Buddhism Is a Religion and Philosophy Founded

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy founded in India around 525 B.C. By Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha (Buddhism pp). There are two main schools of Buddhism, Theravada or Hinayana, which is found in Stri Lanka, Southeast Asian, and the Mahayana, which is found in China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan (Buddhism pp). A third school, called Vajrayana, is traditional in Tibet and Japan (Buddhism pp).

The basic doctrines of Buddhism include the "four noble truths," which state that existence is suffering, called dukhka, the cause of suffering is due to craving and attachment, called trishna, the cessation of suffering is called nirvana, and the path to the cessation of suffering includes the "eightfold path" of right views, "right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration" (Buddhism pp). Buddhism describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity and substance (Buddhism pp).

Experience is analyzed into five aggregates or skandhas: the first is form or rupa, and refers to material existence; then sensations or vedana, perceptions called samjna, psychic constructs or samskara, and consciousness called vijnana, refer to psychological processes (Buddhism pp). The central Buddhist teaching anatman or non-self, states that in the five aggregates no independently existent, immutable self, or soul, can be found (Buddhism pp). According to teachings, all phenomena arise in interrelation and in dependence on causes and conditions, thus, are subject to decay and cessation (Buddhism pp). The condition are defined in a twelve membered chain called pratiyasmutpada, or dependent origination (Buddhism pp). These links are "ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming birth, old age, and death, when again ignorance" (Buddhism pp). Buddhism, with this cause and effect view, accepts the pan-Indian presupposition of samsara, meaning that all living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth and death, with the momentum to rebirth depending on the previous physical and mental actions, however, the release from this cycle is the total transcendence called nirvana (Buddhism pp).

Meditation and observance of moral precepts are the foundation of Buddhist practice, and include "to refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants" (Buddhism pp).