Buddhism, Zen and Tantric

Paper Summary:

An analysis of the rise and spread of Buddhism by retelling famous stories of creation and revelation which occurred to the prince Siddhartha and his followers. It then explains how the ideas Buddhism gained momentum and spread through Asia. It looks at how the Zen sect broke off and how they differ in their practices.

From the Paper:

"In Nepal, there lived a prince called Siddhartha. The prince was pampered and given all the riches he wanted from his father. His mother died shortly after he was born and he was raised by his aunt. He was told by old soothsayers that he would become a king if he stayed home, but if he traveled he would become something of a god. Siddhartha ended up marrying his cousin and one day he saw some things that made him think that he must go and seek the meaning of life and truth. He saw a monk begging, he saw an old person, he saw a sick person and he saw a funeral proceeding. So that inspired Siddhartha to go off and find the meaning of life. He realized, basically that people live a while, suffer a while and die. So what are we supposed to do spiritually in between? The world was destined to end in death. Siddhartha decided to leave home in his quest for solving man's problems. He left all of his riches behind as the prince and traveled with a small group of people. He felt that he if deprived his body of food, the truth would come to him. He lived on one seed a day as nourishment and literally became skin and bones. He became so malnourished that he passed out and almost died. He realized that he couldn't become more enlightened that way. He'd end up dead. So he decided to go about his quest a little differently (Introduction to Buddhism http://www.san.beck.org/Buddha.html)"

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