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Buddhism
It has been said that “as Judaism is to Christianity, so is Hinduism isto Buddhism.” Buddhism arose out of Hinduism as a direct result of the influence of Siddhartha Gautama,
the
Buddha or “EnlightenedOne; the religious worldview of the Buddhist is very similar to theHindu worldview, but it is important to recognize that Buddhism isvery much distinct from Hinduism.Buddhism is the world’s fourth largest religion, comprising around6% of the world’s population. The 350,000,000 adherents to thereligion are found mainly in China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand,Indochina, Korea, and Tibet. There are around 800,000 Buddhists inthe U.S.
 
 
Siddhartha Gautama
The Period of Enjoyment:
Siddhartha was born into the warrior caste in thetown of Kapilavastu, which at the time was in northeastern India but is now part of  Nepal. Tradition says that Siddhartha’s father sought to shelter his son from thesuffering of this world (sickness, old age, death, poverty) – for it was foretold thatSiddhartha would be a great spiritual leader, and his father wanted to secure his son’s political future. One day however, Siddhartha ventured away from his family’s palaceand encountered all four kinds of suffering – a man wracked by disease, a man decrepitwith old age, a corpse, and a monk begging for money. This experience had a profound effect on Siddhartha, as it caused him to take a negative view of his wealthand social status and he became deeply concerned with the problem of suffering.
The Period of Enquiry:
As a result of this experience, Siddhartha left hisfamily (including a wife and a child); he sought to discover the source of suffering andhow to eliminate it. Siddhartha took on the life of an ascetic; his meditation on thecessation of suffering was not successful. He then resolved to live on next to nothing.After almost drowning while bathing (he was so weak he could not resist the current of the river), he realized that one has to give the body what is natural and necessary, for while excess is an obstruction to the attainment of enlightenment, so to is self-deprecation. The “middle path” as he called it is the mean between excess and defect.
 
 
Siddhartha cont.
The Period of Enlightenment:
After eating to regain his strength,Siddhartha walked to the city of Bodh Gaya, where he sat under a fig tree (the“Bodhi Tree”) and vowed that he would not rise again until he had attainedenlightenment. During this deep state of meditation, Siddhartha was severelytempted by Mara, the evil one. After some period of time (some say one night,while others argue for as many as forty-nine), Siddhartha was awakened to the truth,or enlightened; Buddhists call this Nirvana. After sharing his findings with others, it became clear that what Siddhartha had discovered was truly revolutionary. In short,the teachings of Siddhartha challenged Hinduism in the following ways:* Questioned the authority of the Brahmin class* Rejected all caste divisions* Condemned the developing philosophies regarding “religion”(according to Siddhartha, it is only what one does, not what one believes, thatmatters).* No God, nor any specific ritual, can bring enlightenment
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