BUDDHISM IN BRIEF
အားလံုးသိၿပီးသားအေၾကာင္းအရာေလးပါပဲ။ဒါေပမယ့္ လိုရင္းတိုရွင္းနဲ႔ ထိထိေရာက္ေရာက္ေလးေရးထားေတာ့ အေတာ္အသံုး၀င္ပါတယ္။
BUDDHISM IN BRIEF
Buddhism is not Logic, nor it is Philosophy or Metaphysics. It is not even a Religion, in a sense, that it does not have God – the eternal god that creates the Universe, & all the creatures that live in it. So, what then is Buddhism? To put it simply & plainly, Buddhism is a way of life. A way of life in living each & every day by disciplining oneself to : – 1. Not to do evil. 2. To do good deeds. 3. Purify one’s mind. When Prince Siddharta had left all the worldly goods & pleasures, to search for the eternal truth to end all the sufferings, the ever continuous cycle of birth – aging – death, life after life (sansara) he finally found the 4 Eternal Truths, & become enlightened as Gautama Buddha. The 1st 2 Truths that keeps spinning the endless cycle, & the last 2 Truths that finally brought the endless cycle to a total halt. It is greed (tanha) that keeps spinning the endless cycle, like gasoline that makes a car run. If there is no gasoline, the car will come to a halt. By eradicating or killing this greed, the endless cycle of existences will come to a halt. That is no more suffering or sorrow. Eradicating greed completely is the only way to stop the ever spinning cycle. But killing greed is not so easy, as greed comes in many shades & forms. It comes up as sex & money, which everyone knows. It also come in the form of hunger, thirst, comfort, enjoying luxuries, wanting to own, wanting more & more, accumulating money & wealth, craving for senses, clinging to senses & objects, and so forth. The more you can eradicate greed, the more peaceful you will be. If greed is totally & completely eradicated, then total bliss or peace will be achieved. This peace comes as greed is totally eradicated, and the endless cycles of existences will come to a halt forever. No more existences, so no more birth, aging, death. That means no more suffering. This is the state of Nirvirna. The 1st 2 Truths that spins the endless cycles are : – (1) Suffering ( endless cycles of birth, aging, death ) (2) Cause of suffering ( greed ) The last 2 Truths that brought the cycle to a halt are : – (3) Peace or bliss achieved after greed is eradicated. (4) 8 methods or ways of eradicating greed. Prince Siddharta believed that if there is suffering, and the cause of suffering, there must also be an end to this suffering, so he searched & meditated to find the method or way of ending the suffering.
It is called the 8 Paths of eradicating the cause of suffering (greed) : – (1) Correct Thought. (2) Correct Understanding (3) Correct Speech (4) Correct Action (5) Correct Livelihood (6) Correct Effort (7) Correct Mindfulness (8) Correct Concentration.
Practising these 8 Paths are included in the basic doctrine of mentioned : Not to do evil. To do good deeds. Purify one’s mind. All the sermons & canons that Buddha had preached, after his enlightenment, for the next 45 years are on this 3 topics only. So to summarise Buddhism, you just have to remember the 3 numbers only, 5 – 4 – 8 . 5 is the five Precepts. (Refrain from killing, stealing, adultery, lying, & intoxicants ) 4 is the Four Eternal Truths. 8 is the method or paths you will have to master in order to understand & realize the 4 Eternal Truths. ( Its as concise as I can to let you understand Buddhism ) Alfred Dun