THE APPEAL OF BUDDHISM
More than 500 years older than Christianity, one of the great, enduring religions of Eastern civilisation, Buddhism is today finding new sources of strength and vitality in the Western world.
Throughout Europe, America, and elsewhere, men and women in search of meaningful lives are being attracted to Buddhism, often motivated at first by intellectual curiosity and then finding a deeply gratifying spiritual nourishment.
"I am Christian.. but Buddhist" or "I am Jewish.. but Buddhist" is said by many Western practitioners. It certainly may be said, "I am atheist.. but Buddhist", as Buddhism does not worship a God but concerns itself with more human, immediate, and practical matters than whether there is a God. It's worth noting that an acceptance of Buddhism does not necessarily require a rejection of one's parental or earlier-life religion. A Buddhist is respectful of all religions.
Buddhism does not require anything of those who practice it -
Buddhism is not dogmatic or catechistic.
It does not preach sin. It does not say there is only one right way. It merely
offers a path to wisdom, to enlightenment; the word Buddha is derived from buddh,
to be 'awake', to be 'enlightened'.
The Buddha was a human being, not a divinity, a fully enlightened human being
who was above all a teacher.
What the Buddha taught was how to live the 'good life'. This
is what he taught both the monk and the layperson. For both, living a good life
leads, he taught, to nirvana, a concept quite difficult for the Western mind to
grasp.
In the case of a monk, nirvana is less difficult to attain than in the case of a
layperson, because the renunciate, devoted, meditating monk follows 227 precepts
of behavior and so can more easily overcome whatever deficiencies there may have
been in the karma inherited from previous lives - another difficult concept for
the Western mind - or whatever bad karma he may have accumulated in the years
prior to donning the robes.
A simple, but accurate definition of karma is that "good deeds have good effects, bad deeds have bad effects". To a Buddhist, the bad deeds he or she may have committed in previous lives are obstacles to spiritual fulfillment, or to the attainment of nirvana, in this life. But this life gives one an opportunity to clean the slate, so to speak, by an accumulation of good deeds, of good karma.
Even if a Westerner has difficulty accepting the notion of past and future lives, the individual with a sense of morality (which may be said of all human beings, even those whose behavior is sometimes immoral) does accept that doing good is better than doing evil. It's better for one's conscience, better for one's peace of mind, better for one's spiritual serenity. Never mind a future life, never mind Nirvana. In this life, here and now, merit and a good conscience bring their own rewards.
The similarity between Buddhism and other religions lie in their approach to morality: the Christian-Judaic commandments, the Islamic code; the Buddhist precepts.
The Buddhist layperson, unlike the Buddhist monk, pledges to
undertake the rules of training by observing 5 precepts to refrain:
From destroying life
From taking that which is not given
From illicit sexual relationships
From false speech
From intoxicants causing heedlessness
Note that the preface to the Five Precepts contains the words "I undertake the rule of training to refrain from..", an assertion of individual responsibility quite different from the divine commandments of christianity.