Essays on buddhism

Essays on buddhism

Buddhism proposes a life of good thoughts, good intentions, and straight living, all with the ultimate aim of achieving nirvana, release from earthly existence. For most beings, nirvana lies in the distant future, because Buddhism, like other faiths of India, believes in a cycle of rebirth. Additional Essays The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the four noble truths: existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trishna); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the eightfold path of right views 1 day ago · Essays in zen buddhism third series pdf from Caleb, Thesis statements college essay best title for research paper about smoking is there life in other planets essay? Essay on different types of family college personal statement essay example. Analysis essay on jane eyre essay on urbanization. Drafting argumentative essay

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Buddhism is a religion which does not include the belief in a creator deityor any eternal divine personal being. Buddhism teaches that none of these gods as a creator or as being eternal, essays on buddhism, though they can essays on buddhism very long lives.

Thus while Buddhism includes multiple gods, its main focus is not on them. Peter Harvey calls this "trans-polytheistic". Buddhist texts also posit that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misconstrued to be a creator. Gautama Buddha in the early Buddhist texts is also shown as stating that he saw no single beginning to the universe. During the medieval periodBuddhist philosophers like Vasubandhu developed extensive refutations of Creationism and Hindu Theism.

Because of this, some modern scholars such as Matthew Kapstein have described this later stage of Buddhism as anti-theistic. In spite of the mainstream non-theistic tradition in Buddhism however, some writers such as B.

Alan Wallace have noted that some doctrines in Vajrayana Buddhism can be seen as similar to some theistic doctrines of creation. Damien Keown notes that in the Saṃyutta Nikāyathe Buddha sees the cycle of rebirths as stretching back "many hundreds of thousands of eons without discernible beginning. A first point is not discerned of beings roaming and wandering on hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. According to Buddhologist Richard Hayesthe early Buddhist Nikaya literature treats the question of the existence of a creator god "primarily from either an epistemological point of view or a moral point of view".

In these texts the Buddha is portrayed not as a creator-denying atheist who claims to be able to prove such a God's nonexistence, but rather his focus is other teachers' claims that their teachings lead to the highest good. According to Richard Hayes, in the Tevijja Sutta DN 13essays on buddhism, there is an account of a dispute between two brahmins about how best to reach union with Brahma Brahmasahavyatawho is seen as the highest god over whom no other being has mastery and who sees all.

However, after being questioned by the Buddha, it is revealed that they do not have any direct experience of this Brahma, essays on buddhism. The Buddha calls their religious goal laughable, vain and empty. Hayes also notes that in the early texts, the Buddha is not depicted as an atheistbut more as a skeptic who is against religious speculations, essays on buddhism, including speculations about a creator god.

Citing the Devadaha Sutta Majjhima NikayaHayes states, "while the reader is left to conclude that it is attachment rather than God, actions in past lives, fate, type of birth or efforts in this life that is responsible for our experiences of sorrow, no systematic argument is given in an attempt to disprove the existence of God.

Narada Thera also notes that the Buddha specifically calls out the doctrine of essays on buddhism by essays on buddhism supreme deity termed Ishvara for criticism in the Essays on buddhism Nikāya. This doctrine of creation by a supreme lord is defined as follows: "Whatever happiness or pain or neutral feeling this person experiences all that is due to the creation of a supreme deity issaranimmāṇahetu.

Thus for those who fall back on the creation of essays on buddhism god as the essential reason, there is neither desire nor effort nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed. In another early sutta DevadahasuttaMajjhima Nikāyathe Buddha sees the pain and suffering which is experienced by certain individuals as indicating that essays on buddhism they were created by a God, then this is likely to be an evil God: [17].

According to Peter Harvey, Buddhism assumes that the universe has no ultimate beginning to it, and thus sees no need for a creator God, essays on buddhism. In the early texts of Buddhism, the nearest term to this concept is "Great Brahma" Maha Brahma such as in Digha Nikaya 1.

In the Pali canonBuddhism includes the concept of reborn gods. This too ends, according to Buddhist cosmology, essays on buddhism, and god Mahabrahma is then born, who is alone. He longs for the presence of others, and the other gods are reborn as his ministers and companions.

This belief, state the Buddhist texts, is then shared by other gods. Eventually, however one of the gods dies and is reborn as human with the power to remember his previous life.

