Last year, I had a trip with my friends to Tibet, which is a Buddhist region. This trip triggered my interest in the Buddhism religion, as I found that most of the Buddhists view Buddhism as a philosophy of life but not just mere a religion. In this post I would talk about the correlation between Buddhism and philosophy.
Philosophy, is generally defined as, the study of fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence. It also includes the understanding of moral judgment principles, the study of a world view and the attempt to acquire knowledge through critical thinking.
Looking into the Buddhist theories, we can see that they explain how Buddhism interprets the existence of life in philosophy. Take Samsara as an example, it refers to the continuous cycle of birth, living and death. The cycle goes through six realms of existence, including three higher realms (heavenly, demigod and human) and three lower realms (animal, ghost and resident of hell). This means when one’s life ends, it will reborn in one of the six realms of existence with regard to the karma of previous life. The endless cycle of Samsara is filled with sufferings and pain. Through confession and merit cultivation, sentient beings could achieve Nirvana - liberation from the Samsara cycle and rebirth in the Western Pure Land.
"Wheels of Samsara"
Other than interpreting the existence of life, the widely known teaching of Four Noble Truths in Buddhism provides guidelines to solve life problems. The Four Noble Truths includes dukkha (the truth of suffering), samudaya (the truth of the cause of suffering), nirhodha (the truth of the end of suffering) and magga (the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering). They illustrate that life is suffering and painful as it is filled with three roots of evil: craving, ignorance and hatred; Human beings have unlimited desire of private fulfillment and thus they are unfulfilled and unsatisfied throughout their lives. The Doctrine of Four Noble Truths suggests the extinguishment of selfish craving as well as the eightfold path will allow us to be liberated from the Samsara cycle and attain a state of sustainable spiritual joy. This shows that Buddhism puts forward the problems and suffers that human beings encounter in reality, and suggests the solutions for them to overcome life problems. This aligns with “the study of fundamental nature of reality” and “the study of a world view” under the definition of philosophy.
In addition, the Buddhism practices in the modern world have reflected the correlation between philosophy and Buddhism. The modern practices of Buddhism “Humanistic Buddhism” encourages Buddhists to integrate Dharma teaching into our everyday's life. They no longer only focus on spiritual liberation, but to encourage Buddhists to critically think of how to use the insights acquired from Buddha’s teaching for handling issues in daily life as well as addressing the suffering in the social, political, economic and environmental aspects of the society. This shows that Buddhism practices are consistent with “the attempt to acquire knowledge through critical thinking” and “the study of a world view” under philosophy.
These are my insights about why Buddhism and philosophy are intensively correlated. Hope you guys like it!
Reference:
Oxford Dictionaries. (2017). Definition of philosophy in English.
Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/philosophy
Rupert, G. (1998). Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press
Wilson, J. (2010). Saṃsāra and Rebirth in Buddhism. Oxford University.
