What The Buddha Taught By Walpola Rahul Analysis

What the Buddha Taught, by Walpola Rahula, is a general introduction to the Buddhist traditions. Buddhism is one of the largest religions with over 500 million devoted followers. Buddhism is not a traditional religion with god(s), but is the belief of human beings. The Buddha is recognized to be the first to achieve enlightenment. His teachings have transcended continents, and centuries. In the first chapter of What the Buddha Taught, the reader realizes that the Buddha was not a god, or an incarnation of a god. He was a normal man named Siddhartha, was born a prince, a life of wealth and shelter. Siddhartha would begin to notice the suffering humans were enduring. He soon realized that humans should only rely on themselves for “spiritual success”. The drastic difference between Buddhism and other religions is Buddhism does not believe in an outside power, which most people referred to as god(s). The Buddha taught that every man can achieve enlightenment, through human intelligence. It is interesting in the aspect Buddhism does not require a belief in a higher power to reach spiritual success. The …show more content…
Buddhism takes a radical approach to the soul, stating that there is no soul. According to the Buddha, the idea of a soul or being is a world temptation that riddles humans with desire and that this ‘self’ view is the root of all the evil in the world. The Doctrine of Soul describes that God is made up from humans looking for protection. With an external force, men can blame everything evil on them, instead of taking responsibility. This radical shift from belief in god to a belief in mankind was not common. Even Buddha realized that this was uncommon stating, “against the current”. The Doctrine of No Soul was born out of the Five Aggregates. But, the Buddha did not want the teachings of the Doctrine of No Soul to be taken as a negative, but he believed it is the truth, and the truth is never a negative or