Eightfold Path

Buddhism began in Nepal, India in 5th century B.C.E by Siddhartha Goutama (the Buddha). The Buddha would teach people who followed him about the truth of life and the compassion for suffering or the way in which to led your life. His doctrines included the four noble truths and the eightfold path. His first noble truth is that life is suffering, the second is suffering is caused by craving for things to be what they are not, the third is that suffering has an end and the fourth offers the means to that end; the eightfold path and the middle way. It is believed that if one follows this they will achieve Nirvana, which is the state of non-existence, which according to Buddhist teachings, brings about the cessation of suffering for living creatures (56 Ebrey). The Eightfold Path represented by the wheel of Dhamma includes the four noble truths, right …show more content…
The uncertainty of the situation raised questions about the Confucian made state and resulted in increased popularity of other religious teaching such as Buddhism. The support of the smaller states that succeeded the Han was a third factor that contributed to the establishment of South Asia religion as one of the main belief systems of China . The small states also contributed to large-scale monuments and Buddhist institutions (Sen and Mair 46). In the south kingdom Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty used Buddhism to inate his imperial power and support Buddhist establishments in the southern regions of China, he is also known to have converted to Buddhism. Buddhist monks served as his advisors and following the ways of the Buddhist king Ashoka, he forbade the use of animals in religious sacrifices. Along with the support of Buddhist temples and construction of life size monuments, these dynasties in the North and South also supported translation activities at state monasteries (Sen and Mair