Using Buddhism in Todays Modern World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Using Buddhism in Todays Modern World - Essay Example many an(prenominal) people associate Buddhism with totally figures of things, i.e. incense, bald monks, temples, the figure of Buddha sitting with a benign smile on his face, chanting, vegetarianism, and so forth I know this to be the case be start out these are words and images I get whenever I ask people to free-associate on the word Buddhism. One person even associated Buddhism with liquor because he had just gone the night before to a place called Buddha bar What all these shows are instances of an total person on the street having all sorts of preconceptions just about Buddhism. Even those who have read little about it have all sorts of misconceptions about it, conceiveing that Buddhism is pessimistic for emphasizing on suffering, or that Buddhism is a religion that regards the Buddha as a god. What I want to do in this paper is to go beyond the rituals and international trappings of Buddhism in order to touch the deep er core of the teachings. This will help me understand how Buddhism could help us cope with lifes struggles in todays modern world. At the heart of Buddhism is The quadruplet Noble Truths (Hanh 9). This is the very foundation of Buddhist teachings, which differentiate it from other religions. These teachings say that (1) human existence is characterized by suffering, (2) that there is a cause for suffering, (3) that there is a way out of suffering through the reasoning by elimination of its cause, and (4) that there is a path leading to the cessation of suffering (Hanh 9-11). In most Buddhist texts, it is express that the cause of suffering is trishna or craving (Bercholz and Kohn 64). We suffer because we have too many wants and needs. We own a cell phone but soon grow dissatisfy with it as soon as a new model comes along we own a car but soon get dissatisfied with it because we desire a better, faster or much luxurious model we have a absolutely good relationship with someone but then look for someone else because we want something new and more exciting. All these desires inevitably lead to suffering because we cannot possibly fulfill them all. In the end, we get utterly frustrated. Actually, if we think about it hard enough, there are many causes of suffering, since there are many types of suffering. The suffering that results from viral infection that makes you sick is not due to desire but to the presence of a virus that has infect you. Some other forms of suffering that do not have desire as their root cause would be a headache, a toothache, a broken limb, and various other physical pains. These forms of suffering, which are all physical, are to be distinguished from other forms of suffering which are mental. Examples of mental suffering would be depression, worry, jealousy, regret, anxiety, etc. Between the two general forms of suffering, it is the mental type of suffering that the Buddhism tries to address because they believe that this is the mor e sober type of suffering. When you are sick with a fever, you can make yourself feel better by changing your attitude about your sickness to a rather positive light. However, if you are suffering from some sort of mental anguish, it does not quite help if you work on the body. In fact, people do not commit suicide because of a toothache, but there are those who would commit suicide because of a heartache. The quality of The Mind What we need to understand at this point is that the mind plays a very big section in human suffering. We need to understand this very clearly if we want to get a glimpse of the heart of Buddhist teachings. Here, we emphasize on the importance of ones attitude or republic of mind with regards to the experience of happiness and suffering (Smith 245). If we think about it close enough, we should also come to the close that our state of mind also affects other peoples happiness or suffering. Here is an sheath to illustrate this point. Suppose you have j ust received word that the backpack which you lost in instruct was finally found with everything intact.