United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It does not neglect will-power and activity, for right action, right livelihood and right effort are necessary—a point to be remembered when Buddhism is called a dreamy unpractical religion. But no doubt the last stage of the path, right rapture or right meditation, is meant to be its crown and fulfilment.
These will be noticed farther on; it is only necessary to say here that the legends giving these details are first at variance with the early canonical history, and second, that they are of such later dates as to place most of them probably within the Christian era. The Four Peculiar and Characteristic Doctrines of Buddhism. Its peculiar conception of the soul. 2.
In the early centuries of the Christian era, Buddhism was imported from India, and some Chinese scholars penetrated to that country to master the theology of the new religion in its native home, but in later times the intervening barbarians made the journey practically impossible. Nestorian Christianity reached China in the seventh century, and had a good deal of influence, but died out again.
Truly, as his historians say, he held the empire in the hollow of his hand. At the approach of illness he took refuge in Buddhism, but even here the gorgeous ostentation of his life was not abated.
Since the white men have taken to coming by sea, the old geographical immunity is lost, and greater energy will be required to preserve the national independence. In spite of geographical advantages, however, the persistence of Chinese civilization, fundamentally unchanged since the introduction of Buddhism, is a remarkable phenomenon.
The inferiority of Buddhism as contrasted with Christianity is well described by Eucken in the following words: "In the former an emancipation from semblance becomes necessary; in the latter an overcoming of evil is the one thing needful. In the former the very basis of the world seems evil; in the latter it is the perversion of this basis which seems evil.
The ascetic ideal of renunciation is the dominant note in Buddhism and Christianity; fly from the pleasures of this world, give up and renounce, for all is vanity and folly. To every struggler this seems true when the battle is hardest, when achievement seems futile and empty, and when he whispers to himself, "What is it all about, anyway?"
The other Bodhisattvas, though lauded in special treatises, have left little impression on Indian Buddhism and have obtained in the Far East most of whatever importance they possess.
No doctrine of Buddhism has been so much in dispute as this. It has been widely maintained that Nirvana means extinction. But T.W. Rhys Davids and others have held that it is "the destruction of malice, passion, and delusion," and that it may be attained in this life. The definition is quoted from comparatively recent Pali translations.
Countless matters which Shinto had never attempted to explain, and could not have explained, Buddhism expounded in detail, with much apparent consistency. Its explanations of the mysteries of birth, life, and death were at once consoling to pure minds, and wholesomely discomforting to bad consciences.
Word Of The Day