What is the origin and spread of Buddhism?

Ashlee: What is the origin and spread of Buddhism?
Also, I was wondering what the basic teachings and beliefs of Buddhism are.

Answers and Views:

Answer by .
LAWL you said spread.

Answer by sandra b
Satan! Sad but true! Peace from Boise Idaho!

Answer by Pangel hugging the world
long story cut short
and from what I understand

Buddha was a prince ( siddhartha ) , dad kept him in the palace away from illhealth and old and sickness
Buddha got curious after seeing an old man
slipped out of the palace and wandered the land trying to understand things
spent many years under a tree meditating on the answers
only to realise that he would find nothing in one place

too much calm and silence brings no answers
too much wandering brings no answers
too much wealth brings no answers
too much poverty brings no answers

so he knew that there had to be a middle path
a balance
and so he spoke about this , and people wrote his words and finding
and Buddhism was born

Answer by CC
The origin was in present day India. The spread has been historically throughout Asia, and more recently, the west.

Answer by Yaya
What is now called “Western Buddhism” grew out of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s exile from Tibet, when his people wanted him to leave and escape death threats, while at the same time taking the message of Buddhism to the Western World.

The Four Noble Truths of the Buddha are:

1. All of life is suffering.
2. Suffering comes from desire.
3. There can be an end to desire.
4. The Eightfold Path leads to the end of desire.

The Eightfold Path of the Buddha includes:

1. Right views (accepting the Four Noble Truths)
2. Right intentions (selflessness and love)
3. Right speech (avoiding lies and maliciousness)
4. Right conduct (non-violence, honesty, temperance)
5. Right livelihood (work that doesn’t violate path)
6. Right effort (promote good and prevent evil)
7. Right mindfulness (attentiveness in thoughts and actions)
8. Right concentration (meditation)

Hope this helps!

Answer by Tahuti Reincarnate
Buddhism originated out of Hinduism with the teachings of the ascetic mystic and nobleman Siddhartha, about 1000 years BC. The teachings are not as much a religion, but a series of methods and tricks to “awaken,” which is called Obtaining Enlightenment. The highest ideal in Buddhism is to be truly and completely awake.

Answer by Vega
Buddhism is generally thought to originate in India, then spread to Asia mostly through China, Japan, Korea.

Its philosophies are a lot like other religion. It’s mediation practices are a lot like prayers. There is a core belief that there is a lot of suffering in the world. The suffering comes from cravings of attachment to worldly pleasures. The suffering ends when one frees him/her of these desires. You become free. Then you won’t be bounded by society’s pressure or needs for narcassist fulfilment. You reach a state of enlightment call bodi.

Buddism doesn’t really focus on praying to a higher being. It believes in karma and recarnation. So you see monks that have committed to enlightment by trying to end all suffering. They are vegetarians. They live in a monastary temple which is walled up. And meditate to clear their minds of any personal desire. The only focus is to reach full enlightment. They shave their heads to remove any narcassist feelings to their body.

Go visit a monastary and you’ll find how peaceful it is. You don’t have to buy into the whole practice and deeper philosophy. But take away the core belief that we shouldn’t be so caught up with our needs. It doesn’t take much to be content. Meditation helps calm you down. Also take a look at the movie “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” – director kim ki-duk to visualize what buddism is about. Really cool film.

Answer by bo k
Buddhism sees endless life cycles as suffering because we have little control over what is going on. The problem is that if we do not want to get involved in that anymore, there is no way out. Like it or not we will be going on and on and on forever. We might die in the present life, but we will carry on in the next life.

There are four great laws in Buddhism that address the above problem.

1.Law of suffering
Whether we are having pleasure or displeasure, this is suffering.
The reason is that pleasure and displeasure are coming and going all the time and we can do little about it.

2.The law of potential energy
Attachment to pleasure creates positive energy.
Anger to displeasure creates negative energy.
Both positive and negative energy keep us going with our life cycles.
These energies can be assumed as potential (Karma) energies of life cycles.

3.The law of stability
There is a stable existence in which we can be free of pleasure and displeasure.
This existence is known as nivirna.

4.The law of neutrality
It is possible to stay neutral whenever we meet pleasure and displeasure.
By doing so, we will not generate potential energies anymore and our life cycles will come to a stop as a result.
The practice of staying neutral is known as ‘Eightfold Noble Pathway’

Buddhist practice can be summarised with mnemonics ‘ABCDE’.

A = Attention
It is the very first step. We need to direct our attention to analyse mental objects.

B = Breathing
Breathing is the very first mental objects that attention will focus.

C = concentration
We need to train our attention to be consistent until the concentration develops.

D = DIY
Buddhist practice is the DIY (Do it yourself) job. Nobody can do it for us. We need to rely on our own effort.

E= Enlightenment
Awaiting at the end of the practice is enlightenment. Enlightenment means we have understood mind and matter relationship. We also achieved control over choosing mental objects of our choice. The Law of Uncertainty does not apply to us anymore.

