History of Buddhism (ASMR Bedtime Story)

hello everyone tonight we are sitting in grass near a river under the leaves of an old tree and everything is gone quiet except the sweet sound of the river and a light breeze that brings us the scent of lotus flowers this is the right time to relax and dive into another chapter of human history tonight i will tell you about the history of buddhism and what this religion or spiritual tradition is about how it appeared how it spread and diversified buddhism also questions the western concept of religion that we are quick to attribute to every spiritual beliefs tradition or rights so we will also discuss the term of religion and its history at the end we have a lot to explore tonight so please adopt a comfortable position and try to release the tension in your shoulders you are probably unaware of it right now but it is there and you don't need it do not hesitate to close your eyes and let yourself go if you feel sleepy you can always come back later there are timestamps in the comments pinned under this video and in this comment you will also find a link to spotify apple music and other audio streaming services if you prefer to listen to my stories there they are published without sound effects at the beginning and at the end if you prefer them this way and you will also find a link to patreon if you wish to sponsor this channel and get all the downloads and updates about future stories and now let's begin our journey at the origin of buddhism there are original teachings a tribute to a man a religious teacher who lived sometime between the 6th and 5th centuries bc in ancient india this man siddhartha gautama is not legendary he did exist but it is hard to distinguish what is historical and what is legendary in his life because to the buddhists he became the historical buddha a being that in our world reached the state of enlightenment that liberated him from suffering ignorance craving and from a never-ending cycle of rebirth he would have done it by dedicating his life to finding a path a path that culminated in nirvana the ultimate state of liberation was not really a prophet someone who would have announced or revealed divine truth he was even less a messiah in the buddhist tradition he is a guide and a model of what human beings can aspire to be a pioneer in a sense a spiritual explorer we will come back to his life but his teachings did not come out of nowhere they were deeply rooted in an intense spiritual activity that existed in india in the first millennium bc it was a time of intense questioning or speculation about the order of the cosmos self-knowledge and what beings became after their biological death to understand all these we have to look at what india was in terms of civilization society and beliefs at the time of the buddha india already had a long history before the 6th century bc it had seen several cultures civilizations rise and fall especially in the indus valley where about at the same time as in mesopotamia the early cities and complex societies had appeared the indus valley is located in the northwest of india and in pakistan little is known about how these societies worked their political life or their beliefs but what we know or at least it is a solid theory because it is backed by a lot of elements archaeology languages genetics among others what we know is that by the middle of the second millennium bc so a thousand years before the time of the buddha indian societies and religions were strongly influenced by the arrival of a migration wave coming from central asia the indo-aryan migration it happened over several centuries starting about 4 000 years ago and these indo-aryan peoples were an ethno-linguistic group meaning that they were ethnically and culturally related they shared cultural norms and languages and they left a very strong mark on india the language is spoken today from pakistan to bangladesh from north india to sri lanka in the south have indo-aryan origins the indo-aryans are apparently to the indo-european migration wave that is thought to have originated from the steps north of the caucasus mountains six thousand to seven thousand years ago and that over many centuries had a strong influence from the west of europe to india including all of eastern europe and the middle east i told you about it in several stories already from the cairns to the history of persia now the indo-aryan wave was a late one in the second millennium busy and it was a movement toward the south of people from the indo-european linguistic group who had settled before and stayed for a long time in central asia for centuries before moving south it seems that in india like in all other parts of the world where they arrive these indo-european migration waves had a strong influence on the regions where they settled we don't know the numbers exactly it is well possible that they were only a minority in these new lands where they arrived but it is believed that their social norms and their organization their beliefs or maybe their military capabilities had something hard to resist because in the north of india like in europe or in persia they prevailed over more ancient cultures in the case of india it is possible that indo-aryan chiefs provided protection to non-aryan populations living from agriculture establishing a hierarchy in which the indo-aryans became a kind of elite an elite that made alliances and mixed with the old elite and after generations converted to dominant class to their culture and language which then trickled down to the rest of the population these are all hypotheses but in any case the indo-aryan migrations reshaped indian societies