The Four Noble Truths Of Buddhism

Although Buddhism came around 5th century BCE, it has managed to stay relevant and popular through its ability to be practiced by anyone back then, beliefs, and the ability to conform to other cultures. Buddhism originated from the northern part of India around the same time as philosophical Hinduism. The religion started as the founder of Buddhism was a prince of India, Siddhartha Gautama, who enjoyed a sheltered and spoiled life but was taken aback when he went out into the real world. What he saw was a great deal of suffering such as old age, sickness, death, and many more things he never had to experience. Buddhism didn’t result from the revelation of a new idea but instead reflects Hindu elements in their teachings like karma, rebirth,

In fact, it was said to be more simplified and more accessible than Hinduism.

The basic beliefs of Buddhism is that to experience life is to experience suffering caused by the desire for individual fulfillment and the investment in your ego. To release yourself from this life, you must live a modest life where you learn not to desire anything combined with meditation practice. Buddhism had the Four Noble Truths which explained the reasons for human suffering which said that life is full of suffering, the cause of suffering came from desire and a negative mindset, that letting go of desire would release you of suffering, and that to rid yourself of pain you must follow the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path where you must practice right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. They disregarded Hindu rituals and sacrifices as they were seen as irrelevant to the hard work of ridding yourself of suffering. The teaching wasn’t interested in how the universe was created nor

Theravada is the earliest out of the two, believing that Buddha was a wise teacher to follow and never saw him as divine. It was more like a set of practice than a set of beliefs as it was more about intense self-effort to reach enlightenment where nuns and monks would remove themselves from society to devote themselves to this entirely. Mahayana was a modified version of Buddhism where they believed that help was needed to achieve Nirvana. They developed the idea of bodhisattvas where a spiritual person who is able to reach Nirvana delays their own entry to help those who are suffering and believed that Buddha was more like a god who would be able to give help. Mahayana turned Buddhism into a popular religion as it elaborated on supernatural beings, levels of heavens and hells, and made religious merits easier to gain and pass on to others which allowed more people to reach enlightenment. Buddhism was able to spread as Ashoka, the emperor of Maurya, was a public supporter of Buddhism. Supporters and descendants of his would construct more stupas to make it spread beyond the empire and monks would also travel across the continent, using the Silk Road, to spread their beliefs, translating the Tripitaka into other languages. It spread to Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast