What is the difference between Mahayana  and Theravada Buddhism?
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http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/snapshot02.htm  <<< differences on Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism.\n\nBuddhism is the same: there is Theravada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, Yogacara Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism but it is all Buddhism and it all has the same taste - the taste of freedom. Buddhism has evolved into different forms so that it can be relevant to the different cultures in which it exists. It has been reinterpreted over the centuries so that it can remain relevant to each new generation. Outwardly, the types of Buddhism may seem very different but at the centre of all of them is the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. All major religions, Buddhism included, have split into schools and sects. But the different sects of Buddhism have never gone to war with each other and to this day, they go to each other's temples and worship together. Such tolerance and understanding is certainly rare. \n\nThe Buddha — the "Awakened One" — called the religion he founded Dhamma-vinaya — "the doctrine and discipline". To provide a social structure supportive of the practice of Dhamma-vinaya (or Dhamma for short [Sanskrit: Dharma]), and to preserve these teachings for posterity, the Buddha established the order of bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhunis (nuns)— the Sangha — which continues to this day to pass his teachings on to subsequent generations of laypeople and monastics, alike. \nAs the Dhamma continued its spread across India after the Buddha's passing, differing interpretations of the original teachings arose, which led to schisms within the Sangha and the emergence of as many as eighteen distinct sects of Buddhism.One of these schools eventually gave rise to a reform movement that called itself Mahayana (the "Greater Vehicle") and that referred to the other schools disparagingly as Hinayana (the "Lesser Vehicle"). What we call Theravada today is the sole survivor of those early non-Mahayana schools. To avoid the pejorative tone implied by the terms Hinayana and Mahayana, it is common today to use more neutral language to distinguish between these two main branches of Buddhism. Because Theravada historically dominated southern Asia, it is sometimes called "Southern" Buddhism, while Mahayana, which migrated northwards from India into China, Tibet, Japan, and Korea, is known as "Northern" Buddhism.\n\nThe main branches:\n1. Theravada / Hinayana (The great tradition or the way of the elders)\n\n2. Mahayana or "Greater Vehicle" : Variants of Mahayana Buddhism:\n-Tibetan Buddhism\n-Zen Buddhism\n-Pure Land Buddhism\n-Nichiren Buddhism\n\nhttp://www.buddhanet.net/worlddir.htm  <<< world buddhist directory (you may want to go to a temple or monastry near you & make enquiries). \nIf for whatever reason Buddhism appeals to you, obviously a bit of reading cannot do any harm. You could try a few introductory books from any tradition to get a closer idea of what Buddhism can mean for you.\n- Try not to get confused with the various traditions: just go for what feels right and ideally do a course. Amazingly, it seems to me that at least 90% of the people stick to the tradition they started in - somehow karma seems to be at work there... Anyway, the biggest differences between the Buddhist traditions are usually more on the surface than in the ideas behind the appearances. Although for example in Zen you will find very little ritual etc., and in Tibetan Buddhism you may be overwhelmed by it, at the core of the practice are the same ideas, just different methods.\n- Once you decide to get involved with a specific tradition, make sure you are not dealing with a controversial/dubious teacher or school; although someone may wear Buddhist robes or calls him/herself a lama, guru or even Acharya, that does not make him or her a saint.... There are unfortunately a fair amount of questionable 'Buddhist' teachers and c
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Zen is the purest form of meditation & it can be practiced alongside any belief or religion.\n\nIts benefit cannot be fathomed, not by all the Buddhas combined.
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The concept of self is not part of the Buddhist religion.  The concept of self is a false one.  Buddhists believe that we are all one with Nirvana but the concept of self keeps us separated from Nirvana.  Erase the self and Nirvana returns.  Hence there would be no need for forgiveness because there is no self.\n\nThis is a Eastern concept and many Westerners have a hard time understanding it.  I know I did when I was first introduced to it.
