Compare And Contrast Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people around the world. Its origins began about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gotama, known as Buddha, was enlightened at the age of 35. Due to the wide spread of the Buddhist religion many sub religions, that still adopt most of the original religious concepts, have been created. There are many different types of Buddhism, because the emphasis changes from country to country due to customs and culture. This essay focuses on the two main strands of the Buddhist sub religions, Theravada and Mahayana, and how they provide the opportunity for transformation despite being different in some ways. Quite in particular it will focus on funerals. Although there are significant differences between a funeral
The answer is that they are like identical cakes with four different icings: on the outside the traditions may look and taste different, but when you go deeply into them, you find the same taste - the taste of freedom” (Ajahn Brahm, 2005). Brahms words, although comparing the religions to cakes, tells us a lot about these sub religions, there so much the same but still different. Whilst they are different in some ways, an example being the goal of the religions, the Mahayana religious goal being the focus of becoming a Buddha, whereas the Theravada goal, is simply achieving a sense of nirvana and freeing themselves from bondage, this being namely samsara, which is the cycle of painful endless rebirth, normally the result of karma in one’s past life. They have some similarities that still connect them firmly to their roots, and to each other. Both the religions accept Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, as the teacher. The Four Noble Truths are also exactly the same in both schools; the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering,
“What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the non-functioning of the body? Buddhism says No” This brings into light their thought about reincarnation, and how when you die, your force and energy doesn’t die with it, it goes on to manifest and embody other forms, producing re-existence which is called rebirth, which some Buddha’s and nuns claim they can remember. Then when this body isn’t capable of functioning any longer, energies don’t die with it, but continue to take some other shape or form, which we call another life, and so on. Why does rebirth even occur? Rebirth is a result of something known as Karma. Karma is the force that causes us to be born even if we don’t want it, and it also causes us to die even if we don’t want to die. However, in the cycle of birth and death it isnt yourself whos being born again, but its our