Buddhism and Hinduism

The purpose of life is a subject that all religions must address. In Hinduism there are four recognized goals, or wants of man: pleasure, worldly success, duty, and liberation. The first two form the Path of Desire, and the second two form the Path of Renunciation. Although India is known for its asceticism, Hinduism does not scorn the pursuit of pleasure or worldly success. Rather, it holds that nothing can be gained by pretending that men do not have these desires or by forcing men to repress them. What is expected is that sooner or later men will tire of pleasure and realize that it alone cannot satisfy them because it is essentially private, and the self is "too small an object for perpetual enthusiasm." (Smith, 1958, p. 17)

The goal of success, with its three aspects of wealth,

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hy we must experience the world as painful and unfair if it is truly blissful and just. (Smith, 1958, p. 73) It is precisely this senseless suffering that Buddhism is most concerned with. The name "Buddha" means awakened or enlightened one, and the Buddha of the present age (there were 24 before him), is Siddhartha Gautama, born circa 560 B.C. in northern India. (Parrinder, 1963, p. 53) In his comprehensive book, The Religions of Man (1958), scholar Huston Smith characterizes Buddha's approach to religion as empirical, scientific, pragmatic, therapeutic, psychological, democratic, and directed toward the individual. It is empirical in that it uses direct personal experience as the final test for truth. It is scientific because it seeks to find the cause and effect relationships that order man's existence. It is pragmatic since it is exclusively concerned with problem-solving rather than with idle theological speculation. It is therapeutic in that its purpose is to ease suffering, as we will see with respect to the Four Noble Truths. It is psychological inasmuch as it begins with man and his phenomenal world, instead of beginning with the universe and working down to man's place in it. It is democratic because it is ope
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Approximate Word count = 2912
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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