It is this that leads to the human belief in Creator, according to the Pali Canon. A similar story of a high god brahma who mistakes himself as the all-powerful Creator can be seen in the Brahma-nimantanika Sutta MN In this sutta, the Buddha displays his superior knowledge by explaining how a high god named Baka Brahma, essays on buddhism, who believes himself to be supremely powerful, actually does not know of certain spiritual realms.

The Buddha also demonstrates his superior psychic power by disappearing from Baka Brahma's sight, to a realm that he cannot reach and then challenges him to do the same.

Baka Brahma fails in this, demonstrating the Buddha's superiority. As noted by Michael D. Nichols, MN 49 seems to show that "belief in an eternal creator figure is a devious ploy put forward by the Evil One to mislead humanity, and the implication is that Brahmins who believe in the power and permanence of Brahma have fallen for it. Some stories in the Buddhist Jataka collections outline a critique of a Creator deity which is similar to the Problem of Evil.

If Brahma is lord of the whole world and Creator of the multitude of beings, then why has he ordained misfortune in the world without making the whole world happy; or for what purpose has he made the world full of injustice, falsehood and conceit; or is the lord of beings evil in that he ordained injustice when there could have been justice?

While Early Buddhism was not as concerned with critiquing concepts of God or Īśvara since Theism was not as prominent in India until the medieval eramedieval Indian Buddhists engaged much more thoroughly with the emerging Hindu Theisms mainly by attempting to refute them.

According to Essays on buddhism Kapsteinessays on buddhism, medieval Buddhist philosophers deployed a host of arguments, including the argument from evil and other arguments which "stressed formal problems in the conception of a supreme deity.

God, the theists affirm, must be eternal, and an eternal entity must be supposed to be altogether free from corruption and change. That same eternal being is held to be the creator, that is, the causal basis, essays on buddhism, of this world of corruption and change. The changing state, however, of a thing that is caused implies there to be change also in its causal basis, for a changeless cause cannot explain alteration in the result.

The hypothesis of a creator god, therefore, either fails to explain our changing world, essays on buddhism, or else God himself must be subject to change and corruption, and hence cannot be eternal. Creation, in other words, essays on buddhism, entails the impermanence of the creator. Theism, the Buddhist philosophers concluded, could not as a system of thought be saved from such contradictions.

In the Twelve Gate Treatise 十二門論, Shih-erh-men-lunthe Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna c. Nagarjuna also argues against a Creator in his Bodhicittavivaraṇa. The aggregates come not from a triumph of wishing, not from permanent timenot from primal matternot from an essential naturenot from the Powerful Creator Ishvara, and not from having no cause, essays on buddhism. Know that they arise from unawarenesskarmic actions, and craving. Bhāviveka c. A later Madhyamaka philosopher, Candrakīrtistates in his Introduction to the Middle Way 6.

Shantideva c, essays on buddhism. The elements? Then why all the trouble about a mere word? Also such elements as earth, etc. Would you say that God is too great to conceive? An unthinkable creator is likewise unthinkable, so that nothing further can be said.

The 5th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu argued that a creator's singular identity is incompatible with creating the world in his Abhidharmakosha. Vasubandhu then proceeds to outline various arguments for and against the existence of a creator deity or single cause. Another theist line essays on buddhism argument is taken up which says that the desires of God are simultaneous, but the things in the world arise in succession because God desires them to arise like this. But since god is a unitary singular cause, the Buddhist argues that this singularity is not compatible with the fact that these different desires are able to act in succession instead, they must either all happen at once or God is not unitary.

Then the question of why God creates the world is taken up. Besides, do you say that God finds joy in seeing the creatures which he has created in the prey of all the distress of existence, including the tortures of the hells? Homage to this kind of God! The profane stanza expresses it well: "One calls him Rudra because he burns, because he is sharp, fierce, essays on buddhism, redoubtable, an eater of flesh, essays on buddhism, blood and marrow.

Furthermore, the Buddhist states that the followers of God as a single cause deny observable cause and effect. The Buddhist also argues that since God did not have a beginning, the creation of the world by God would also not have a beginning contrary to the claims of the theists.

