The Significance of Sacrifice in Buddhist Practice
The self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc at a busy intersection in Saigon on June 11, 1963 utterly shocked most Americans who could not fathom why a person would commit such a horrific act. Without trying to explore any feasible explanations within this man’s religion, many decided that he was probably just a fanatic who wanted to make a political statement in the most appalling manner possible. Was that the case? Was Quang Duc simply a political activist pushed to the limit, or was he acting with motivation derived from his religion? To answer this question, one must evaluate the function of sacrifice within the Buddhist tradition.
As with many religions, Buddhism offers its practitioners the opportunity for different levels of involvement on the spiritual path towards enlightenment. This spectrum of involvement ranges from one who practices with minimal sacrifice primarily to achieve personal spiritual gain to one who sacrifices his or her life with the hope of benefiting all of humanity. Furthermore, as a person moves along this spectrum from little to great sacrifice, one also harbors a growing commitment to the spiritual welfare of all sentient beings. As the kinds of practice and sacrifice are explained for different levels of involvement in the religion, it will become clear that the relative commitment to help others directly correlates to the stage of practice and sacrifice. Additionally, an intriguing comparison will be made between these concepts within Buddhism and very similar concepts with the Jewish tradition of mystical or contemplative death.
Basics of Buddhism
When exploring the specific function of sacrifice within Buddhism, it will be necessary to understand some of the fundamental beliefs that lay the groundwork for the religion as a whole. The Buddha was an actual historical figure who lived around 350 BCE in northern India. After his own spiritual awakening, he taught four basic lessons about the nature of life. The Four Noble Truths state
1) that life is qualified by suffering
2) that suffering has a cause
3) that there can be an end to suffering
4) that there is a path describing how to end suffering [1]
In further explanation, the cause of suffering is attachment to objects or feelings which are ultimately impermanent. If one does not learn how to overcome such attachment, one will forever be limited to the cycle of rebirth, or reincarnation, called samsara.
With guidance from principle beliefs and the XIVth Dalai Lama, Buddhist bioethics and the devotional practice of Temple Puja have an impact of high significance on individuals, and the Buddhist community in ultimately, guiding the life of the adherent to achieve total enlightenment. As the modern figurehead for Buddhism, the XIVth Dalai Lama has contributed to the formulation and reassessment of the Buddhist approach to ethical issues.
Yu, Han. “Memorial on Buddhism”. Making of the Modern World 12: Classical & Medieval Tradition. Trans. Richard F. Burton. Ed. Janet Smarr. La Jolla: University Readers, 2012. 111-112. Print.
It is said that history is shaped by the lives of great men. Great men are leaders. They bring about change; they improve the lives of others; they introduce new ideas, models, and theories to society. Most of the world's religions were founded, developed, or discovered by great men. Two particular religions - Christianity and Buddhism - developed in different parts of the world, under different circumstances, and in different social atmospheres. But each religion is based upon the teachings of a great man. When one compares the life of Buddha with the life of Jesus, one finds that the two share many things in common. This essay aims to compare and contrast the lives of Buddha1 and Jesus in two key areas: conception and birth. In these two areas, one finds that the Buddha and Jesus share many similarities.
In 1963, as protest to the authoritarian regime of President Ngo Dinh Diem, Buddhist monks began to go to public places in Vietnam and commit suicide, by drenching themselves in gasoline and setting themselves on fire. They did this as an act of civil disobedience, defined as an act of defiance of specific laws or policies of a formal structure which the individual or group believes to be unjust. The Buddhist civilization in Vietnam was not apparent to the Americans until the Buddhists began sacrificing themselves in Saigon’s public streets. The pictures of the monks engulfed in flames made world headlines and caused American intervention; and later the capture and killing of Diem and his brother. In contrast to these acts of civil disobedience, one can observe the actions of suicide bombers. In the Palestinian territories, those who support suicide bombing claim that it is merely a tactic of war in defense of their land and homes. Without superior weaponry, they see it as “a heroic act of martyrdom, a final act of resistance, stemming from desperation”(Suicide Bombers). Both the Buddhist monks and the “suicide bombers” in Palestine resort to self-sacrificial actions as their form of violent civil disobedience. Violent forms of civil disobedience should only be necessary to counter violence but never if it inhibits upon the liberties of the innocent. By this definition, the actions of the Buddhist monks are more justifiable than those of suicide bombers in the Middle East.
