Buddha, the Founder  

Buddha, the Founder
Symbols of Buddhism
Buddha and Christ, Gautama a "rebel", like Jesus
 

 

Buddha, the Founder:

    Buddhism was founded in India, 528 BC, by Siddhartha Gautama known as "Buddha" (the enlightened one). His devotees also call him "Bhagara" (Lord), and "Tathagata" (True-Winner).

    Gautama (563-483), was a Prince born in Lumbini near Nepal, where the legend says he had 40,000 dancing girls at his disposal... but he wander around the palace and he met successfully with "an old man begging for alms, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk"... he was so impressed that on his 29th birthday he left palace, his wife and child and started to search for the cause of suffering and to find peace and happiness, following two yoga masters, then as a begging monk with severe asceticism... finally, at age 35, he went near Benares and for 7 weeks he meditated under a fig tree, or a pipal tree, until he found "in a flash" his way, and became Buddha, the enlightened one, under the "Bodhi tree", or "Bo tree" (wisdom tree)... and life's problems were no longer an enigma to him!.

    He died of dysentery at age 80, upon eating some poisoned mush-rooms at the home of Cunda the smith... he did not blame Cunda for the mush-rooms, but rather his last command was that his companions tell Cunda that all of the meals he had eaten in his life two stood out as exceptional blessings. One was the meal under the Bo tree; the other the mush-rooms which were opening to him the final gates to Nirvana.

    Most people say his body was cremated, but archaeologists have recovered a huge sandstone casket near Kapilvastu, India, and the inscription shows they are the mortal remains of Gautama Buddha (his skeleton).

    Much of Buddha's life is legend, but one gets the impression to meet a great one in the history of humanity. He is a combination of a cool head and a warm heart: One of the greatest rationalists, a master in dialogue, like Socrates... and on the other hand, with a Franciscan tenderness so strong as to have caused his message to be subtitled "a religion of infinite compassion". Like St. Francis of Assisi he claimed as his friends the sun, the moon, the birds and trees...

    His social and ethical teachings were much like those of Jesus Christ; the cemetery meditations of Buddha can be read in any Christian temple... all Buddhists love the Sermon on the Mountain in Matt.5-8... the central social thesis of Buddhism is love and compassion to all of nature's creation because they are sacred and deserving of life and respect.

    1- MANDALA: Symbolic diagram if the Universe. Mandala, Art Gallery
    2- WHEEL OF LIFE, Symbol depicting the Eigthfold path to Nirvana. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism the Wheel of Life is a symbolic representation of samsara, the continuous cycle of birth, life, death. One is liberated from this endless cycle of rebirth when Enlightenment is achieved, and with this goal, the Awakened individual has won Nirvana, moksha, samadhi, etc., the highest state of bliss that was long a part of Vedic tradition and continued into Buddhism with Gautama Buddha and Jainism with Mahavira. Liberation is the central goal of all three of the Dharmic religions. In Mahayana Buddhism the Wheel of Life is called Bhavachakra. Wheel   Wheel-2
    3- MANTRA, meditation chant.
    4- CHORTEN, or bell of wisdom.
    5- HAND PRAYER WHEEL (Tibetan).
    6- PRAYER BIDS (27 bids)
    7- THE 'LOTUS FLOWER' ON EARTH:
    It is a symbol of Buddhism: The "earth" represents our physical body, and the "flower", above the earth, is our enlightened mind. The unfolding of the blossom represents the development of spiritual awareness.
    - The lotus flower offers you peace on earth, and a escape from reincarnation... ending up in "nothingness"!, like a speck in the universe...
    - The Cross of Christ offers you the cleaning of all your bad karma, a glorious life on earth, and an eternal one in the real Heaven, as a person you are now, without any reincarnation.... You choose!

    Samsara and Karma:
    Buddhism developed initially in India as a reaction against Hinduism in the fifth century BC. It drew many of its beliefs from that religious context. Two key Hindu concepts that Buddhism uses are samsara and karma.
   Samsara: The continual cycle of death and rebirth. This death and rebirth is of course into this world of suffering, and this is viewed in a negative manner.
   Karma/Kamma: For Buddhism, as in Hinduism, this is the moral law of cause and effect. People build up karma (both good and bad) as a result of their actions. This then determines the state of existence to which one is reborn after birth. In Buddhism, the different levels can include humans or animals in this world.
   Like Hinduism, Buddhism holds that life is a series of rebirths and "redeaths" in a continuous cycle of reincarnations and that a person's actions during a life produce karma that determines the place and form of the next life (and sometimes even succeeding lives). In Buddhism, samsara is often symbolized by the Wheel of Life:

Buddha was a "rebel" like Jesus:    

- Jesus sought to soften the Judaic emphasis on strict obedience to the Law and regulations; Buddha sought to remove much of the supernatural of Hinduism, the gods, the complicated rituals, magic prayers, superstitious beliefs and practices...

- As Jesus, fastening in the wilderness, was approached by Satan, so Gautama was tempted by Mara, the spirit of evil and enemy of liberation, with his 3 sons, Confusion, Gaiety, and Pride, and his 3 daughters, Lust, Delight, and Thirst.

    For Gautama, "life" is to be lived on Earth, not in Heaven... and Nirvana is not a place, but a state of mind in witch one is released from fear and desire, living in love and compassion here on Earth, without ever mentioning God, the soul, the after-death... only the chance of not re-incarnating again when the full Nirvana is obtained, may be after many reincarnations and the hard work of a monk with vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, or after the full enlightenment of a laymen...
    For Jesus, to live this life on Earth is the glorious adventure of a "new life" in Christ, and Christ in the Christian, full of love, joy and peace, as the children of a very personal and compassionate God, with fear to nobody and to nothing, because God is in the Christian... and with a real eternal Heaven after death, without any re-incarnation... a Heaven or a Hell for everybody, Christian or Buddhist or Hindu, like it or not, believe it or not!.

    Gautama denied, by indirection, the existence of the intangible all-pervading Brahman, but he did not denied the existence of many gods... but they are not God, they can not make stars nor atoms nor insects, they are rather creatures with very human attributes, subject to human burdens, and needing to be saved as well as men.

    - Gautama Buddha was never prophesied
    -Jesus Christ was prophesied thousands of years before his birth, 1,093 prophecies and types of each book of the OT fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his church

    - Gautama never climed to br God, and never made miracles.
    - Jesus claimed to be God and made many miracles.

     - "Gautama Buddha" died and he did not resurrect. His body was cremated, though  archaeologists recently have recovered a huge sandstone casket near Kapilvastu, India, and the inscription shows they are the mortal remains of Gautama Buddha.
    - "Jesus Christ" resurrected, He is God!... and He is at your side right now... if you believe in Him, now, all your bad karma, your bad deeds deeds are erased, you have a "new life", with Jesus in you... and eternal glorious Heaven after death, as the person you are, but glorified... without any reincarnation!.