What is Buddhism?

After the question and answer session with my daughter about what happens when we die, I began finding out more about Buddhism.

To many of us, it is a religion.

Wikipedia defines "Buddhism is a religion... ... insights to help sentient beings end their suffering (dukkha) through the elimination of ignorance (avidyā) by way of understanding and the seeing of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) and the elimination of desire (taṇhā), and thus the attainment of the cessation of all suffering, known as the sublime state of nirvāņa.^[2]"

However, it is a form of education or teaching rather than a religion and I shall explain further in future blog post (so, do subscribe to my blog to find out). Like what Wikipedia above had mentioned, it is the teaching of Siddhartha Gautama after he gained enlightenment to become Shakyamuni Buddha.

I am fortunate to be in Singapore where Buddhism educational materials like newsletters, magazines and even Sutras with translation and explanations are distributed freely. These materials can be found in Buddhist temples, vegetarian restaurants, Buddhist societies and also some retail stores. In addition, I'm bilingual and is fluent in both English and Chinese, spoken and written. This makes getting my research materials in the subject of Buddhism relatively easy. In fact, it become quite overwhelming and soon, my car boot was filled with so much reading material on Buddhism that, frankly, I had a hard time. By the way, there are 84,000 ways to gain enlightenment and become a Buddha. This is because all of us have different level of wisdom, compassion, skills and environment to learn, understand and practice. It is like the saying "Every road leads to Rome" with some roads being a highway and others, mountainous terrain or desert sand tracks.

So, what is the difference between a Buddhism being a religion and education?

To me, Buddha is a teacher (education) not a supreme being we pray to (religion). Yes, we do pay respect to Buddha, just like we pay respect to our teachers for imparting us with the knowledge. This is because there is no creator, savior or God in Buddhism. Progress on the path to enlightenment is not dependent on an external force but on one's own effort. Buddhist cosmology does not recognize the existence of heavenly realms, and the divine beings living there are very similar to what people would associate with gods. However, because of the all-encompassing law of impermanence, even these exalted beings are subject to passing away and being undergo rebirth. There is no escape from the law of karma and they are still caught in the cycle of birth and death.