Which things do Buddhists do differently to those of other religions?
Answer:
by: Venerable Nicolas Thanissaro
Buddhists are taught to show the same tolerance, forbearance, and
brotherly love to all men (people, ed.), without distinction and an
unswerving kindness to the members of the animal kingdom.
The universe was evolved, not created; and it functions according to law, not according to the caprice of any god.
The truths upon which Buddhism is founded are natural. They have, we
believe, been taught in successive kalpas, or world periods, by certain
illuminated beings called Buddhas, the word Buddha meaning enlightened.
The fourth Teacher in the present kalpa (aeon) was Sakyamuni or
Gautama Buddha, who was born in a royal family of India about 2,500
years ago. He is an historical personage and his name was Siddhartha
Gautama.
Sakyamuni taught that ignorance produces desire (craving unsatisfied
desire is the cause of rebirth, and rebirth the cause of sorrow. To get
rid of sorrow, therefore, it is necessary to escape rebirth; to escape
rebirth, it is necessary to extinguish desire; and to extinguish
desire, it is necessary to destroy ignorance.
Ignorance fosters the belief that rebirth is a necessary thing. When
ignorance is destroyed, the worthlessness of every such rebirth,
considered as an end in itself, is perceived, as well as the paramount
need of adopting a course of life by which the necessity for such
repeated rebirth can be abolished.
Ignorance also begets the illusive and illogical idea that there is
only one existence for man (humankind), and the other illusion that
this one life is followed by states of unchangeable pleasure or torment.
The dispersion of all this ignorance can be attained by the
persevering practice of an all-embracing altruism in conduct,
development of intelligence, wisdom in thought, and destruction of
desire for the lower personal pleasures.
The desire to live being the cause of rebirth, when that is
extinguished, rebirths cease, and the perfected individual attains by
meditation that highest state of peace called Nirvana.
Sakyamuni taught that ignorance can be dispelled and sorrow removed
by the knowledge of the four Noble Truths, i.e.: the miseries of
existence the cause productive of misery, which is the desire (craving,
ed.), ever renewed, of satisfying oneself, without ever being able to
secure that end the destruction of that desire or the estranging of
oneself from it.
The means of obtaining this destruction of desire. The means which
he pointed out is called the Noble Eightfold Path: i.e.: Right Belief,
Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Means of Livelihood,
Right Exertion, Right Remembrance, Right Meditation. Right meditation
leads to spiritual enlightenment, or the development of that Buddha
like faculty which is latent in every man. The essence of Buddhism, as
summed up by the Tathagata (Buddha) himself, is "
'to cease from all sin, to get all virtue, to purify the heart'.
The universe is subject to a natural causation known as karma. The
merits and demerits of a being in past experiences determine his
condition in the present one. Each man (person, ed.), therefore, has
prepared the causes of the effects which he now experiences.
The obstacles to the attainment of good karma may be removed by the
observance of the following precepts, which are embraced in the moral
code of Buddhism: i.e.: (1) kill not; (2) steal not; (3) indulge in no
forbidden sexual pleasure; (4) lie not (5) take no intoxicating or
stupefying drug or liquor.
Five other precepts which need not here be enumerated should be
observed by bhikkhus and all those who would attain, more quickly than
the average layman, the release from misery and rebirth.Buddhism
discourages superstitious credulity. Gautama Buddha taught it to be the
duty of a parent to have his child educated in science and literature.
He also taught that no one should believe what is spoken by any sage, written in any book, or affirmed by tradition, unless it accords with reason. If I were a school student, I would be focussing on points 1. (no violence is allowed even in the name of one's religion), 2. (no creator god is needed to account for existence) and 9. (salvation is achievable by a man's own efforts in meditation).