they mixed with local elements and they gave birth to new cultures for example sanskrit the language that is also the sacred language of hinduism and a lot of historical texts of buddhism is one of the numerous indo-aryan languages it served as a link language in ancient and medieval south asia a bit like latin in roman and medieval europe by the middle of the second millennium the new indo-aryan kingdoms that had appeared in india especially in the north-west had a culture with new traits the society was organized in castes there were priests the brahmins warriors and nobles common people servants this system that places individuals in a caste depending essentially on their birth had very old roots in india it appeared in the second millennium bc it was abolished officially in 1949 that you cannot eliminate instantly such a deep-rooted phenomenon so it still has traces influences in a modern indian society religious beliefs and practices that dominated among indo-aryan peoples were based on a collection of texts called the vaders the vaders are today the most ancient scriptures of hinduism the religion that dominates in india by a number of believers but at the beginning this vedic religion vedic because based on the vaders was only one of the major traditions that shaped hinduism into what it became over the centuries it was believed and it is still believed in hinduism that vaders were revealed texts they had no waters their lines their verses had been heard by sages after intense meditation during the first millennium busy this historical vedic religion evolved into another cult called brahmanism brahmanism included other texts than the original vaders and gave a central role to the priestly class of the society the cast of the brahmins in the west historically brahmanism became a name for hinduism in the 18th and 19th centuries the two words were used interchangeably but the religion that historians call brahmanism have marked differences with modern hinduism it is only one of its main inspirations now over a millennium from the mid-second millennium to the mid-first millennium pc the time of the buddha this historical vedic religion went through a lot of changes and the introduction of new concepts the earliest texts the earliest vaders mentioned to believe in an afterlife a place or another dimension where people rather their spirits or their souls went after their earthly life but with time and probably the influence of local beliefs this evolved into a belief in the doctrine of karma and rebirth the idea of reincarnation the term karma is a popular one but what is karma exactly karma is a sanskrit word that means action work or deed good actions good deeds would contribute to good karma and the concept of karma is closely associated with the idea of rebirth in many indian religions including buddhism hinduism or sikhism good or bad karma in the present will affect one's future in this life as well as the nature and quality of future lives it is less known than karma but maybe you heard the term samsara another sanskrit word which means world and samsara names the belief in the cyclicality of all life of all existence the belief that all life goes through a cycle of death and rebirth in our world not in another world an afterlife samsara the cycle of reincarnation is a fundamental belief of most indian religions and it formed along the centuries as the historical vedic religion evolved when the historical buddha was born the concepts of karma of samsara the existence of the vaders as religious scriptures all of these were very widespread in indian societies where he lived and this is why this little historical perspective was necessary because these are not concepts born with buddhism they were rather embraced buddhism provided like a road map between concepts that people knew of but by the 6th century bc brahmanism was not the only aspect of religious or spiritual activity in india i told you earlier that there was a state of intense questioning and speculation about spirituality about the world the visible and the invisible what happened after death at the margins of brahmanism a lot of individuals try to explore or answer these mysteries of existence often isolating themselves from society to meditate and think many practiced asceticism that is to say the lifestyle of voluntary abstinence from sensual pleasures for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals typically ascetics adopt a very frugal lifestyle they reject material possessions and physical pressures of all kinds and they spend a lot of their time fasting and concentrating on the practice of religion or reflection on spiritual matters many believed that the action of purifying the body or reduce its needs was a way of finding an inner peace or a greater connection with the divine the practice of asceticism has been historically observed in many religions many traditions around the world but india could have been the place where it emerged first at least it is already mentioned in some vedic texts and these are the most ancient texts that talk about asceticism by the time of the buddha the practice was widespread in india it was still a marginal lifestyle of course but it was something relatively familiar common and it seems there was a belief that controlling one's vital functions the ability to be detached from one's body was a way of acquiring supernatural powers or reach a state of ecstasy of intense happiness another practice was yoga yet another sanskrit term yoga also was already ancient in the 6th century bc it was mentioned long before in invaders but it had become increasingly popular among acidists they believed