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I am going to tell you the truth, nothing but the truth.  Buddhism is a man made religion or man make God.  You can never reach the God through  Buddha.  Religion could be categorized into two, namely man-made and God's religion.  Your conscience would be able to tell you what is wrong or right.  God created us not Buddha, he is just a human like you and me.  If a person can be declared as a God after death, you and I and the rest of the people in the world will Gods and Goddesses.
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Yes, also referred to as the Buddha of Everlasting Light or the Pure Land Buddha.\n\nInterestingly, the "Amida" is not a historical "person" rather a fictional character created by Mahayana Buddhism to represent the ultimate nature of Shakyamuni Buddha as well as the Dharma or universal Buddhahood.\n\nNirvana is more of a Zen term rather than Pure Land. Pure Land develops out of Mahayana Buddhism in India and became wildly popular in China, where the invocation of Amida became the most common of all religious practices. It spread to Japan and was incorporated into Zen.\n\nUnlike many forms of Buddhism, Pure Land can be considered the Easy Path to Enlightenment. By practicing Nembutsu (concentration on the Buddha and his virtues, or recitation of the Buddha's name) and following the Right Practices, one is assured of rebirth in the Pure Land as the result of Amida Buddha's Vow. Once reborn in the Pure Land, Enlightenment can be achieved through proper study and practice of the Holy Path of Buddhism.
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Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people around the world. The word comes from 'budhi', 'to awaken'. It has its origins about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gotama, known as the Buddha, was himself awakened (enlightened) at the age of 35.\nbuddha is not a god. he is a teacher.\nTo many, Buddhism goes beyond religion and is more of a philosophy or 'way of life'. It is a philosophy because philosophy 'means love of wisdom' and the Buddhist path can be summed up as:\n\n(1) to lead a moral life,\n(2) to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and\n(3) to develop wisdom and understanding.\n\nBuddhism explains a purpose to life, it explains apparent injustice and inequality around the world, and it provides a code of practice or way of life that leads to true happiness.\nBuddhism is becoming popular in western countries for a number of reasons, The first good reason is Buddhism has answers to many of the problems in modern materialistic societies. It also includes (for those who are interested) a deep understanding of the human mind (and natural therapies) which prominent psychologists around the world are now discovering to be both very advanced and effective.\nScience is knowledge which can be made into a system, which depends upon seeing and testing facts and stating general natural laws. The core of Buddhism fit into this definition, because the Four Noble truths can be tested and proven by anyone in fact the Buddha himself asked his followers to test the teaching rather than accept his word as true. Buddhism depends more on understanding than faith.
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It appealed because of its emphasis on the uselessness of words and the insistence of action without thought.\n\nZen teaches the possibility of enlightenment in the here and now, unlike the tendency that have developed in other strands of Buddhism as far off goals. It teaches that enlightenment is a spontaneous event, totally independent of concepts, techniques or rituals. Zen Monks are based on doing things, learning through experience.\n\nEsoterically regarded, Zen is not a religion but rather an indefinable, incommunicable (fukasetsu) root, free from all names, descriptions, and concepts, that can only be experienced by each individual for him- or herself. From expressed forms of this, all religions have sprung. In this sense Zen is not bound to any religion, including Buddhism. It is the primordial perfection of everything existing, designated by the most various names, experienced by all great sages, saints, and founders of religions of all cultures and times. Buddhism has referred to it as the "identity of samsara and nirvana."
