Buddhism Research Paper

Buddhism "addresses a continuing Western thirst for spirituality and mysticism". With one of Buddhism's key appeal to Westerners being that it doesn't offend their reason as it not only agrees with evolution but it doesn't require blind faith. Since the Buddha urges followers to just to take his word for it, but to test it for themselves to see if, things like meditation could work in their own experience. Buddhism is also extremely adaptable to the different cultural circumstances that can occur. Making it a universal religion, that’s more concerned with the structure society together. It teaches that anyone can develop spirituality and can become more positive, regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation making the religion

well suited in the modern world
One of the fundamental teachings of Buddhism are the Noble Eightfold Path and shares many similarities with religious laws that westerners may already be familiar with like the Ten Commandments .

These rules are to be followed if one wants to reach salvation within the Buddhist religion. “Right View” according to the “Buddhist Society is the most important one to begin with “if we cannot see the truth of the Four Noble Truths then we can't make any sort of beginning.” Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood follow and involve moral restraints, such refraining from lying, stealing, committing violent acts, and earning one's living in a way harmful to others, like as selling any form of intoxicants for instance. These moral restraint helps us to not only bring social harmony but it also helps us control and diminish the sense of 'I'. Next, Right Effort is important because 'I' lives off of on idleness and wrong effort; which can lead us down a dark path so effort must be appropriate to the diminution of I, and in any case if we are not prepared to exert ourselves we cannot hope to achieve anything at all in either the spiritual sense nor in life. The last two are Right Mindfulness or awareness and Right Concentration and are considered to be the first steps to liberating yourself from

suffering.
One of the most well known Buddhist texts in the West is the Bardo Thodol or the Tibetan Book of the Dead as it's known in the West.

It details signs of death, how to prepare for death and how to navigate the bardo, which is the state between one’s death and their rebirth, this being the main draw of the Bardo Thodol to Westerners. Within the the text bardo is split into three states, the first one is called the chikhai bardo which features a “clear light of reality”. The second being the chonyid bardo, this is the experiencing of reality during which one sees visions of the Buddha in different forms. The sidpa bardo is the final bardo and is about rebirth, during this bardi one sees karmically impelled hallucinations that will ultimately result in rebirth, usually yab-yum imagery of men and women having sex. However, with the exception of the third bardo each bardo is limited by one’s own spiritual capabilities. As said before the bardos and how to navigate them are the main source of interests to Westerners since most western religions will talk about their respective versions of heaven but don’t go into detail on how to get there. There are also some similarities between these and some commonly believed, for lack of a better word, myths about deaths such as, when someone experiences a near death experience they see a white light which most people assume to be

heaven.
As both a westerner and as someone who’s been raised in Catholic schools all his life the most interesting part of Buddhism is that most off if not all the teachings within in the religion has something backing it up. One of the biggest reason I moved away from the Catholic religion is unquestioning faith that I think is need for it, so to see buddhism which encourages asking questions and second guessing what’s being said is a breathe of fresh air.