Buddhist Culture in Far East Asia Book

Contents: Preface. 1. Buddhist Culture in Japan. 2. Buddhist Culture in Korea. 3. Buddhist Culture in East-Russia. 4. Buddhist Culture in Vietnam. 5. Buddhist Culture in China. 6. Buddhist Culture in India. 7. Buddhist Elements of Buddhism. Bibliography. Index.

Buddhism is one of the oldest world religions. It was started by an Indian prince named Siddhartha who was born 544 years before Christ. He renounced his family and kingdom and studied and practiced all the spiritual teachings of that time, until one day, he vowed not to move from his seat under a Bodhi tree until he discovered the truth of all existence. He did this by examining the nature of his own mind. Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology ethics and epistemology. The Buddha’s general outlook has been described as neither ontological nor metaphysical, but empirical. He assumed an unsympathetic attitude toward speculative and religious thought in general. A basic idea of the Buddha is that the world must be thought of in procedural terms not in terms of things or substances. The Buddha advised viewing reality as comprised of dependently originated phenomena Buddhists view this approach to experience as avoiding the two extremes of reification and nihilism. (jacket)