Buddhism refers to dharma or religion that encompass a diversity of beliefs, spiritual practices, and traditions majorly based on different teachings accredited to the Buddha which results to interpreted philosophies. Initially, Buddhism originated from Antique India between 6th and 4th
centuries BCE and extended throughout Asia and later declined during the middle ages. The two main branches of Buddhism in existence are usually identified by scholars as Mahayana (Sanskrit: “The Great Vehicle) and Theravada (Pali: “The School of the Elders). Globally, Buddhism is recognized as the 4th
largest religion, with over seven percent of the world’s population or roughly five hundred and twenty million followers which are referred to as Buddhists. Several Buddhist schools differ on the precise temperament of the path to freedom, the significance and canonicity of a variety of scriptures and teachings, particularly their individual practices.
Buddhists often have various practices which include taking shelter in the Buddha, study of scriptures, the Sangha and the Dharma. Other traditions include rejection of attachment and craving, the ceremony of moral precepts, the practice of contemplation inclusive of insight and calm, the nurturing of wisdom, compassion, and loving-kindness, the Vajrayna practices of completion generation stage, as well as the Mahayana practice of bodhicitta. In Theravada, the crucial goal is the termination of kleshas which is defined as the disparaging mental state inclusive of attachment, ignorance, as well as aversion, and the achievement of the inspiring state of Nirvana which is accomplished through the active involvement in the Noble Eightfold Path which was also known as the Middle Way, therefore, evading what is viewed as a loop of suffering along with rebirth. Theravada, as a result, has an extensive following both in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.
Mahayana, which is found throughout East Asia, is an inclusion of the traditions of Nichiren Buddhism, Zen, Pure Land, and Tianta. Mahayana, compared to Nirvana aspire to Buddhahood through the bodhisattva lane, a position whereby an individual remains in the sequence of a renaissance to assist other human beings to reach the point of awakening. A body of teachings accredited to Indian Siddhas known as Vajrayana can be seen as just a third branch or a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which aspires to rainbow body or Buddhahood, conserves the Vajrayana teachings of the 8th Century in India. The practice is majorly carried out in the areas which surround the Mongolia, Himalayas, as well as the Kalmykia. The proofs of early texts on Buddhism which is an Indian religion, suggests that the religion was attributed to the teachings of Buddha, allegedly born Siddhartha Gautama, also referred to as Tathagata.
In the Buddhist sutras, Gautama was touched by the intrinsic anguish of humankind and its never-ending recurrence due to reincarnation and, therefore, set out a mission to finish the repetitive suffering. Untimely Buddhist early biographies and canonical texts of Gautama explain that his first studies were guided by Vedic teachers who were known as Uddaka Ramaputta and Alara Kalama, where he learnt ancient philosophies and meditation, precisely the notion of emptiness and nothingness from the past and whatever is unseen or seen from the latter. When Gautama found the knowledge to be insufficient to achieve his objectives, he turned to the practice of plainness which also did not nurture his goal.
After that, he sorted to the practice of dhyana, contemplation, something he had already found out during his youth. He popularly sat under a Ficus religiosa and meditated and from that, he gained the insights into the deeds of Karma together with his former lives, and he achieved clarification and belief on the Middle Way as the correct path of religious practice to bring an end to suffering from rebirth. The Indian philosophy of Buddhism developed independently and focused on the Heavenly way and the human way as a pair of categories which were very vital (Tang Pg 58).
As an entirely liberal Buddha, he ended up attracting followers and hence after founded Sangha and as a Buddha ended up spending his entire life teaching the Dharma that he had discovered and later died at eighty years old. The teachings of Buddha were propagated by the people who followed him, and through the last centuries of the first millenniums, there were over eighteen sub-schools of thought teaching Buddha. In some of the books, it is stated that Pali tradition Maitreya appears as the future Buddha waiting to be reborn on earth to purify the religion in some distant future (Ch'En and Kuan Sheng pg 16). Each of the school had its own tray of texts which contained various reliable teachings of the Buddha as well interpretations, which evolved into several traditions, whereby, the widespread and famously known in the current times are the Mahayana, Theravada, Buddhism, and Vajrayana.
Confucianism which is also known as Ruism, is described as a religion, tradition, a philosophy, a rationalistic or a humanistic religion, a way of life or a way of governing. The origin of the word Confucians can be traced to the writings of the sixteenth century where the Jesuits used Confucius as the Latin transliteration of Kong Fu Zi (Xinzhong Pg 6). Confucianism came up from what was later named as the Hundred Schools of Thought which were teachings from the Chinese Philosophers Confucius, who regarded himself as a transmitter and codifier of the values and theology inherited from the Shang as well as the Zhou dynasty. According to the Han dynasty, the approaches of the Confucian edged out the Huang-Lao as the authorized philosophy, whilst the emperors mixed both with the pragmatist technique of Legalism.
The revival of the Confucian started during the Tang dynasty whereby according to the late Tang, the Confucianism religion came up in response to Taoism and Buddhism and was later formulated as Neo- Confucianism. This form of reinvigoration was adopted as the major foundation of the imperial exams as well as the central idea of the academic bureaucrat class in the song dynasty. When the elimination of the system of examination in the year 1905 marked a stop to official Confucianism, the philosophers belonging to the New Culture Movement around the early twentieth century held Confucians liable for the weaknesses of China. Therefore, they launched a search for novel doctrines to restore the teachings of the Confucians, and some of the new ideologies in Confucians were Three Principles of the People together with the organization of the Republic of China, and Maoism which is underneath the People’s Republic of China.
Confucian work ethic, in the late 20th century, has been credited with the increase of the East Asian financial system. With a precise emphasis on the fundamentals of the social harmony and family, apart from otherworldly sources of spiritual values, the central part of Confucianism is humanistic. In relation to Hebert Fingarette’s understanding of Confucianism as a religion which considers worldly as consecrated, Confucianism transcends the dichotomy between humanism and religion, bearing in mind the reasonable actions of the life of human beings precisely human relationships as a sign of the sacred since they are the face of humanity’s moral nature. In as much as Tian has some features that partly cover the group of god-heads, it is first and foremost an absolute unfriendly principle like Brahman and Dao. Confucianism majorly focuses on the no-nonsense order that is given by a world wise knowledge of the Tian.
The worldly apprehension of Confucianism relies on the belief that beings are improvable and perfectible, good, and teachable, via individual and public attempt particularly self-creation and self-cultivation. Confucian contemplation focuses on the cultivation of good quality in a morally prearranged globe. Some of the essential Confucian moral concepts and practices which include humaneness or benevolence are the spirit of the human being which manifest as empathy. Customarily, cultures and countries in the East Asian intellectual globe are strongly prejudiced by Confucianism, together with mainland Taiwan, China, Macau, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and a variety of territories settled mainly by Chinese people, for instance, Singapore.
In the twentieth century, Confucianism’s power greatly diminished and in the previous decades there have been talks of a Confucian Revival in the scholarly and academic society, and there has been proletariat propagation of a variety of Confucian churches. During late 2015, several Confucian personalities officially recognized a national Holy Confucian Church in China to unify the numerous Confucian congregations and civil society communities.
Work cited
Kenneth Kuan Sheng. Chinese Tranformation of Buddhism. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Tang, Yijie. Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity and Chinese Culture. Springer, 2015.
Yao, Xinzhong. The Encyclopedia of Confucianism: 2-volume Set. Routledge, 2015.
