Tuesday, September 29, 2015

WILL BUDDHISM RESPONSE

Although not a story of creation, the path that the Buddha follows is one of self-reflection, as well as one of learning to experience all that the world has to offer.  Differing greatly from most ways of Western thinking, the Buddha began his life as a slave to materialism before then rejecting everything he had in order to pursue a homeless life style that revolves around the starvation of the body in order to learn about the universe.  This story, told for five hundred years before finding its way to scripture, is one that electrified the Indian subcontinent, and one that continues to peacefully bring people together.

When the Buddha was first born, India was divided amongst 16 (maybe 12 not sure) kingdoms.  Although they all shared the same underlying religious belief they were distinctively separate.  The Buddha's ability to understand the world for what it really is, is what leads him to unify all of India under his ideals.  This not only liberates the people of the subcontinent, but it allows them to escape this Life-Death cycle that has been in constant order for many years.  The Buddha, by creating Buddhism (if you can phrase it like that) gives the people of India a new lifestyle that promotes peace, while also maintain the rigid caste system, which has the primary purpose of controlling people.

In the long run, Buddhism has a really cool story, although it does not do what the majority of other major religions do.  It doesn't tell us where the world came from.  So I guess, if I could ask the Buddha, where does the Earth come from, and who or what created the cycle of reincarnation?

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