Buddhism ( Part 1)

Introduction

Buddhism arose out of atheistic strands of Hinduism current in India in the sixth century B.C. Gautama, called the Buddha ("Enlightened One"), is said to have discovered that both the life of luxury and the life of extreme asceticism were of no use in gaining spiritual freedom; thus he propounded the "Middle Way." His teaching, however, was to undergo many transformations.
Buddhism became a great missionary religion and eventually all but died in its native India. The Mahayana school, which developed a grandiose cosmology and a pantheon of semi-deities, is to be found in China, Korea, and Japan; the Therevada school, which is more austere, flourishes in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Burma, and southeast Asia. Zen is technically a Mahayana sect but has closer affinities with Therevada. All have their proponents in the West.

God

There is no absolute God in Buddhism, although many have interpreted Buddhism as a search for God. The Buddha did not deny the existence of God outright but said that the question of His existence "tends not to edification." That is, those seeking enlightenment need to concentrate on their own spiritual paths themselves rather than relying on an outside support. The Buddha did not claim divinity or even a divine source for his teachings. He saw himself as only an example to fellow monks and compared his teachings to a raft that should be left behind once the other side of the river has been reached.
Many Buddhists believe the existence of suffering and evil in the world is evidence against belief in God.
Although belief in an ultimate God is opposed by nearly all Buddhists, the Mahayana school developed notions of the Buddha as still existing for the sake of men and propounded the existence of many semi-divine beings, who came to be represented in art and have been revered in ways very similar to worship of Hindu gods.

Man and the Universe

Both the beginning and the ultimate nature of the world are left unexplained by the Buddha--once again, those questions are not helpful to consider. The Mahayana school speculates unsystematically about a vast series of heavens, sort of half-way houses on the road to nirvana. But in the end even those heavens are illusory. Mahayanist teaching at least implies that the powers of the universe will see to it that all creatures will eventually find salvation. Buddhism does begin with an analysis of the world of appearances and especially of man. As with Hinduism, Buddhism sees the cycle of reincarnation as shot through with pain, largely because life is characterized by impermanence.
The Buddha added the notion that all creatures, including man, are fictions: there is really no "self," only a series of occurrences that appear to be individual persons and things. Once the so-called person is broken down into his component parts and his different actions and attitudes analyzed during the course of time, it is seen that there is really nothing holding it all together. (The question of how there can be both reincarnation and striving for salvation without a self has occupied Buddhist philosophy from the start.) The notion of no self is difficult, and much effort is spent trying to grasp it fully.