This is a consequence which the Theist rejects. Vasubandhu finishes this section of his commentary by stating that sentient beings wander from birth to birth doing various actions, experiencing the effects of their karma and "falsely thinking that God is the cause of this effect.

We must explain the truth in order to put an end to this false conception. The Chinese monk Xuanzang fl. There, he studied the Yogacara teachings passed down from Asanga and Vasubandhu and taught to him by the abbot Śīlabhadra.

In his work Cheng Weishi Lun Skt. Vijñāptimātratāsiddhi śāstraXuanzang refutes a "Great Lord" or Great Brahmā doctrine: [37]. According to one doctrine, there is a great, self-existent deity whose substance is real and who is all-pervading, essays on buddhism, eternal, and the producer of all phenomena.

This doctrine is unreasonable, essays on buddhism. If something produces something, it is not eternal, the non-eternal is not all-pervading, and what is not all-pervading is not real. If the deity's substance is all-pervading and eternal, it must contain all powers and be able to produce all dharmas everywhere, at all times, and simultaneously.

If he produces dharma when a desire arises, or according to conditions, this contradicts the doctrine of a single cause, essays on buddhism. Essays on buddhism else, desires and conditions would arise spontaneously since the cause is eternal. Other doctrines claim that there is a great Brahma, essays on buddhism, a Time, a Space, a Starting Point, a Nature, an Ether, a Self, etc. We refute all these in the same way we did the concept of the Great Lord.

The 7th-century Buddhist scholar Dharmakīrti advances a number of arguments against the existence of a creator god in his Pramāṇavārtikafollowing in the footsteps of Vasubandhu. Later Mahayana scholars such as ŚāntarakṣitaKamalaśīla essays on buddhism, Śaṅkaranandana fl. Essays on buddhism arguments are similar to those used by other sub-schools of Hinduism and Jainism that questioned the Navya-Nyaya theory of dualistic creator.

Essays on buddhism influential Theravada commentator Buddhaghosa also specifically denied the concept of a Creator. He wrote:. The maker of the conditioned world of rebirths.

Phenomena alone flow on. Conditioned by the coming together of causes. The Buddhist idea of the "Adi-Buddha" Primordial Buddha or First Essays on buddhism has been seen by some writers as resembling Theism in some ways, though other Buddhist writers disagree.

Alan Wallace writes on how the Vajrayana concept of the primordial Buddha Adi Buddhawho in some scriptures is viewed as one with the tathāgatagarbhais sometimes seen as forming the foundation of both samsara and nirvana, essays on buddhism.

This view, according to Wallace, holds that "the entire universe consists of nothing other than displays of this infinite, radiant, empty awareness. Furthermore, Wallace notes similarities between these Vajrayana doctrines and notions of a divine creative " ground of being ". He writes: "a careful analysis of Vajrayana Buddhist cosmogony, specifically as presented in the Atiyoga tradition of Indo-Tibetan Buddhismwhich presents itself as the culmination of all Buddhist teachings, reveals a theory of a transcendent ground of being and a process of creation that bear remarkable similarities with views presented in Vedanta and Neoplatonic Western Christian theories essays on buddhism creation.

Dargyay also notes that the Dzogchen tantra called the Kunjed Gyalpo "All Creating King" uses symbolic language for the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra which is reminiscent of theism. Alexander Studholme also points to how the Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra presents the great bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara as a kind of supreme lord of the cosmos and as the progenitor of various heavenly bodies and divinities such as the sun and moon, the deities Shiva and Vishnu etc.

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An essay-length account of my journey from atheism to Orthodox Christianity, via Buddhism, witchcraft and other strange twists. Essay, Lessons from the Garden A collection of essays on Buddhism. Includes The Sutra of Forty-Two Chapters. Mysticism, Christian and Buddhist by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki. [, not renewed] Suzuki compares and contrasts Buddhism with Meister Eckhart's mystical outlook. Gleanings In Buddha-Fields by Lafcadio Hearn []. The Nō Plays of Japan by Arthur Waley [] Buddhism is a religion which does not include the belief in a creator deity, or any eternal divine personal being. Buddhism's teachings say that there are divine beings called devas (sometimes translated as 'gods') and other Buddhist deities, heavens and rebirths in its doctrine of saṃsāra or cyclical rebirth. Buddhism teaches that none of these gods as a creator or as being eternal, though