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Nirvana is an ancient word. In Theravada scriptures, which are the most ancient, nirvana means the same as enlightenment. Sometimes you also find this in the Zen tradition (and Chinese Buddhism in general) because although Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana, its roots are also very ancient. However, in later Mahayana as it developed in India, enlightenment is a more advanced experience than nirvana. It's developed after nirvana - it follows on from nirvana. (So you can see that "nirvana" doesn't refer to an experience that happens only at death! There is life after the experience of nirvana, but now the person is not an "ordinary" person; he or she is re an Arya being, a Bodhisattva on the path to full enlightenment.)\n\nAwakened is the translation of Bodhi. The Buddha - any Buddha - is "an awakened being". Depending on whether you follow Theravada or Mahayana, "awakened" will refer to nirvana or to full enlightenment. In the meditation traditions (like Zen) you also find the words "awakened" and even "enlightened" used for the deep experiences that arise in meditation as you're following the path. So in these traditions you can talk about a series of "enlightenments" or "awakenings" which eventually culminate in full and complete enlightenment.\nOften in Mahayana we talk about Bodhi Mind (bodhicitta in Sanskrit) which means an advanced state of mind that is absolutely dedicated to achieving full and complete enlightenment in order to be able to benefit all sentient beings. Some translators translate this as "enlightening mind", meaning a mind that is not yet completely enlightened but is steadily progressing towards that state.\n\nEmptiness means "lack of inherent existence". It's the way everything - ourselves and all phenomena - actually exist. Nothing has a permanent unchanging nature. Everything we experience arises because of causes and conditions, and is thus constantly changing. To "realize emptiness" is to experience this true nature of existence directly. In some texts, this experience is described as nirvana or even enlightenment. But it's not full enlightenment. However it's a prerequisite of full and complete enlightenment. In fact none of the higher realizations can arise until the meditator has a direct realization of emptiness.\nEmptiness is a very interesting and subtle subject, well worth studying in depth. You need to study it, to understand intellectually what emptiness really is, before you can achieve a realization of emptiness.\n\nCessation generally means the complete stopping of mental defilements. This can only happen when you have a true realization of emptiness. However you can experience the partial ceasing of defilements before that, and if you keep practising steadily, your defilements will become weaker and weaker so that when you do realize emptiness, you'll be able to follow the rest of the path quite easily.\n\nI hope this is some help. Naturally I've explained the terms from a Mahayana perspective, and in particular, from the viewpoint of the full flowering of Mahayana in India. Other people might explain some of these terms slightly differently.
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My answer is mainly about the similarities. Answer is a bit lengthy. Buddhism originated from Hinduism. I will give in brief some more details.\n\nMany people may know about Buddhism, but few seem to understand its connections with Vedic culture and how many aspects of it have origins in the Vedic philosophy. To begin with, it was several hundred years before the time of Lord Buddha that his birth was predicted in the Srimad-Bhagavatam: "In the beginning of the age of Kali, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will appear in the province of Gaya as Lord Buddha, the son of Anjana, to bewilder those who are always envious of the devotees of the Lord." (Bhag.1.3.24)\n\nThis verse indicates that Lord Buddha was an incarnation of the Supreme who would appear in Gaya, a town in central India. But some historians may point out that Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was actually born in Lumbini, Nepal, and that his mother was Queen Mahamaya. Therefore, this verse may be inaccurate. But actually Siddhartha became the Buddha after he attained spiritual enlightenment during his meditation under the Bo tree in Gaya. This means that his spiritual realization was his second and most important birth. Furthermore, Siddhartha's mother, Queen Mahamaya, died several days after Siddhartha's birth, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, Anjana. So the prediction in the Bhagavatam is verified.\n\nWhen Lord Buddha appeared, the people of India, although following the Vedas, had deviated from the primary goal of Vedic philosophy. They had become preoccupied with performing ceremonies and rituals for material enjoyment. Some of the rituals included animal sacrifices. The people had begun to sacrifice animals indiscriminately on the plea of Vedic rituals and then indulged in eating the flesh. Being misled by unworthy priests, much unnecessary animal killing was going on and the people were becoming more degraded and atheistic.