World religions: Buddhism

Basic beliefs

[1] The Four Noble Truths:

• There is suffering. Suffering is an intrinsic part of life and is experienced as dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness, and impermanence.
  
  
• The cause of suffering is desire. “Those who love a hundred have a hundred woes. Those who love ten have ten woes. Those who love one have one woe. Those who love none have no woe.”
  
  
• To eliminate suffering, desire must be eliminated.
  
  
• Desire is eliminated by following the Eightfold Path.

[2] The Eightfold Path: Right Views; Right Intention or Resolve; Right Speech; Right Action or Behavior; Right Livelihood or Occupation; Right Effort; Right Contemplation; and Right Meditation

• Right Views: You must accept the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
  
  
• Right Resolve: You must renounce the pleasures of the senses; you must harbor no ill will toward anyone and harm no living creature.
  
  
• Right Speech: Do not lie; do not slander or abuse anyone. Do not indulge in idle talk.
  
  
• Right Behavior: Do not destroy any living creature; take only what is given to you; do not commit any unlawful sexual act.
  
  
• Right Occupation: You must earn your livelihood in a way that will harm no one.
  
  
• Right Effort: You must resolve and strive heroically to prevent any evil qualities from arising in you and to abandon any evil qualities that you may possess. Strive to acquire good qualities and encourage those you do possess to grow, increase and be perfected.
  
  
• Right Contemplation: Be observant, strenuous, alert, contemplative, free of desire and of sorrow.
  
  
• Right Meditation: When you have abandoned all sensuous pleasures, all evil qualities, both joy and sorrow, you must then enter the four degrees of meditation, which are produced by concentration.
  
  (From Handbook of Today’s Religions, by McDowell and Stewart)
  

[3] Following the Eightfold Path brings “salvation” and leads to Nirvana.

[4] All reality is one. There is no personal God.

[5] Extra-biblical revelation: Pali Canon (standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language; the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down), Tibetan Canon, and the Chinese Canon (recognized in China, Korea and Japan).

[6] Reincarnation: Desire perpetuates the continuous birth-suffering-death-rebirth cycle. This cycle is interrupted only when a person conquers desire at the point of Nirvana. As a person gains more good karma than bad karma, he is reborn into higher life forms. In Theravada Buddhism, the highest form is the Buddhist monk.

[7] There is no afterlife.

[8] Mysticism or seeking for a direct, personal religious experience, bypassing the mind (“Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?”).

What the Bible says

[1] There is one living and true God, the God of the Bible (Isaiah 46:9; Jeremiah 10:10).

[2] God is personal; He transcends and is distinct from His creation (Genesis 1:1; Jeremiah 23:23).

[3] The Bible is the only source of divine revelation available today (Luke 24:27; Hebrews 1:1).

[4] Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5)

[5] The cause of suffering is not desire but sin (Romans 5:12).

[6] Resurrection, not reincarnation, takes place after physical death (Daniel 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; Revelation 20:4, 11-15).

Further study (Be like the Bereans! Acts 17:11)

[1] Buddhism, from Wikipedia

[2] Handbook of Today’s Religions, by McDowell and Stewart

[3] Buddhism, by Patrick Zukeran (Probe Ministries); available in Spanish

[4] Materials by Kenneth Boa, Th.M.; Ph.D; D.Phil

• No God but All: Eastern Mysticism and the New Age Movement
• Is Christ the Only Way? - Part 1
• Christ and Cultures: Multiculturalism and the Gospel of Christ

[5] The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ, by J. Hampton Keathley, III , Th.M.

[6] A Short Look at Six World Religions, by Sue Bohlin (Probe Ministries)

[7] Martial Arts, by Patrick Zukeran (Probe Ministries)

[8] Buddhism, from The Evidence Bible

[9] Please surf to Sermon / Preaching resources. Sermons are also available from South McGehee Baptist Church, McGehee, Arizona; Central Baptist Church, Lowesville; First Baptist Church, Mountain View, Missouri; Swift Creek Baptist Church; Word of Life Baptist Church, Pottsville, Philadelphia; Palm Springs Baptist Church, California; South Woods Baptist Church; Grove Baptist Church, Ulster; Dudley Baptist Church, United Kingdom; Independent Fundamental Baptist Sermons, Fundamental Christian Radio Broadcasts, Off-Site Audio Page and The Christian Radio Tuner

Notes: (1) This ministry does not necessarily endorse or share all the views and opinions expressed in the materials, resources or links mentioned in these posts. Please always refer to the Articles of Faith and Biblical distinctives of Baptists when you study these materials. (2) This lesson is part of the projected 300 plus lessons. From time to time, the lessons will be updated, revised, combined, formatted, and edited to comply with the VOA Simplified English word list. Later on, these lessons will be categorized, numbered sequentially, and made available as PDF downloads.