Buddhism and Hinduism

Buddhism will differentiate itself from Hinduism in many aspects. Hinduism believe in Brahman, in the creator God, Buddhism does not believe in a God who created the world as a result Buddhism is a religion of wisdom, enlightenment and compassion. For Buddhism, our highest consciousness is the mind. The mind is the part of being based on experiences, knowledge and thoughts. What survives in Buddhism is not the Atma, the refined self or soul attached to the Brahman, but the mental current of each of us, with impressions left in it by our good or bad deeds. This mental current, when it is negative, gives rise to the new experience of life, to reincarnations. So we reincarnate because we of our actions and also the consequences of our actions karma (sequence of spiritual cause and effect) that is, negative marks in our mind. Every act we make shapes our future, when we no longer have negative impressions in the mental current, we do not incarnate anymore.

When our consciousness no longer has unsatisfactory marks, it enters into a state of bliss called Nirvana(the desirable state of mind). Unlike the Hinduism that in meditation and yoga search to clear the mind and support serene and detached awareness. In Buddhist, when meditating or practicing deity yoga the goal is to calm the mind to attain the blissfulness of the Buddha's mind to embody the enlightenment qualities that the practitioner wishes to manifest. The two major branches of Buddhist meditation are samatha (calm abiding) and vipassana (insight).

While the Hindu is preoccupied with the universe in which we make our evolution, planetary chains, our evolutionary eras, etc., Buddhism is only dedicated to achieve happiness and freedom from our pains and sufferings. It is therefore called ""The doctrine of pain."" In elimination of our fears of anger and attachment, this is also the goal.

In Buddhism, all who reach the buddha mind have the same spiritual insights, their minds are identical. They form a Unity, not a Diversity in Oneness, as the Hindus think. Buddhists, when they pray, do not do it to God, but to enlightened and compassionate beings.

The oldest of the Buddhist traditions is the Hinayana also called Theravada. A Theravada adept thinks that if every man improves the world automatically improves. So it is completely self-directed through rigorous practices. It pursues the ideal of becoming an Arhat, a perfect being. It does not disturb the world, but it does not involve itself in its miseries and errors. Let each one go his way.

In the century I of our era arises the Mahayana school with great emphasis on the belief in Bodhisattvas. These, beings of mind already purified, but who sacrifice themselves returning to the incarnations, only to help to the humanity to get rid of its errors. Its principle is Compassion. In the Mahayana, not only monks, but also laymen can reach the Nirvanic mind only by treading the path of Compassion.

We have the great example of Compassion in the Tibetan Dalai Lama Tensin Giatso who, although having lost the throne and country, without any show of heartache, always laughs at preach the Mahayana Path of Compassion throughout the world. The name Dalai Lama means ""master as big as the ocean."" The Tibetan Mahayana was enriched by Lamaism directed by masters, their Lamas and Riponch??s. They use liturgies, mantras, mandalas and mudras as resources of understanding for their disciples.

The main precepts of Mahayana Buddhism are: Transience of Things (which leads to detachment) and Theory of Void.

The Void deals in the wrong way as we see ourselves and people. When we observe someone or something we never remember that their acts were fueled by past or present circumstances, a culture, a geographical environment, an occasion, or someone. That here in the physical world, we always have an existence shared with the rest of the world, dependent on it. For example: When we observe a tree, it seems to us as it sees it, because it is inserted in a certain environment that gives it little or no sun, much or little water, care or not. If he received other influences, perhaps his size was different, so was his color. Even a concrete thing has a shared life. If we say: This table is good, it is durable. It is so because the wood that structured it was good. Nothing is dissociated from anything, everything is dependent. What does the Mahayana want with the Emptiness theory? With the vision of shared life, we understand and forgive people more, because we know them result of many influences, we do not see them isolated at all. We also get rid of our pride and vanity, because everything we pride ourselves on being received the help of others. The very religious teachings that we assimilate, while presenting diverse concepts, were shared, dependent on one another. Thus, we see Islam arising from ancient Christian ideas, Christianity arising from Judaism, Buddhism arising from the reincarnations ideas of Brahmanism. Jewish monotheism arising from Egyptian ideas.

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