Comparing Buddhism And Sikhism

470 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on sikh religion theory

Buddhism and Sikhism are clearly two of the world’s major religions with followers around the world. Though the origin of these two religions is rooted in the Indian subcontinent, they are different in respects to deity, belief, salvation, and scriptures. Comparatively, Sikhism is the younger of the two, and one of the youngest religions in the world. Buddhism dates to approximately 530 B.C.E, whereas Sikhism dates back to the 15th century. Buddhism centers on the life and teachings of Siddhārtha Gautama, the first Buddha, who is believed to be the Enlightened One. Sikhism centers on the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev and the ten successive Gurus.
When comparing the two and their respective notion of deities, Buddhism believes in deities that …show more content…

Sikhs believe that there is one true creator, God, and that once they free themselves of all bad karma, the cycle of reincarnation will be broken and the soul will be united with God. For Buddhists, enlightenment is attained by diligently following the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Only after successfully completing the steps will the Buddhist experience Nirvana - the salvation from the suffering.
Both religions have their own scriptures; Buddhism is based on the Tipitaka and Sikhism on the Guru Granth Sahib. Both scriptures include the teachings of their religious leaders, ethics, code of conduct and practices. Buddhists worship in Temples, and Sikhs worship in Gurudwaras.
There are some striking similarities between both religions; both have a strong sense of community, self, and adhering to specific sets of rules and practices. I believe it is fair to say that they share, at the core, the same type of values that define a virtuous life. Emotions such as anger, greed, attachment, and lust are to be controlled; while focusing on living the right life, conduct, speech, and moral character. Though broad in description, they are very similar in what they hold dear to living the proper way. Another value or way of life that is almost identical is a non-violent existence and that all living things are sacred. They also share a belief in the practices of meditation, concentration,

Show More
Related

  • Sikhism and Catholicism: Origins, Development and Modernism

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    Christianity and Sikhism are two completely different religions with their own set of beliefs, though when looked at closer, share many similarities. Catholics and Sikhs only believe in one god, have creators who at birth were told they would do great things, had events at the age of 30 that put the ideas of their religions in motion, and both had followings who eventually took over and made the religions what they are today. Even though these religions have a large gap in time between them of when they were founded, they both share a common founding and similar beliefs.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Hinduism And Buddhism

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hinduism and Buddhism There are many religions that are practiced around the world, especially in Asia where there are eight different religions being practiced. In the country of India, Buddhism and Hinduism are the main religions that are practiced today. Buddhism and Hinduism were both founded in Asia, but they were founded by two different people and practiced in two different ways and languages. Buddhism is a living tradition that is passed down from teacher to student as a set of instruction and techniques for sanity and brilliance in the inner self and the world. Hinduism is more based on the thoughts and attitude about one’s everyday life, and reflects in his actions.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Buddhism And Wicca

    1538 Words  | 4 Pages

    Buddhism was first originated in the late 6th century B.C.E. by a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. Having been on a long journey and achieving enlightenment, he became known as the enlightened one and began to preach a path of salvation to his followers. In general, Buddhism denies a supreme deity. It takes its roots in India and spread along major trade routes and rivers into central Asia. There are believed to be about 250 million Buddhists around the world while the population of Wiccans is around 204,000 (Saari 193). This is one of the most notable differences between the two religions is how the amount of followers they have. But another noteworthy difference between the two is their time of origin.

    Read More

  • A Tibetan Perspective on Birth and Death

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    Both of these religions originated in India. Buddhists and Hindus believe that death is not final. They believe that a person comes back after he or she dies. This process is known as reincarnation, and it provides opportunities for people to enter the world multiple times in different forms. Buddhists and Hindus want to reenter the world as humans, and they want to improve their status through reincarnation.

    Read More

  • Buddhism Prime Reality

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    Christianity believes in one God, which exists in three person; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Mankind was created to have relationship with God. Faith and believe in Jesus can save individual from happening sin and eternal death. Buddhism is a religion that does not include the idea of worshipping a creator god. Buddhism believes in path of practice and spiritual development direct to insight into the actual nature of reality. According to Buddhism nothing is eternal, every action have results and change is possible. Practicing meditation helps change in individual life and develops qualities of awareness, kindness and wisdom.

