Word: buddha
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Five Rules. Buddha was the rare mystic able to chalk out clearly to others the signposts leading out of reality, in the form of easily remembered shorthand formulas. The essence of his ethic came down in "Four Noble Truths": 1) Existence is suffering; 2) suffering springs from desire or craving; 3) the cure for suffering is extinction of desire; 4) to achieve the desired absence of desire there is an Eightfold Path of conduct to follow: right views, right effort, right mindfulness, right intentions, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood and right concentration. As a definition of rightness, Buddha merely...
...Buddha dismissed the ultimate philosophical questions, such as the finiteness or infinity of the world, as profitless speculation. But he took over from Hinduism the concept of the endless cycle of life, in which a man might be reincarnated as anything from a noble elephant to a lowly spider?depending upon the merit of his previous life's deeds. As a kind of cultivated escapism for the individual who masters the drill, Buddhism has been dismissed by some Westerners as Freudianism in reverse: a systematic elimination of the ego so that anxiety has no place to roost. Originally, Buddhism...
...intellectually promiscuous Asian world, the crystalline unity of Buddha's thought had scant chance of escaping the taint of temporal power...
Buddhist Constantine. Within 200 years after Buddha's death, historians noted 18 different varieties of Buddhism. When the Emperor Asoka, who about 250 B.C. created an Indian Empire not surpassed in extent until the British conquests, felt a surfeit of slaughter after killing 100,000 people, he turned to the new religion and became Buddhism's Constantine. He not only made Buddhism India's state religion, but his missionaries implanted the faith in Ceylon, fanned out through the rest of Asia, even Africa and Europe...
...fundamentalist Buddhists stuck to Buddha's narrow, escapist but arduous path and came to be known, to their distaste, as the Hinayana, or "lesser chariot." They prefer the name Theravada, or "doctrine of the elders." The "greater chariot," or Mahayana, branch attempted to enlarge and socialize the Middle Way. Their Buddha became less the example who must be emulated, more the savior who had mystically improved the lot of all mankind. By giving nearly equal weight to concern for others and to withdrawal for the self, Mahayana provided a platform for political engagement as Theravada could...