Answer by Tommy H
Here is some short articles about how Buddhism started:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/from-royalty-to-asceticism-4423.html
https://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/on-the-path-to-buddhahood-4982.html

Meditation in the Falun Gong has many benefits from good health to inner peace to enlightenment. The practice consists of meditation, reading scripture, karma transformation, moral character improvement, and spiritual development.

Falun Gong was found in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi in China. About 100 million followers like the practice in over 80 countries worldwide. Falun Gong is an ancient practice for the body, mind, and spirit based upon the universal principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. Falun Gong consists of five sets of powerful exercises. Both books and meditation demonstration video are free to download from the URL listed below.

Falun Gong, Tibetans, other Buddhists, and Daoists have been persecuted in China. The most offensive human right violation is the organ harvesting from the Falun Gong practitioners in China. Can you kindly sign a petition to stop persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, please ?
https://cipfg.org/en/news/petition.html

Answer by BuddhistMango
Is that all? Please make less open ended questions next time:

Well buddhism is a very logical religion. A lot of the great ideas in buddhism are often lost in mystical mumbo jumbo, theres little to no mysticism in buddhism.

There has never been a religious war in the name of buddhism in all of history and buddhism is 500 years older than christianity.

It started with a man who was born of royalty. A prophet claimed that he would either be a great ruler or a powerful religious man. His father wanted the first come true so he cut him off from the world and any form of suffering. He lavished riches, women, and other things upon him but one day the prince this man – named siddhartha gautama wanted to go outside the palace. His father cleaned up the street so it too would appear wondeful as the palace did. However while he was out he saw one elderly person, one sick person, and one dead. He asked his cart driver what these things were, as he had never heard of or experienced them before.

He then realized it doens’t matter who you are, all of these things happen to every person and we are all equal on this basis, no matter how much we do we will all end up the same. So he ran away and lived a life of deprevity for many years until he was just a skeleton. A woman from a local village nursed him back to health and while meditating under a bodhi tree he achieved enlightenment and then created the four noble truths that lead to the middle way.

1. Life is frought with suffering (this is the correct version of the first noble truth – it is not ‘life is suffering’.

For you see we can’t escape it, happiness is very fleeting. If you want a new car, to eat at your favorite resteraunt, or a new pair of shoes that can make you happy – but it’s not permanent it will leave and gain you will return to a state of unhappiness wishing for something else to fill that void (this is speaking on a very general level – realize)

2. We suffer because we grasp for things

As i explained about we search for happiness outside of ourselves – hoping that some inanimate object will make us happy but it won’t. Now this doesn’t mean abandon all material posessions and live in a box in the woods. No, you can still take simple pleasure from these items but realize and do not delude yourself into thinking that you can always be happy with only these things or that these things will make you happy forever.

3. We can end this suffering, it is not inevitable

This perhaps sounds like a waste of a noble truth. But basically this is about hope. We are not doomed, we can save ourselves. We can realize that we already have everything we need inside of ourselves to be happy and that we can change – its never too late.

4. The way to do this is by the middle way or the eightfold path

The middle way i can best explain by goldilocks and the three bears. This porrige is too hot, this porrige is too cold – this one is just right. Live your life by just right. The eightfold path is another story of explanation – message me if you would like to know about it.

Other ideas in buddhism are the ideas of impermanence as nothing lasts forever. Also the concept of no-self which does not mean that we don’t exist but merely that we exist in a dependent fashion. No person could live alone without anyone else we all need each other. We all make up some part of the universal puzzle. we’re starting to realize just how much this is true with things like global warming and ecological issues.

Theravadan was the first school to emerge after the historical buddha’s death (shakyamuni). This school is comprised of monks and nuns, is very strict, they have 10 precepts instead of the 5 the rest of us follow. The theravadan school is sometimes called Hinayana as a derrogatory term. Yana means vehicle. Hina means smaller or lesser – because Theravadan carries the smallest population of all buddhists. It’s also supposedly the slowest way to enlightment. Mostly they read scriptures, work, and take care of festivals and holidays for the local town.

Mahayana – yana again meaning vehicle. Maha means larger or greater vehicle as most people are mahayana. There are also many smaller sects within Mahayana for example Zen. Practictioners of Mahayana don’t have to radically change their lives you can do anything you want you don’t have to be a monk or a nun as long as you follow the 5 precepts and understand teachings and always practice. Meditation is a large part of this to. However as within Mahayana there are smaller sects beleifs vary even more. This is a slightly faster way to enlightenment than the Hinayana. They focus on incoorperating buddhism into daily life and helping others.

Vajrayana – vajra means diamond or lightning. So the diamond vehicle because its indestructable or the lightning vehicle because it moves quickly. Yes Vajrayana is considered the quickest way to enlightment but you are required to have a teacher for this. The practice