This paper is a comparison between two very different religions. Specifically Christianity and Buddhism. Coming from opposite sides of the globe these two religions could not be any farther apart in any aspect. I will discuss who Christ is for Christians and who Buddha is for Buddhists. I will also get into the aspects of charity, love, and compassion in both religions and I will be looking at the individual self and how christians see resurrection where the buddhists feel about the afterlife. One thing to keep in mind is that the two religions are very different but they seem to have a very similar underlying pattern. Both believe that there was a savior of their people, Buddha and Christ, and both believe that there is something good that happens to us when our time is done here on earth. This is a very generalized summarization but in order to go in to depth I need to explain the two religions more to fully convey this theory.
Suffering arises early in the story and is a theme is a them that will preside over the entire text, valuable to the reader because of The Buddha’s first Noble Truth: human life is consists almost entirely of suffering. When the Buddha is just a baby, the relief from suffering he will provide is predicted. “Be steadfast, therefore, give up anxiety, be cheerful, for your clan will flourish without a doubt; The one born here as your son is the leader of those overcome by the suffering in the world” (B 1.33). The
Sacrifice- in today’s culture, the word is rarely associated with something positive. You might think of a human sacrifice or giving up something you really want to keep. However, in ancient greek culture, ritual sacrifice (although the act wasn’t particularly good) had a positive connotation because of the benefits for the individual and the community the sacrifice was happening for. The importance of ritual sacrifice to ancient Greece is displayed by the passage from the Odyssey in which“... the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore to offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake. There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were nine bulls to each guild... they were eating the inward meats and burning the thigh bones [on the embers] in the name of Neptune…” (Homer, 3). Further back than the seventh or eighth century B.C. there are written records of the sacrifice of such animals as bulls, pigs, and sheep in ancient Greece. Sacrifice is not usually Ritual sacrifice played a key role in greek culture and society because it greatly affected social life, captured some of the key beliefs and ideas that the Greeks valued, and influenced some of the most famous Greek myths.
I will now examine what it means to be religious with a critical enquiry into Buddhism, Hinduism and
Buddhism is currently the fourth most popular religion in our society today, following Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Its major ideologies are based on the philosophies of Siddhartha Guatama, also known as “Buddha”, who began his teachings in 598 BCE at the age of 35, according to Buddhist texts. A Buddhist’s foremost aspiration is the obtainment of Bodhi, or enlightenment through meditation and Anapana-sati (awareness of the breath). Buddhism shares many ideologies with India’s Hinduism and Yoga such as non-harming, non-violence, and self-awareness. In many instances, people regard Buddhism as a way of life rather than a religion, for it has no clear belief in the idea of a God or Gods. Its structure is built upon a hierarchy much like Christianity where superior orders such as Lamas or the Dalai Lama are said to be chosen by nature through the process of reincarnation rather than by a council like Christianity’s Pope. Though these “higher level” Buddhists are rare (not everyone is a reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist “priest”), all are permitted to follow “The Middle Way” either as a Buddhist monk or the simple attendance of a weekly teaching session from time to time. Throughout the last few hundred years the Buddhist population has blossomed into a healthy 381,611,000 and over fifteen different sects including Zen, Mahayana, and Theravada.
Throughout the history of humankind, man has always searched to find answers to the many existential questions. Numerous different religions and denominations have developed around the world over time. Though, most wonder about the origin and purpose of our existence. Buddhism was founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama about 2,600 years ago in India. After he had experienced that everyone was subject to “birth, sickness, death, and old age”, he tried to find a way to break from the cycle of rebirth (Bloom). Siddhartha Gautama experimented with a number of methods to find the cause of suffering which led him to what he called the Middle Way – a path between “licentiousness and extreme mortification” (Bloom). Once he achieved enlightenment, he turned into ‘the Buddha – the enlightened or awakened one’. Christianity is one of the largest and most prevailing religions of the world and largely based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians trust that Jesus was sent by God to save humanity. Therefore, the faith of the followers of the Christian belief is primarily based on the preaching of Jesus and later the spreading of those by his disciples. Although Buddhism and Christianity show several parallels, their three key differences are that Buddhists do not believe in one divine being, and have different views about both the purpose of life and the concept of afterlife.
Suffering is an individual's basic affective experience of pain or distress, often as a result of one’s physical, emotional or spiritual circumstance (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2006). Suffering can be classified as physical; for example pain caused by a dislocated knee, emotional; for example one’s grief over the death of a loved one, or spiritual; which is described as the state of being separated from the blissful nature of your divine self (soul). To suffer physically or emotionally is often unavoidable; however it can be argued that spiritual liberation...
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A comparative analysis of salvation in Christianity and Buddhism exposes stark contrasts between the grace of Jesus Christ and the self-saving action and enlightenment of Buddha. I attempt to compare the Christian and Buddhist concepts of salvation in this essay to emphasise on the significance of each founder's roles in salvation, and to extract similarities and differences between them both.