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“All who ever came before Me were thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not listen to them. I (Jesus) am the door, no one comes to the Father but by Me” – Jesus, John 10:8,9
Buddhism sprang from Hinduism but denies the authority of the Vedas. Because of the continual change and sects and factions, it can no longer be called a religion but rather, like Hinduism, a family of religions. The following graphic contains fast facts on Buddhism.
Siddhartha Guatama: He was discontented Hindu born about 583 B.C. in Northeastern India to a wealthy ruler. He experienced three transforming events:
On a journey to see the world Siddhartha saw four troubling sights:
A decrepit old man
A sick man
A corpse on its way to cremation
A monk begging food
Siddhartha reasoned that the only happy one of the four passing sights was the monk begging for food and thereafter Siddhartha renounced his wealth and position to become an ascetic monk. He was miserable while supposedly living on a grain of rice per day so he renounced this monk's lifestyle as well.
Siddhartha continued on his journey for he claimed was spiritual truth and one day while he sat under a fig tree, deep in meditation, he believed himself to have attained the nirvana which he learned about as a Hindu. Which is the supposed "highest god-consciousness" possible to a Hindu. Because Gautama achieved a sort of 'self-proclaimed' enlightenment,
Siddhartha Gautama was renamed “The Buddha” (enlightened one) and after this – most likely at his own recommendation, the fig tree was renamed the Bodhi or Bo Tree (tree of wisdom) and Gautama was now an instant Hindu Guru and founder of a new ‘sect’ of Hinduism which would go on to become a world religion in its own right.
Sect from Latin 'secta' meaning cut or separate path of discipline, sects of Buddhism are Theravada, Mahayana, Lamaism and Zen Buddhism. It is important to understand these sects prior to learning about the basics of Buddhism as each sect will have a variation on these fundamentals.
This is an early Buddhism sect which is nearly extinct in India but prevalent in Sri Lanka and some parts of southeast Asia.
This sect believes there is no God, only Nirvana. Buddha is a saint.
The Theravada sect places an emphasis on man as an individual and on his own in the universe.
This is a later sect of Buddhism which was prevalent in China & Japan (and parts of Southeast Asia). China’s communist revolution would find a readily-compatible religious belief system in Buddhism.
This sect believes that Buddha is a savior (in some extreme Mahayana groups, he is god)
Lamaist Buddhism began in the 7th century AD. It primarily combines Mahayana Buddhism and Tibetan Animism (Occultism).
Zen Buddhism is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism which was derived from Bodhidharma, a wandering Buddhist master living in India 600 B.C
Bodhidharma claimed that the basic tenets of Buddhism are not derived from the scriptures but rather transmitted from mind to mind and need no explanation in words.
There are varying books of authoritative value across the sects of Buddhism:
The three main sects of Buddhism have their own approach to authoritative sacred writings and can be broken down by the following groupings:
This set of writings is respected by the Theravada Buddhists. It sometimes is called the Pali canon is 11 times the size of the Bible. It consists of:
These scriptures were originally written in Sanskrit and paralleled the Pali canon but have since been translated and added to by the Chinese, Nepalese, and Tibetan people.
The Chinese canon alone is nearly 5000 volumes.
Nearly any charismatic Mahayana leader’s teachings tend to be fully accepted by his followers as ‘scripture’ making it nearly impossible to learn (much less follow) the voluminous and contradictory writings of the Mahayana Buddhist.
He from whom the delights of the senses fall away as water from the petal of the lotus or a mustard seed from the point of a needle – him do I call Brahmana. (priests and/or scholars of the highest Indian caste)
He who in this world has shaken off the two chains; the chain of Good and the chain of Evil; who is pure and exempt from suffering and passion – him I call Brahmana
He who has rejected that which causes pleasure and that which causes suffering, he who is impassive, liberated from all germs, the hero who has raised himself above all worlds – him do I call a Brahmana
Buddhism practitioners adhere to the Middle Path – another name for the 8-fold path to avoid the two extremes:
“That, conjoined with passion & luxury which is low, vulgar, common, ignoble and useless.” – Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) c.f. Catholicism
“That, conjoined with self-torture which is painful, ignoble, & useless”
The obstacles to the attainment of good karma can be overcome by observing the following:
Kill no living thing
Do not steal
Do not commit adultery
Tell no lies
Do not drink intoxicants or take drugs
The afterlife is, like Hinduism, a series of life after life after life etc until Nirvana is achieved. All sects of Buddhists believe in this emancipation from the reincarnation cycle of Hindusm via their own self effort.
Like Hinduism, the Buddhism view of the after life was created to answer the question "where do we go when we die?" but unfortunately, repeated death and rebirth by the rules of karma only perpetuates "ignorance" which is needed by someone else to bring the Buddhist to "wisdom" or "enlightenment".
No one receives eternal life and eternal presence with God (from Whom all good things come – James 1:17), by belonging to the right church, denomination, world religion, or by having a particular world view. Rather only those who trust in the Lord Jesus (preached by the Apostles in the Bible) for their own sin.
We will not trust in a Savior for sins that we either don’t believe we have or that we think aren’t deserving of hell. But the Bible says that ALL have sin and the wages of that sin is eternal separation from God (death). The good news is that the Bible says that you can know that YOU have eternal life. Click the button below to see if you are genuinely saved from your sins according to the Bible: