Is Buddhism A Religion Or A Philosophy

Buddhism being a religion or a philosophy? When learning about the history of Buddhism some people will think Buddhism is a religion and others will think it is a philosophy. To me personally I feel Buddhism can be either a religion or a philosophy and there are many facts that can help back me up on it. According to dictionary.com Buddhism is “a religion, originated in India by Buddha (Gautama) and later spreading to China, Burma, Japan, Tibet, and parts of southeast Asia, holding that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end this suffering is through enlightenment that enables one to halt the endless sequence of births and deaths to which one is otherwise subject.” So the dictionary thinks it is a religion but …show more content…
If we go to todays current Buddhism in the Eastern world, we see a mix of versions. Theravada which in some places has fundamentals from the Hindu religion. Mahayana which world model is somewhat diverse and includes the bodhisattva as ideal and then there is Tibetan Buddhism which has altered there set of teachings and practices yet very similar to Mahayana. Then what I don’t understand and the funny part is that there might not even be a thing such as Buddhism. When the Buddha was sitting under a tree, he found the way to …show more content…
It was hard to tell everyone about this, he proceeded to do so and he got a reaction that wasn’t good at all. They acted as if they didn’t care. He then went to his past followers and took a different approach. By telling them that is the way to experience cessation, he then instructed it in practice and gave them another talk. That talk gave them the base to abandon all stress. We then started to see the Buddha attract more followers with the struggles and this posed the monk rules coming into an incident and after a new rule. If you do this, you will benefit yourself and others. Five rather understandable precepts are the default way. People come with questions about the afterlife and this is attached to the precepts and with this over time a religious model gets traditional. That being said but the in beginning was two main teachings, and a few followers but did not speak of a religion. The teachings were basic and practical the stress and the end of stress. The only way its possible is Buddhism is not based on a belief. The core tool in Buddhism is dharma which can be explained as truth. Dharma is always current, whether an individual notices it or not. We see in the conventional model that this truth is obscured, there is ignorance. Dharma obscured by ignorance is know as fabrication. This fabrication has two effects, change and stress. If we stop relying on items that change, we don 't knowledge the