that practicing a variety of techniques in particular physical and mental exercises that this was a way of strengthening one's mind and connect with the divine i'm telling you all this to illustrate the context in which the historical buddha was born the fact that a number of concepts like karma or samsara had appeared from the evolution and the mixing of all these influences indo-aryan and indigenous and that there was also a number of religious and spiritual practices that had become widespread and also that it was a time by the 6th or 5th century bc of spiritually further sense we could say for many people and probably more than at the same period in other parts of the world like china or in the mediterranean world spirituality beliefs divine where the single most important reason to live or the most important goal so now that we have the background in place let's talk about the life and achievements of siddhartha gautama it is very hard to distinguish facts from claims to just focus on the historical figure was he a real man the answer is most probably yes this is what almost all historians agree on because his teachings his followers all of this left a multiplicity of traces it is harder to know his dates of birth and death for example the traditional date for his death in the eastern buddhist tradition in china japan or korea is 949 bc more than 500 years earlier than what most historians believe a century ago the consensus was that he was born and lived in the 6th century bc now it is more during the 5th century bc it is likely that he was born in an aristocratic family and his place of birth is traditionally located to the very north of india in an ancient city called lumbini which would have been in modern nepal there is a consensus on the fact that he traveled to several places in the north of india along his life and according to all the various traditions he went through a sequence of stages after birth he reached maturity then a phase of renunciation to worldly possessions and pleasures to start a search that led to his awakening his liberation and after that a period of teaching that only ended with his death the dates and in many cases the places are hard to establish because no biographies or detailed accounts were written during his lifetime and not in the one or two centuries thereafter neither the ancient indians were generally and concerned with chronologies they focused more on philosophy and events the earliest written records are from the mid 3rd century pc with references carved on pillars the oldest known surviving manuscripts were found in afghanistan and they are from the 1st century bc this is already a dozen generations after his death as buddhism gained importance several biographies were written in the first centuries of our era they represent different traditions and do not necessarily agree on everything but from these different sources and historical research the following biography can be established after his birth in numbini gautama would have spent his childhood in capilovustu the city that could have been either in nepal or in india in the modern state of uttar pradesh both places at the same time belonged to the same state the territory of the shakia he could have been a prince later traditions tend to give him a very high social origin and the fact that he didn't have to work as a child supports this so much that his exact social origin is mysterious in the shackier tradition his mother was a queen queen maya and the night the daughter conceived she would have dreamt of a white elephant and ten months later he was born early biographies say almost nothing of the young gautama's life but later texts developed a dramatic narrative about prophecies made by brahmin scholars when he was born by priests announcing that young siddhartha would become the first buddha or tales about his discovery as a child of suffering by common people whereas he leave a luxurious spoiled life then one day when he was an adolescent or a young adult he chose to renounce to this life and seek a higher spiritual goal by becoming an ascetic earlier sources don't elaborate much on that they just depict that what led to his renunciation was the thought that his life would be subject to old age disease and death and that there may be something better than just wait for it to happen and try to forget this sad fate with material possessions or entertainment there would also have been the belief that household life was narrow a place of impurity whereas life as an aesthetic free and in the open could offer a purer freer holier kind of life legendary biographies add to this many anecdotes that are unverifiable for example that one day he would have left his palace and seen the outside world for the first time and he would have been shocked by his encounter with poor suffering people realities that he ignored until then he had been shielded from reality all that outside he encountered an ascetic who inspired him to become one too yet another one is that his parents opposed this departure he had been shielded from religious teachings because his father wanted him to become a king and not a priest so he escaped in the middle of the night in any case these narratives all lead to him drastically changing life and engaging in a spiritual quest with different experiments first he would have tried to join two different teachers of ascetic meditation but even though he quickly excelled at this at their techniques he was unsatisfied because he thought these practices did not lead to calm or for knowledge or awakening they were just a way of forgetting oneself rather than a mean of elevation and so he entered