The Transformation From Ancient Buddhism To Modern Buddhism

Religion & Theology
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The Transformation from Ancient Buddhism to Modern Buddhism
Introduction
Buddhism religion is over 2,500 years old and has its roots from India. The religion started as a sway religion of the Hindu in India. Most details explaining Buddha's life and the original teachings are presented in most of the 1st Century BC Buddhist scriptures and are very important in understanding the Chinese Buddhism development. The founder of the Buddhism religion was known as Gautama Buddha who lived between 600-400 BC. After his demise, Buddha together with his followers did not leave behind any writings, but his and teachings, as well as rules for monastic life, were memorized as consequently passed down from generation to another through an oral tradition (Sharf 2002a). This continued until the first Buddhism scriptures were recorded in writings in around 2nd Century BC. The oral tradition method was not efficient and could have been corrupted. Straight away after the written scripture were made available in the second Century BC, they were brought to China.
Background Information
The Buddhism religion boasts over 376 million followers across the globe. Buddhism tradition focuses majorly on the spiritual development of an individual as the teachings strive to achieve answers by supplying a quest into the true nature of life. The religion does not worship any gods or deities. Buddhism religion is based on The Four Noble Truths. These Four Noble Truths are concerned on only the teachings of Buddha. The belief is that these four truths were presented to Buddha while he was meditating under a sacred tree called the Bodhi tree. They are, “the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering and lastly the truth of the path to the ending of suffering or ‘Magga.’” Immediately Buddha composed these truths, he rose and said “I teach suffering, its origin, cessation, and path. That's all I teach” (Amstutz 1998).   His statement meant that he teaches how suffering begins, how the process ends, and finally where one goes when it ends only and nothing more that. During my research on one of the greatest religion, I have already established many things that need to be studied at in depth. My objective is restating all I have learned about this vast religion and eventually go into more profundity with it. This paper will be about one the fascinating religions to ever exist. It will discuss Buddhism’s early times and how it eventually became what it is in the modern era. I am also going to go into the relations and the changes that occurred over time in this religion and consequently what makes it great.
Origin of Buddhism: Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Buddhism started from Siddhartha Gautama childhood experiences. He was troubled, and started to question and wonder about very many things like everyone does today. Not long before he got a revelation; and he experienced what is called today as the Four Sights. He constantly got destructions from his palace life, and he decided to know about the outside world, and thus he decided to seek an answer to the meaning of life outside his palace, and th...