Muslim and Buddhists Term Paper

Muslim and Buddhists. There are four references used for this paper.

There are a number of religions throughout the world. It is important to examine the Muslim and Buddhists to determine the variety of human needs that religious practices and doctrines try achieve.

Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists

Buddhism is divided "into two main schools: the Theravada or Hinayana in Sri Lanka and SE Asia, and the Mahayana in China, Monogolia, Korea, and Japan." Mahayana Buddhist considered themselves the greater than the Theravada.

The main "philosophical tenet of the Mahayana is that all things are empty, or devoid of self-nature. Its chief religious ideal is the bodhisattva, which supplanted the earlier ideal of the arahant, and is distinguished from it by the vow to postpone entry into nirvana (although meriting it) until all other living beings are similarly enlightened and saved."

The Theravada beliefs are "generally accepted as representative of the early Buddhist doctrine. The ideal of early Buddhism was the perfected saintly sage, arahant, or arhat, who attained liberation by purifying self of all defilements and desires."

Toward Transcendent Bliss

Buddhists believe "freedom from 'fetters' obviously cannot be achieved by negative means only. By living toward the attainment of the right or truly liberating and joy-bringing desires that one attains the supraconsciousness, the bliss, that completely transcends and erases from everyday consciousness the kinds of desire that produce suffering."

Eightfold Path

Buddha employed the principle "desires whose indulgence will not result in increase of misery but rather in a decrease of it (or in entire doing away of misery) are desires that conduct steadily to salvation, the ultimate state in which all desires are swallowed up, even the desire for no desire" to devise the Nobel Eightfold Path, which is known as "the path that leads to no desire."

The eight steps for the path are "as follows:

Right belief; that is, belief in the Four Noble Truths and the view of life implied in them.

Right aspiration or purpose is reached by resolving to overcome sensuality, to have the right love of others, to harm no living being, and to suppress all misery-producing desires.Right speech and right conduct are defined are nonindulgence in loose or hurtful talk or in ill will.

Combined with step 3 includes one must love all creatures with the right sort of love in word and deed.

Right means of livelihood, choosing the proper occupation of one's time and energies.

Right effort, the untiring and unremitting intellectual alertness in discriminating between wise and unwise desires and attachments.

Right mindfulness through well-disciplined thought habits during long hours spent in attention to helpful topics.

Right meditation or absorption is the climax of all the other processes -- the final attainment of the trance states that are the advanced stages on the road to arahatship (sainthood) and the assurance of passage at death into Nirvana, the state of quiescence, all karma consumed and rebirth at an end forever."

Revival of Buddhism

In the past century, there has been a noticeable increase of Buddhism in Japan and southern Asia.

There are a number of speculations for the current revival including "the arrival from the West of a religion-Christianity-whose purpose it was to supplant the native religions, but whose missionaries in the very course of seeking more conversions provided the stimulus instead for Buddhism's revival; the rise of Asian nationalisms; the social revolution that has accompanied the growing industrialization of Asia; and social progress through human action have replaced resignation to fate (karma)."

Early Beliefs of Muslims

During the twelfth century, a "Hindu reformer-poet called Jaidev taught that the practice of religious ceremonials and austerities was of little value compared with the pious repetition of God's name."

Two hundred years later, "a reformer named Ramananda established a Vaishnavite bhakti sect that sought to purge itself of certain Hindu beliefs and practices. He excited great discussion by 'liberating' himself and his disciples both from accepted Hindu restrictions on social contacts between castes and from….....