma
(‘religious good deeds leading to
a good afterlife’) and is based on
‘Four Noble Truths’
• The Four Noble Truths are:
1. Suffering dominates our life
2. The cause of suffering is desire
3. Suffering can be extinguished
by extinguishing desire, thereby
attaining nirvana the ‘going out
of the fire’ of desire
4. There is an 8-fold path that
leads out of suffering to nirvana
The Middle Way
• Eight-fold path calls for humans to lead
balanced and moderate lives, rejecting both
the devotion to luxury found in so many
human societies, and the extreme asceticism
of hermits and Jains
• Noble Eight-fold path means pursuing
‘right’ views, right resolve, right speech,
right conduct, right livelihood, right
effort, right mindfulness and right
concentration
–leading a decent, ethical,
meditative life
• If they pursue the right path of personal
effort and redemption, each individual
could escape the cycle of reincarnation
and achieve the state of nirvana
- Reincarnation - Rebirth of the
soul in another body
- Nirvana - perfect spiritual
independence
The Noble EightFold Path to
Nirvana
• Buddhism was not originally a religion.
– Buddha criticized all earlier religions; he
was an agnostic with no knowledge of God
or gods
Why did people
like Buddhism?
• Buddhism offered an
escape from the
cycle of incarnation
without the help of brahmin (priests), and also rejected
the caste system
Caste System – a social scale in which a social
hierarchy is maintained generation after generation
• Message of Buddhism thus appealed strongly to the
lower classes
• Because it did not demand anything extreme, Buddhism
became far more popular
www.time.com/time/
Appeal of Buddhism: Language
• Language was another
important reason for the
appeal of Buddhism
• The Buddha and his
disciples avoided using
Sanskrit (literary
language used by the
brahmins (priests) in
their rituals)
• They used local
languages instead that
reached a much larger
audience
www.frithjof-schuon.com
Buddhist Shrines and Stupas
• Early Buddhists recognized
holy sites that became places
to pray
• Pilgrims flocked to sites
associated with the
Buddha’s life
• Also popular were stupas shrines housing relics of
the Buddha and his first
disciples
The Great Stupa at Sanchi, probably
Constructed by Ashoka, 3rd Century BCE
www.buddhanet.net/ sanchi.htm
Buddhist Organization
• Buddhists were also highly organized
• From the days of the Buddha himself, converts joined
communities where they dedicated their lives to the search
for enlightenment
• Monasteries paid for and supported by gifts from
Buddhist followers allowed monks to spend most of their
time preaching and explaining the dharma to audiences
- Dharma - one's righteous duty, or any virtuous path
• During the centuries following Buddha’s death, monastic
organization proved extremely efficient at spreading the
Buddhist message and gaining converts
• Eventually Buddhist monasteries began to accept gifts
from wealthy benefactors and treated these gifts as acts of
generosity that deserved salvation
• Thus wealthy individuals could enjoy the comforts of the
world, avoid the sacrifices demanded by early Buddhism,
and still ensure salvation
Takht-I-Bahi (Pakistan Today)
This monastery flourished from 200 BC to 300 BC
Developments in
Later Buddhism
• Although Buddhism was easier to follow than other religions, it still made
heavy demands on people not willing to give up all they had.
• Pure Buddhism involved much sacrifice – giving up personal property,
desire for social standing, and detachment from family and the world
• Between 200 BC and 100 AD Buddhist beliefs changed to allow less
demanding rules for salvation, leading to an explosion in popularity for
the faith
• The first change was to make the Buddha a GOD
• Although the Buddha did not consider himself a god, some of his later
followers did, this helped converts channel their energies and identify more
closely with the faith
Boddhisatvas
• Second important
development was the
notion of the boddhisatva
(‘an enlightened being’)
• Boddhisatvas were
individuals who had
reached spiritual perfection
and deserved the reward of
nirvana, but who
intentionally delayed their
entry into nirvana to help
others who were still
struggling
• Like Christian saints,
boddhisatvas served as
examples of spiritual
excellence and
inspiration
palimpsest.stanford.edu
Boddhisatva, Gandharan Sculpture, 2nd Century CE
Mahayana Buddhism
• These developments in later Buddhism opened the faith to large
numbers of people
• During the early centuries
of the Common Era
Buddhism spread
quickly throughout India
• Eventually, with the opening
up of the Silk Roads,
Buddhist monks carried the
faith to Central Asia, China,
Japan, Korea and SE Asia
- Silk Road – Trade
Route that extended
from Europe to Asia
www.ibiblio.org