10 most outstanding BUDSIMO FEATURES

The religion has been from the origin of the human being a key element to understand any society, both western and eastern, therefore that it is very important to know the characteristics of all of them in order to better understand the societies in which these exist religions. One of the predominant religions of the world and at the same time one of the most unknown by Westerners is the buddhism and, therefore, in this lesson from a TEACHER we must talk about the characteristics of buddhism.

Index

1. What is Buddhism?
2. Origin of Buddhism and its history - summary
3. 10 characteristics of Buddhism

The buddhism is a world-wide religion which occupies the fourth position in terms of number of practitioners, being more than half a million followers and a 7% of the world population. This large number of believers is based on the fact that it is one of the great religions of the nation with the largest number of inhabitants in the world, China, in addition to much of Asia.

Like the rest of such great religions, Buddhism has multiple schools or disciplineThey are different, so depending on which of these you are part of, you look for the path to inner peace in one way or another. Another reason for the differences between schools is that not all of them follow the writings and sources Buddhists in the same way, there are some who see it more or less faithfully.

When talking about the expansion zone of Buddhism, we must say that today almost all the nations of the world have a small percentage of Buddhist believers, being due to increasing globalization that this belief has reached nations What United States or United Kingdom. The areas with the greatest predominance of the Buddhist branch of the Mahayana is East Asia, while the area of ​​the Theravada It is found in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

Before talking about the main characteristics of Buddhism, we must talk about its history, to understand the marked evolution that this religion has achieved. since its inception in India to the present.

You could say that Buddhism it was born in the 6th century BC. C. with the birth of the first historical Buddha named Siddharta Gautama. He was a young man born in the kingdom of Kosala of ancient India and present-day Nepal who, while still a member of the elites, gave up everything in your search for nirvana and inner peace. Throughout his life, Gautama traveled throughout India instilling his beliefs in monks and nuns to convey his thoughts.

The centuries after the Buddha's death were marked by a continuous expansion of buddhism, for the creation of numerous different schools and currents of Buddhism, and even the holding of councils that led to various schisms between the Buddhist schools of thought.

Over the years, Buddhism began to spread outside the Indian borders, with the emperors of the Mauryan Empire sending emissaries to other regions such as Sri Lanka and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Although Buddhism became a predominant religion in Sri Lanka, it did not have the same effect in the Hellenistic regions, although it is thought that it may have affected the Western view.

A vital change for Buddhism was the arrival of the Kushan Empire, which through the Silk Road influenced Buddhism to regions such as China, Korea, Japan, being therefore the moment in which Buddhism reached the regions where it is predominant today. For centuries the buddhism remained in these regions, but its expansion was slowed down by its low acceptance in the Western world compared to the Christianity.

To finish this lesson we must talk about the characteristics of buddhism and, thus, understand the reasons for many of the actions carried out by Buddhists and understand a religion, for many, unknown. The main characteristics of Buddhism therefore are the following:

1. Is a theistic religion, In other words, it is not based on any creator god, which is quite colliding with the rest of the predominant religions of the world and especially with the western ones.
2. He has no beliefs as such but a series of precepts that should be followed to search for the inner peace.
3. Use the meditation As a basic technique, it is very common to see large groups of Buddhists doing joint meditations.
4. There is no hierarchy of any kind between religious positions, so it has nothing like the system of priests and the Christian Pope.
5. They believe in rebirth, so life is circular and after death we all reincarnate into something new.
6. The arrival at the Nirvana as absolute peace, being the end of Buddhist teaching.
7. Every action causes a positive or negative effect, this being called karma and therefore everything that happens to you in your life is a consequence of this karma.
8. The objective is end suffering that characterizes the human being and arrive at a new way of seeing the world by leaving the world of the human being.
9. There are Buddhist texts, but there is no common or central point so it does not have anything similar to a Bible or Koran
10. There are several branches of buddhism, having more or less relevance depending on the area and having a different way of looking at the search for inner peace.

If you want to read more articles similar to Characteristics of Buddhism, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.

• Harvey, P. (2006). Buddhism (Vol. 16). Akal editions.
• Borges, J. L., & Jurado, A. (1978). What is Buddhism? edited and distributed by Microfon Argentina.
• Arnaiz, C. (2004). Confucianism, Buddhism and the shaping of values ​​in China and Korea.