    Read More

  • Religions Dbq

    473 Words  | 1 Pages

    All three also share a common bond of being monotheistic. Islam's belief system was centered around the importance of making the God happy by your behavior (Doc 2). By the end of your life, there would be a final judgement where the God would assess your behavior and you would hopefully be granted a peaceful afterlife. Buddhism, founded by Buddha, was a religion based on staying on the right path and doing what is right to achieve nirvana. In Buddhism, there were two paths that people should not follow and there was a middle path discovered by the Perfect One that people should follow in life (Doc 4).

    Read More

  • Comparing Hinduism and Buddhism

    1930 Words  | 4 Pages

    Hinduism and Buddhism have different similarities and are in some ways connected to each other. Some of the practices of the two religions are similar in various ways and there are several examples to show this.

    Read More

  • Comparing Christianity and Buddhism

    2061 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Asoka and the Buddhist Faith

    1774 Words  | 4 Pages

    Buddhism is one of the oldest religions in the world, which began in India. The origin of Buddhism is traced back to the experience of single man, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. Born around 563 B.C.E., legend follows that Siddhartha was the son of a prince in a kingdom near the border of what is now India and Nepal. As such, he was sheltered from the world and lived a life of luxury and comfort. (Molloy 124) However, at age 29 Siddhartha left the royal grounds and witnessed the suffering of ordinary life for the first time. What he saw deeply affected him and caused him to question everything in his materialistic life. Siddhartha made the decision to give up his possessions and embark on a search for enlightenment, an event known as the Great Going Forth. (Molloy 125)

    Read More

  • Comparing Buddhism And Samsara

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    In both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, they follow and focus on similar yet different concepts of liberating themselves from ‘Samsara’ and the suffering that comes with it. Samsara in both Hindu and Buddhist philosophies is the endless cycle of death and rebirth. So, the end goal is to work towards the enlightenment from this cycle. Though the two concepts are similar in that the goal is the same, the two have distinctive and important differences on how they view this “release” from the rebirth-death cycle; they both follow different paths to reach that end goal which, in basic terms, is to live a happy life.

    Read More

  • Buddhism And Comparative Religions Similarities

    1986 Words  | 4 Pages

    Buddhism and Hinduism share many similar beliefs. The idea of being reborn after death until one reaches a certain point to which they reach their Nirvana, or Moksha as they refer to the action of being set free of the life, death, rebirth cycle. Both of these religions share a belief in karma being one of the defining factors of a person’s place in the world. Similarly, both religions advocate for nonviolence against all living beings. In Hinduism and Buddhism there are many different levels of heaven and hell and higher or lower worlds. Each of these religions practice spiritual meditation, concentration, and cultivations of special states of mind. The idea of detachment, or the renunciation of worldly life being a precondition to enter the Nirvana or spiritual life is shared by both religions as well. Desire is considered to be the main cause of suffering of people and each religion aims to teach their followers to shed the want and desire out of their lives in order to get closer to attaining Nirvana. While there are many similarities in both religions, they each contrast each other in many ways as well.

    Read More

  • Buddhism and Islam

    1683 Words  | 4 Pages

    Both these religions have basic beliefs that are relatively different from each other. Buddhists on one hand believe in karma, rebirth, dharma and moksa. Karma is "cause, effect and the law which equilibrates the two" . It is the consequences of every action, whether good or bad. This action-reaction may take effect anytime, may be in the current life or not. Rebirth is inter-connected with karma. If one did more good things than bad in his life, his karma will lead him to a life of better condition than the previous one. Dharma is the basic concept of the religion; that is the Buddhist teaching, also meaning the nature of existence. Lastly, moksa refers to the renunciation of the world, which is parallel to the Hindu belief in the importance of asceticism and meditation .

    Read More

  • Key Differences Between Christianity and Buddhism

    1825 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Hinduism And Buddhism

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hinduism is the 3rd most popular religion in the world followed by Buddhism, together they are followed by 22 percent of the world’s population. These two religions are alike in many ways, and are tied together by Asia, where they have deep roots in its culture and history. Although Hinduism and Buddhism are similar in many ways, very important and large differences separate the two. No one and nothing can ever truly prove either religion is better than the other because that is up to personal beliefs and opinions, but many more people around the world prefer Buddhism over Hinduism because of its beliefs and practices.

    Read More

  • Christianity and Sikhism

    1465 Words  | 3 Pages

    Basically, Singh (2004) tells us that the followers of Guru Nanak were Sikhs which literally means student or disciple. Sikhs have many beliefs, but their main belief stated by Robinson (2009) is that Sikhs believe in one God that has many names and has no shape or form and can only be known through meditation.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

More about Comparing Buddhism And Sikhism

Open Document