Retrieve Purchased Essay
Donate Your Essay
Contact Us
Retrieve Your Essay
Essays 1
Essays 2
Essays 3
Essays 4
Essays 5
Essays 6
Essays 7
Essays 8
Essays 9
Essays 10
Essays 11
Essays 12
Essays 13
Essays 14
Essays 15
Essays 16
Essays 17
Essays 18
Essays 19
Essays 20
Essays 21
Essays 22
Essays 23
Essays 24
Essays 25
Essays 26
Essays 27
Essays 28
Essays 29
Essays 30
Essays 31
Essays 32
Essays 33
Essays 34
Essays 35
Essays 36
Essays 37
Essays 38
Essays 39
Essays 40
Essays 41
Essays 42
Essays 43
Essays 44
Essays 45
Essays 46
Essays 47
Essays 48
Essays 49
Essays 50
Essays 51
Essays 52
Essays 53
Essays 54
Essays 55
Essays 56
Essays 57
Essays 58
Essays 59
Essays 60
Essays 61
Essays 62
Essays 63
Essays 64
Essays 65
Essays 66
Essays 67
Essays 68
Essays 69
Essays 70
Essays 71
Essays 72
Essay on Japan Religion1 | ||
|
This is the first 1,000 characters of 1843 words (7.37 pages) in the essay titled Japan Religion1 Buddhism is the Japanese religion that comes closest toparalleling Christianity, because of its concern for the afterlife and salvation of the individual. In this it shows its origin in India, a region that in religious and philosophical terms is more like the West than East Asia. The historical Buddha started with the basic Indian idea of a never-ending cycle of lives, each determining the next, and added to this that life is painful, that its suffering is caused by human desires. However, these desires can be overcome by the Buddha’s teaching, freeing the individual for painless merging in Nirvana, or “nothingness.” As the teaching grew, it came to stress reverence for the “Three Treasures,” which were the Buddha, the “law” written in a book much like our Bible, and the religious community, or the monastic organization. The branch of Buddhism that spread throughout East Asia is called Mahayana, or the “greater vehicle,” which contrasts another belief called Theravada, or the “doctrine of the elders.” Mahayana taught salvation into a paradise that seems closer to the Western concept of Heaven than to the original Buddhist Nirvana. It also emphasized the worship, not just of the historical Buddha, but of myriad Buddha-like figures, including Bodhisattvas, who had stayed back one step short of Nirvana and Buddhahood in order to aid the salvation of others. In Japan, Mahayana Buddhism developed three major emphases. One appearing in the nin... |
||
To continue reading the complete essay right now, you must do the following:
|
| |||
|
Keywords: mahayana buddhism, buddha, sentient beings, east asia, human desires, nirvana, bodhisattvas, japan, western paradise, lotus sutra, thirteenth centuries, japanese religion, philosophical terms, western concept, amida, theravada, religious community, animal life