Jazmin Espinoza

Cultural Diversity 102-3

Buddhism

The Buddhist religion was first started in and India over two-thousand-

five-hundred years ago. Buddhism is the largest religion in the Far East and

becoming increasingly popular in the West. Throughout Buddhism it has

been seen as different forms of the Buddhist religion to clarify this I will use

the example of how some Buddhist practice different believes, such as some

Buddhist are known for the importance of religious rituals, others

worshiping of God, and some completely reject both and just practice the act

of meditation. But even though this religion can change from place to place

it is still considered Buddhism because they share one thing in common,

respect to Buddha (the enlightened one) and his teachings.

Many people associate the bald headed monks wearing capes with the

Buddhist religion. This is not a wrong association, Buddhist do have shaved

monks with capes, but this gives the religion a more practice your believes

feel. Buddhism is more of a “coming to understand the human nature and

the reality of it” more than practicing things physically. Buddha was known

to be the enlightened one, after becoming the enlightened one he taught the

way to end world suffering. To start we had to understand the true nature of

the world. He rejected what he considered speculations, such as the concept

of having a living God, the nature of the universe, and the afterlife. Since

Buddha rejected speculations such as a living God many considered

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Cultural Diversity 102-3

Buddhism as an atheist religion, yet Buddhist themselves say that they are

not.

Buddhism was founded by a young man Siddhartha Gautama around

500 BCE. According to the old tradition Siddhartha was a wealthy prince

sheltered away. This prince had never seen any life difficulties such as

sickness, poverty, distress and so on. One day Siddhartha saw an old man, a

sick man, a poor man, and a corps. Shocked at what he had seen the young

prince became distressed at the sight of such suffering of the people. As the

story goes the young prince left his royal home in order to find

“enlightenment.” The young prince then sat under a tree, and vowed not to

move until he was “enlightened.” Day later after he had fist sat under that

tree the prince finally arose from under the tree, now being Buddha the

Enlightened one. Buddha then spent the rest of his forty-five years of life

teaching the path out of suffering.

In these days there are 360 million members of the Buddhist religion.

The ironic part though is the fact that Buddhism started in Indian, and now

Buddhism is pretty much extinct there, but in China, Japan, and South East

Asia it is still easy to find. In the United States there are over 1 million

Buddhists, and quite the few Buddhist Jews. One of the most famous

Buddhist concepts of the United States is the act of mediation. The Buddhist
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Cultural Diversity 102-3

religion is a growing religion with a wonderful goal to end world suffering;

they believe one can make a difference.