\n\nThe rituals that included animal sacrifices, according to the Vedas, were not meant for eating flesh. An old animal would be placed in the sacrificial fire and, after the mantras were chanted, it would come out of the fire in a new and younger body as a test to show the potency of the Vedic mantras. However, as the power of the priests deteriorated, they could no longer chant the mantras properly and, therefore, the animals would not be brought back to life. So in the age of Kali all such sacrifices are forbidden because there are no longer any brahmanas who can chant the mantras correctly. Thus, Lord Buddha appeared and rejected the Vedic rituals and preached the philosophy of nonviolence. In the Dhammapada (129-130) Buddha says, "All beings fear death and pain, life is dear to all; therefore the wise man will not kill or cause anything to be killed."\n\nThe Vedic literature also teaches nonviolence, but Buddha taught the people who used the Vedas for improper purposes to give them up and simply follow him. Thus, he saved the animals from being killed and saved the people from being further misled by the corrupt priests. However, he did not teach the Vedic conclusions of spiritual knowledge but taught his own philosophy.\n\nBuddha was born in the town of Lumbini in Nepal as the son of a king of the Shakya clan. He is generally accepted to have lived during 560-477 B.C. but has been shown to have been born in 1887 B.C. and died in 1807 B.C. \n\nHis mother, Queen Mahamaya, before she conceived him, saw him in a dream descending from heaven and entering her womb as a white elephant. After his birth his father sheltered him from the problems of the world as much as possible. Later, Buddha married and had one son. It was during this time that he began to be disturbed by the problems life forced on everyone, especially after he had seen for the first time a man afflicted with disease, another man who was decrepit with age, a dead man being carried to the cremation grounds, and a monk who had dedicated hims
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http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html <<< koans\nhttp://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/essays/sangha-essays/reflections.html\n\nDeveloped from CH’an a school of Chinese Buddhism formed in the Seventh century from a blend of Taoism (Chinese philosophy outlined in the TaoTeChing). It aims is to achieve harmony with all that is by pursuing inaction and effortless) and Mahayana teachings. The school stressed experience rather than learning. One of the heroes of Zen is the fierce – looking Indian monk Boddhidharma who brought Buddhism to China.\n\nAbsolute faith is placed in a person’s own inner being. Zen came to Japan in the 13th century five centuries after the orthodox forms of Buddhism. It appealed because of its emphasis on the uselessness of words and the insistence of action without thought.\n\nZen teaches the possibility of enlightenment in the here and now, unlike the tendency that have developed in other strands of Buddhism as far off goals. It teaches that enlightenment is a spontaneous event, totally independent of concepts, techniques or rituals. Zen Monks are based on doing things, learning through experience.\n\nEsoterically regarded, Zen is not a religion but rather an indefinable, incommunicable (fukasetsu) root, free from all names, descriptions, and concepts, that can only be experienced by each individual for him- or herself. From expressed forms of this, all religions have sprung. In this sense Zen is not bound to any religion, including Buddhism. It is the primordial perfection of everything existing, designated by the most various names, experienced by all great sages, saints, and founders of religions of all cultures and times. Buddhism has referred to it as the "identity of samsara and nirvana." From this point of view zazen is not a "method" that brings people living in ignorance (avidya) to the "goal" of liberation; rather it is the immediate expression and actualization of the perfection present in every person at every moment.
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I'm a Christian, and my boyfriend is Buddhist.  I'm very interested in how the two intersect, and they can and do very easily.  The teachings of Christ and Buddha are similar in many areas.  The book "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh is a great examination of that.  There have also been many Buddhist Christians, with the adherents following Christian doctrine and Buddhist philosophy.  I think they work well together.
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Eastern thought in general has enhanced the lives of millions of Americans whether they realize it or not.\n\nSometimes the lines between buddhism and hinduism can be blurry.\n\nI find that Hindu culture has made a big contribution to the vegetarian and healthy eating movement. The idea that cows are sacred has steered millions away from red meat. \nAlso, the concept of peace being a virtue is something that Western society was sadly lacking. Both Hinduism and Buddhism made a wonderful difference to us in the late 60's... affecting our music, art, politics and culture.\n\nMeditation, yoga, natural foods, and spiritual healing are all traceable back to Hinduism.