into a phase of extreme ascetic practices reducing his food intake drastically and imposing forceful mind control and forms of breath control upon himself the texts report that he became so skinny so emaciated that his bones were visible through his skin this extreme practice and the accompanying decay of his body led to a revelation that the right path to awakening was not in the extremes neither in self-indulgence nor in self-modification but rather between them in the middle way a path of moderation his notion of middle way is very important to buddhists of all traditions in understanding the teachings of the buddha first because it defines a spiritual practice that steers clear of extremes no exaggerated ascetism which is seen as a foolish quest for perfection that may well be inspired by egotism or a masochistic person and on the other hand no self-indulgence no intelligence for sensual physical pleasures which takes us away from the quest to awakening but beyond the practice it is also a call to react to other issues of existence and not fall into extremes like absolutism radical intolerance nihilism the middle way is the path that avoids these traps these blockings it is the path through which it is possible to advance rather than stay stuck and so after this discovery siddhartha gautama would have abandoned extreme aesthetism and reoriented his search the middle way was the discovery of a path not of the destination so it was time to follow this path he would have decided to sit down and meditate with the determination to not get up until full awakening legend has it that he would have seated under a body tree a sacred fig tree native to india located in the modern state of br in india and it is there after a long meditation called diana it is translated as meditation but diana describes the training of the mind a way to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to senses to clear it from distractions so that it can apprehend the world as it really is so this diana this meditation after a long time would have allowed him to awaken that is to say to see the true nature of reality to see the world as it is the author thus would have become a buddha an awakened one contrary to most people who are asleep to the true reality and with this awakening he would have reached liberation also called nirvana nirvana another sanskrit word is sometimes understood in the west as a state of full and peaceful satisfaction it is not exactly this it is a state of highest happiness yes of freedom but also a liberation from attachment attachment to everything feelings people possessions ego pain and this liberation puts an end to samsara to the cycle of rebirth that makes us come back nirvana is a way out the only way out of this eternal repetition anti-accompanying suffering the concept of nirvana is not restricted to buddhism it exists in other indian religions too including hinduism here again traditions about this crucial stay under the tree tell of different episodes that would have happened as the future buddha meditated is that to prevent the buddha's nirvana a demon called mara who ruled over desires and did not want this path to be revealed to mankind would have tried to tempt him he would have sent his beautiful daughters to seduce him and then sent armies of monsters to frighten him that the future buddha would have stayed unfazed and firmly grounded which would have allowed him to repel these attacks after this awakening the buddha traveled again to the lower plain of the ganges to the east teaching and building a religious community he his teachings included the middle way this path between extremes the training of the mind diana and meditation practices as a way to follow his experience and also reach buddhahood even though the title buddha which means enlightened or awakened one appeared only a couple centuries after his death an aspect of early buddhism is that the buddha was critical of the caste system and the practices of the priests the brahmin caste as you see there is nothing in his path to niavana that depends on birth on social origin or on the worship of any particular gods this new religious movement that emerged around him was a religion without gods or if there were gods and supernatural entities the way to awakening and freedom did not depend on them and this clashed with social order buddhism in the 5th century bc was just a small movement what we could call a sect but still its doctrine could be a threat to the caste system dominated by the brahmins all the more that it was at least theoretically appealing to the lower classes in brahmanism there was a pantheon of gods many of them passed to hinduism and the path to gain favors in this life for future lives was to worship these gods by the worshiping that passed only through the brahmin caste so there was this deep connection between religion social order politics and even though buddhism did not necessarily attack all this directly it was disruptive keeping the differences in mind there was something of that in the success of early christianity within the roman empire and beyond a religion opened to all that promises a path to salvation regardless of social origin of wealth a promise to alleviate or suppress suffering for the poor a system that proclaims equality between all men this was appealing to many but still like christianity at the start buddhism spread slowly in india at the beginning coexisting with other religions or traditions especially ancient hinduism or late brahmanism it benefited in the 3rd century from the conversion of several monarchs india was politically fragmented and there was a time when the reach of