Religion of Buddhism

According to the dictionary, religion is a noun defined as the quest for the values of the ideal life. The above definition is vast and general, allowing people from all cultures to interrupt it differently. There is not a single path to follow to lead an ideal life, only your personal beliefs and experiences. Religion is a non-infinite, so there is not a concrete boundary. In my lifelong quest for a true understanding of what religion is I explored my own traditions, life experiences, as well as my religious beliefs. Slowly, with the added insight from the text, my own definition of religion has begun to take shape.

Religion is based on beliefs and how people react to them. Meditation, prayer, and tradition are all intangible behaviors. Although many rituals of religion are "occurrences," the social segment is a lifestyle. Also, to this point the reason of religion as being founded to understand and answer important questions about feelings of life and death.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss sacred communities, sacred reality as proclaimed by the three traditions (Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity), phenomenological approach, Joseph Campbell's understanding of the four functions of myth, and religion & society. Each of the areas discussed is in response to a particular statement or question concerning that area. In each section of the paper, the question or statement is first presented and this is followed by a discussion of the pertinent literature in my perspectives from a phenomenological point of view.

When I think of the sacred communities I think of the reading of The Swedenborgian Church. I have found that the concepts of church, sect, and cult can be used in the understanding of the rise and development of the religious group. The church classifications describe religions that are all-embracing of religious expression in a society. Religions of this type are the guardians of religion for all members of the societies in which they are located. They also strive to provide their beliefs of Emanuel Swedenborg's (1688-1772) political and economic structures of society.

A sect is defined as a newly formed religious dedicated to protesting elements of its parent religion. In these new religious groups they are considered sects because they are break-away groups although, this is by no means always the case. Most of the well-known denominations in the U.S. that exist today originated as sects breaking away from mainstream denominations. Some of the examples would be Methodists and Baptists.

In all of these new religions there was a point in time, when they broke off, that they could have been seen as a cult. Especially if they were founded by a charismatic leader with claims that he/she has had a new revelation from God. It is this revelation which distances itself from other mainstream religions and increases tensions within its wider culture. The characteristic that most distinguishes cults from sects is that cults are not advocating a return to pure religion, but rather embracing something new or something that has been completely lost or forgotten as opposed to sects that focus on an area of the parent religion that becomes the centerpiece of their practices.

I read about sacred reality as proclaimed by the three traditional roles played by Moses, the Buddha, and Jesus and their relationships to sacred reality, I found some similarities and differences between these founders. The biggest similarity of the three was that they were all teachers of their own religious ways.

Moses became the first rabbi ("teacher). He receives the word from God in written and oral Torah to interpret the commandments. The Buddha was sacred as the teacher of the truth about human existence or someone who has attained enlightenment. The Buddha was not the "instruction "of God, but rather the insight of a master of meditation into the essential nature of all things. Jesus is known as the "son of God" and the servant of God whom Hebrew tradition had led "word", of God. God had sent Jesus to spread the word so all the believers would not perish but have eternal life.

The difference I found in my readings of their sacred objects. Moses represented the prophetic tendency, Jesus was sacramental, and the Buddha was mystical. One of the sacred objects for the Buddha was "meditation". This was designed to free oneself; help someone focus on the non-essentials, and to help one's concentration. Jesus' sacred object was the bread and wine of the Holy Communion. Most Christians find when they take the bread it represents the body of Christ and the wine represents the blood of Jesus which is the sacrifice he made to protect us from evil.

When I think of evil I think of the five classic approaches of theodicies that are explanations for the problem of evil which happens whenever people perceive a contradiction between facts of ordinary experience and the reality suggested by their beliefs of sacred. The four approaches are Evil and Karma, The Consolation of Promise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, The Appeal to Sovereignty, Dualism, and Free Will. The evil and karma approach talks about how each person's destiny is depended upon karma. Karma signifies the moral "weight" of one's action. It's worked out through a long process of birth, death, and rebirth of a cycle of existence. Their goal is to reach enlightenment which is called nirvana in the Buddhist tradition. The consolation of promise is when evil will be overcome in a future time, suffering will end, and its purpose will be made clear. The appeal to sovereignty from an individual standpoint is that there is no solution to the problem of evil. There is only God. Dualism is the result of a conflict between good and evil powers, in which both of them are part of sacred reality. People describe this as God and Satan. The last one is free will in which one self has the freedom to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, and this explains why people do evil things.

After I think of each one of these approaches to evil I feel that I don't spend much time thinking about evil, but in my opinion I know evil does exist. Today most people see evil as an act of horror or something that is not kind to one another. On the other hand some people are taught that if they kill others in a suicide bomb then they will go to their sacred place. I find it hard to believe that people could believe in that, but I guess it's their choice and have to live with it.

I find that The Consolation of Promise most compelling because I feel most people believe that if they do something wrong then they will go to hell. It gives people the hope that if they do what is right then they will overcome