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hi there, mehereintheeast.  I'm not sure exactly where you can take Chinese classes.  I took some Chinese a few years ago and the way I found a teacher was by going to the campus of a university and asking people who looked Chinese. (Amazingly, every person who I thought was Chinese was actually from China.)\n\nYou answered my question about Guru Rinpoche, and I have a few more questions about it.  Your answer implied that Buddhas are not monks.  Most forms of Buddhism consider Shakyamuni Buddha to have been a monk, and in the Pali texts, he refers to himself that way, as do his disciples.  Is there a different view in the Nyingma school?  In the present case, I am not calling only lamas monks, but all five levels of ordained practitioners as defined by Tibetan Buddhism. Also, is there any record of Padmasambhava having been ordained?  He trained at monasteries in India, but I don't think he was actually ordained.  And finally, have you had any contact with Tibetans, Nyingmapa or otherwise, who feel that his choice to have various female consorts prevents him from maintaining the status of being a monk?  I understand that some people there feel that way.\n\nThanks.
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Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha.\n\nThe Four Noble Truths\n\nThe Buddha taught that life was dissatisfactory because of craving, but that this condition was curable by following the Noble Eightfold Path ( This teaching is called the Four Noble Truths )\n\nDukkha: All worldly life is unsatisfactory, disjointed, containing suffering. \n\nSamudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance (avidya). \n\nNirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana. \n\nMagga: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path. \n\nThe Noble Eightfold Path\n \n In order to fully understand the noble truths and investigate whether they were in fact true, Buddha recommended that a certain path be followed which consists of:\n\nRight Understanding \nRight Thought  \nRight Speech\nRight Conduct \nRight Livelihood  \nRight Effort \nRight Mindfulness  \nRight Concentration \n\n Buddhist texts\n\nThe Buddhist canon of scripture is known in Sanskrit as the Tripitaka \n\nThese terms literally mean "three baskets" and refer to the three main divisions of the canon, which are:\n\nThe Vinaya Pitaka, containing disciplinary rules for the Sangha of Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as a range of other texts including explanations of why and how rules were instituted, supporting material, and doctrinal clarification. \n\nThe Sutra Pitaka , contains the actual discourses of the Buddha. \n\nA third type containing commentaries or systematic expositions of the Buddha's teachings. In the Theravada school, as well as in several others, this division is called the Abhidhamma Pitaka.
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Most Buddhists do not view Buddha as a god. He was a man who had reached enlightenment - thus not a god to pray to but just a man they should aspire to become like. \n\nThere is not a 'Bible' in Buddhism but most, if not all, would agree that the major teaching of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths along with the Eight fold path.\n\nThe four noble truths are : \n\n1. Life is suffering\n2. Suffering is caused by desire (I have also heard attachment instead of desire)\n3. Suffering can be alleviated by avoiding desire (or seeking unattachment)\n4. Follow the eight fold path to achieve unattachment (or lack of desire)\n\nEight fold path : \n\nRight view/understanding\nRight intention/aim\nRight speech\nRight action\nRight livelihood\nRight effort\nRight mind fullness\nRight concentration \n\nThere is a sect of Buddhism I believe it's called Mahayana that is religious Buddhism instead of philosophical and they do view Buddha as a god and worship him as thus though this is not the view of the majority of those who consider themselves Buddhist. \n\n(this is what I wrote to answer another similiar question) \n\nI would say the major theme is living a 'right' life by following the eight fold path to achieve enlightenment.
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Contemporary Buddhist practices differ from place to place. You should investigate which branch of Buddhism you're interested in and then research how well their practices reflect the foundations of either their branch or Buddhism as a whole.\nFor the most part, thought, Buddhists do practice what they teach.
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the main difference is the architecture adn the other is that...............\n\nAlmost all the northern temples are located or reserved to the river sides only,\n but the sourthern temples are not reserved to the river banks but very few of them.