buddhism covered all of india but in the following centuries it lost political support and then much later there was the muslim invasion of the north of india in the 10th to 12th centuries haiti and buddhism did not fully disappear from india but it was strongly reduced marginalized but abroad it had had a remarkable expansion a remarkable success even though it was born in india it was adapted and lasted much longer in other asian countries so let's take a look at the historical spread of buddhism and the different traditions that were born from it the heartland of buddhism historically was the ganges valley northeast of india from there the practice spread in every direction acquiring a presence in all of india as i said before to the west in what is now pakistan and afghanistan to the north to central asia and even more to the east to china indochina korea japan and even parts of indonesia to the southeast but this didn't go without the diversification of schools and beliefs even though they all maintained the same core concepts i told you that in india buddhism was finally almost entirely eliminated by the middle ages but it stayed in sri lanka to the south of india and there were other regions where it lasted only a few centuries it was the case in the west of central asia and pakistan where the expansion of buddhism met the empire of alexander the great once alexander had conquered the persian empire from this encounter resulted a cultural syncretism that is to say a synthesis that is called greco-buddhism it is in this area where there were greek-led kingdoms after the collapse of alexander's empire that overlapped with buddhist regions buddhist populations it is in this region that the first statues of the buddha were made and they have a distinctly greek influence in the 3rd century bc for a short time a large part of india was unified and a single empire his ruler was emperor ashoka and he promoted buddhism including beyond his frontiers by sending buddhist monks especially to central asia his empire extended from bangladesh in the east to afghanistan in the west which is why even though buddhist presence in central asia has almost disappeared this part of the world has some of the most ancient buddhist statues and monuments the art that resulted from it greco-buddhist heart is one of a kind because it mixes indian and greek influences but the cultural encounter was not limited to art several greek philosophers were put in contact with indian philosophers and they returned to greece to found schools of philosophy influenced by their understanding of buddhism another possible influence and it is very speculative because of the lack of elements to really prove it but another hypothesis that some scholars have noted is the possible influence of buddhist thought on the early development of christianity not really on the doctrine but on the moral precepts that they have in common respect for life respect of the weak rejection of violence pardoned sinners these are traits of christianity that we are not all present or not prominent in most mediterranean religions doesn't mean that buddhism was the influence that shaped christianity that would be a huge stretch and plenty of other factors were at play in the formation of the christian message but it is true that there was something similar in the messages of early buddhism and early christianity the disregard for existing social hierarchy for wealth or the praise for the poor now having reached central asia buddhism was just in the middle of the silk road that linked china to the mediterranean sea as a religion it did not expand further west but towards the east toward china it did the silk road was one of the ways through which buddhism traveled to china in the 4th and 5th centuries 80 another way was through tibet but not exactly with the same tradition i'll tell you more about tibetan buddhism in a minute like many other large religions buddhism saw various traditions various schools appear it is hard to classify them because perhaps thousands of different institutions with different doctrines or philosophical outlook have existed or still exist within the buddhist world but the first broad distinction can be made between two main traditions the ravada and mahayana they both accept concepts that we discussed before the middle way the path to nirvana the characteristics of all existence and beings that they call the three marks of existence the figure of the historical buddha obviously but they have their differences the rava means teaching of the elders and it is the dominant form of buddhism in sri lanka and south east asia including myanmar thailand and cambodia the rava focuses on a collection of texts that are among the most ancient ones of buddhism and his followers see themselves as closer to the early buddhist schools the second main tradition would be mahayana which means great vehicle and it is prominent in east asia and a lot of it derives from the chinese buddhist traditions mahayana dominates in china in korea japan vietnam this tradition accepts later texts and generally the existence of other ulterior buddhas that the theravada tradition rejects most buddhists place themselves within either the ravager or mahayana but these two categories do not really reflect the diversity of the buddhist world modern scholars add at least one distinction inside mahayana with a category called vajrayana also known as tantric buddhism or esoteric buddhism that is mostly represented by indo-tibetan buddhism it is prominent in the himalayan region including tibet and bhutan as well as mongolia to the north this branch which to many westerners is a prominent