វត្តអម្ពវនារាម (Khmer Darwin)

Buddhist Idea About Life

Although Buddhism began about 2,500 years ago, the Teachings are still strong today, and there are growing numbers of students and Buddhists all around the world. This is not a tradition of the past, but a growing part of life in the modern world.

As a way of life, Buddhism aims to teach people how to grow in maturity and wisdom so that they may understand themselves better and learn more about the world in which they live. Many Buddhist studies teach about everyday life and how to cope with the events and situations common to all people. From this basic level, Buddhism aims to help its students develop attitudes towards life that will improve their relationships with family, friends and the people in our daily lives. Buddhist students also learn practices to develop their minds so that they can experience life in a true way, rather than as the mind imagines it to be.

Buddhists draw on the story of the Buddha who showed through His own experience that there is a way to end all suffering and attain supreme happiness. The Buddha's teachings, because of this great secret, offer Buddhists hope and the opportunity for a content and meaningful life.
Key Ideas in Buddhism

• The Spirit of Free Inquiry
  The spirit of free inquiry is an important feature of Buddhism. The Buddha encouraged people to investigate the truth of His Teachings for themselves before accepting his ideas. He never expected people to practise His Teaching out of 'blind faith' and superstition, but instead encouraged a free spirit of questions and contemplation. Buddhists believe that people should accept and practise Teachings and lifestyles they find, through their own experience, to be physically and mentally beneficial.
  

• Self-reliance
  Buddhism also stresses the importance of self-reliance and individual effort. There are the two main ways that Buddhists focus on self-reliance. Firstly, each person must work out for themselves the way to end their own suffering and attain happiness. And secondly, it is up to each person to realise that it is their own actions that determine their future. In Buddhists thinking, each individual's destiny is not determined by an outside power but by the way we live our own lives and our personal attitudes to suffering, happiness and the world around us. This means that every one of us is responsible for our own actions. Every one of us can progress or develop only as much as our own efforts allow. Buddhists learn that dedication, self-discipline and wise judgment are the keys to reaching the highest goals in life.

• Tolerance
  Because Buddhism respects the right of all people to inquire freely and to make their own choices, it also teaches tolerance toward other faiths and ways of life. Buddhist students are taught to live in harmony with everybody, regardless of race or religion.

• Loving-kindness and Compassion
  All living things are equal to a Buddhist. Universal loving-kindness, (a gentle and warm approach to life) together with a compassionate attitude, are the main ways that Buddhists accept not only other people, but all other creatures. All living things, humans and animals alike, share the same environment — we are all part of the same world, as we know from learning about the environment and about nature. If people want to live happily, Buddhism teaches that we must each have concern for the welfare of the other living things that we are here sharing the world with.

• Buddhism and Science
  There is no conflict between the discoveries of science, even in the modern technological world of today, and the ancient teachings of the Buddha. Buddhists agree that many things He taught about 2,500 years ago have actually been proven by science! The importance of the power of the mind, the impermanence of things — even breakthroughs that seemed incredible to science like the divisibility of the atom, the relativity of matter and energy and the structure of the universe were all taught by the Buddha even before science. A Buddhist does not ignore the facts that science teaches about mankind and the universe, but learns that modern thinking often has ancient roots.

          Source: www.buddhanet.net