Buddhism Is One of the World's Major Essay

Buddhism is one of the world's major religions -- yet many dispute whether it should be called a religion at all. Buddhism has been called a 'philosophy' as much as a faith, because of its non-theocratic nature. Although the Buddha is revered as a historical figure, and many Buddhist traditions invest his persona with a kind of miraculous power, it is not necessary to believe in a god or gods to be a Buddhist. Buddhism could be defined as a way of coping with some of the perplexing problems that all religions grapple with to some degree: injustice and suffering. In contrast to the caste system of India, which stressed how karma could determine the cycle of one's birth or rebirth, Buddhism stressed the adherent's need to escape from the endless karmic cycle and to find a sense of peace and detachment called Nirvana.

The first noble truth of Buddhism is the idea that there is suffering in the world. Because of this stress upon suffering, many have criticized Buddhism as a depressing religion. Buddhism, however, does not deny that there is joy in the world. In fact, the founder Siddhartha Gautama was born to very privileged circumstances.However, Buddhism holds that both joy and sorrow subjects humans to an endless rollercoaster of death and rebirth. Living at the extremes of pleasure and pain both cause people misery, because all joy is inevitably curtailed with a loss, given life's impermanence. By clinging to the notion of a stable, unchanging self and the need to remain in a state of happiness, all of us suffer. This is delusion because even the happiest person will meet with sickness, old age, and death. Nothing is permanent; particularly what we humans call happiness.

The second noble truth is that all of human suffering is rooted in desire. Because of the delusion of the ego, human beings constantly strive to fulfill their perceived unmet needs. This striving creates the illusion of progress, but really only mires us deeper in misery. Some of these desires are for things; other desires are to get rid of things. This grasping can even occur in religious practice, in which the believer feels he or she is never good enough, and constantly tries to….....