face of buddhism because everyone knows of tibetan buddhism and the figure of the dalai lama that this branch emphasizes the study of buddhist tantric materials what does it mean tantric this has become a bit of a misleading term in english because a lot of people now associate it with sex it became a thing in popular culture because of 20th century western occultists who presented it to the american and european public as a kind of esoteric or sexual practice but this is not what tantra means primarily tantra is a broad range of esoteric in the sense of secret mysterious traditions that developed in india from the middle of the first millennium haiti they exist in buddhism and hinduism as well to the buddhists the tantras are texts which outline the views and practices of their religious system these texts tell what to believe in and what practices what exercises what techniques to follow this goes from yoga exercises to meditation techniques to the use of mantras yet another term a mantra is a word a syllable or group of words or just a sound that is believed by practitioners to have religious or magical powers this is also an ancient tradition that appeared long before buddhism the earliest mantras were composed in vedic sanskrit the language of the vaders these texts from the second millennium pc that i told you about before tantra and mantras are kind of linked because the practitioners of tantra regard mantras as sacred formulas that become effective when they are recited after an initiation mantras can be apparently very simple at its simplest the syllable the word um serves as a mantra to some hinduists and buddhist traditions it is believed to be the first sound which was originated on earth it is a very famous symbol written in sanskrit that is a very short mantra but they can be entire melodic phrases and they are believed to guide to reveal to appease to expand perception so as you see buddhist tantras or hinduist tantras are not about some kind of mix of yoga and sex it is an esoteric and very spiritual range of practices tibetan buddhism on top of being based on mahayana texts emphasizes the study of tantras which places it in a separate category now china was also an important center for the spread of buddhism because it is from china that it continued its expansion to korea japan or vietnam the cannons of chinese buddhism were written in the classical chinese language and these are not considered authoritative in cerravala and in china itself new schools appeared one of the most famous and successful was chan buddhism that spread abroad and that we know under its japanese name zen buddhism zen draws from different sources of the mahayana tradition and for apart it was a reaction against the importance of learning texts and doctrine instead of doing that it emphasizes more direct understanding and practice it emphasizes self-restraint the practice of meditation insight into the nature of the mind and the nature of things to understand or to perceive what they really are and also the expression of this insight in daily life to the benefit of others so it includes a social dimension too the chan school was influenced by the taoist philosophy that was influential in china at the time then buddhism also has plenty of different schools in each country where it is present another difference between these various traditions whether we consider only the two big ones the ravada and mahayana or consider more is that they acknowledge a different number of buddhas the buddha generally refers to siddhartha gautama but buddha is a title attributed to beings that have become fully awakened so there can be more than one buddha the theravada tradition includes tales of 29 different buddhas 27 where before gautama the one who spread his teaching so gautama himself is number 28 and there is a prophesized future 29th buddha mahayana buddhists venerate numerous buddhas that are not included in the rava traditions and are sometimes seen as living in other realms in variana buddhism or tibetan buddhism to simplify there are yet other buddhas including women the most famous female buddha is tara in the mahayana world she is considered a bodhisattva that is to say not yet a buddha but a person who is on the path towards buddhahood in tibetan buddhism she is a buddha and almost a deity that is rivered to understand better or developed certain qualities like compassion there is a variety of representations of the buddha too especially in statues and they all have different meanings to begin with maybe the least serious there is this common representation of a fat and laughing buddha which does not really seem to represent the virtues of self-restraint detachment or the middle way this representation is typically chinese and it appeared around the 10th century haiti it is not the buddha actually it is a chinese buddhist monk called buddhai who was rumored to be good-hearted happy eccentric and fat he became a famous character in chinese folk tales the figure was endearing and this is why it spread from china to neighboring buddhist countries like japan and korea but having a statue or a picture of this happy buddha is more of a lucky charm a sympathetic object than a religious artifact statues of gautama the historical buddha show him as skinnier and there are codes to these representations the pastures refer to different stages of his life and the hands give further information there are four postures reclining sitting standing and more rarely walking the reclining buddha evokes the final stage of earthly life before reaching nirvana after death and it illustrates this elevation that is the awakened state the common representation is the sitting buddha which represents teaching or meditation sometimes he is very skinny emaciated which alludes to the period when he practiced extreme asceticism the standing buddha is a position of teaching he has already reached nirvana and his face will reflect the amusement and serenity that accompany this state the position of hands is also significant when the buddha is seated his hands can be joined or separated and each of these partitions mean something or refer to a particular episode for example when he rests his left hand ball map on his lap and his right hand pulled down fingers towards the earth this is a reference to the moment during his meditation when he was tempted by a mara the demon and called the earth to witness or when the buddha is standing if he presents the palms of his hands this is a way of rebelling conflict and disharmony to conclude this overview there is this question about buddhism what is it exactly is it a religion a philosophical or spiritual tradition a way of looking at life the problem to define it is that religion is a concept or a category that is very western historically it is convenient because when we speak of religion or religions we immediately understand that it is about a system of beliefs of world views of texts of rights of organizations of moral values too but this need to distinguish and name these systems as separate entities as different religions is not present everywhere outside western languages there is generally no translation for the word religion it all depends on the angle we take to define the world the word religion comes from latin religio and the word religion appeared in the middle ages in old french and anglo-norman its initial meaning in latin or when it appeared in european languages was not exactly the modern meaning it meant respect for the sense of right for what is sacred deference to the gods or after christianity had replaced roman god's reverence for god so in that sense religion is not a choice between different beliefs it is something that you have or you don't have it was not used in the plural actually religions with an s appeared much later in french or in english in the 17th century after the protestant reformation because christendom had been split and also exploration of the world had put europeans in contact with multiple foreign cultures this started to make beliefs one component among others such as nationality or race of a person's identity to most scholars it is a very western conception and the modern one it has been around for only a few centuries in other world cultures it seems there was no need to distinguish to separate everyday life from the sacred war no need to assume that the belief system is a choice that the individual makes even until the 19th century the jews for example did not call their religion judaism they had an ancestral culture and an ethnic identity that were not two different categories the category of judaism as a religion with its texts its morality its traditions its rituals was not perceived as such it was just the ancestral culture and the natural rights followed by the jews and the same happened to many religions around the world they were defined by the western conception defined in two separate categories that were separated from the individuals and mutually exclusive the terms buddhism hinduism or taoism entered western languages in the 18th and 19th centuries only it is very recent but it seems that in all of pre-columbian america most of africa most of asia there was no interest in separating different belief systems into religions there was not even a word for religion just to take one example the japanese discovered the word and the concept of religion in the mid-19th century when american warships appeared of their coast and forced their government to sign treaties that demanded among other things freedom of religion the idea that it could be optional or that they themselves had a religion was alien to the japanese at the time so if we choose to define religion as the believing or the worship of the divine power god or gods buddhism cannot be a religion it doesn't need or refer to the worship of any superhuman power there are revered mythical figures in buddhism but there is not a pantheon or a single god in theory a person could be buddhists and also practice a different religion but it is not as simple because if we accept religion as a concept the other religions will probably clash with some of the beliefs of buddhism reincarnation the possibility to find a path to salvation without divine interference these are not acceptable concepts for many other belief systems in the world now if we take religion as a social phenomenon a community of believers that share rights practices that have a clergy an organization then buddhism is a religion it has an impact on practitioners in their social interactions it keeps them busy it defines their identity and it helps fulfill their need for spirituality this is why there is no clear answer to the question is buddhism a religion it comes down to how we want to define religion there is no scholarly consensus on this and it is acceptable to see it either as a religion or as a philosophical and spiritual practice this was just an overview and there is so much more to learn about buddhism and indian religions i hope it gives you the curiosity to learn more that we have reached the end of our exploration for tonight so sleep well sweet dreams so so you

Channel: The French Whisperer ASMR

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Length: 144min 3sec (8643 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 24 2022