Education

Chrystopher Hanchuck February 25, 2012
Religion 80

Tibetan Buddhism

Everything that has life while in this earth shares the same want. They all want to be happy and free from all suffering. Even newborns, animals and insects share this want. It has always been there, and it is always there, even while one is at sleep. To realize this want people tend to waste most of life’s work. Tibetan Buddhism teaches how to live life without being enslaved by wants, a life without suffering. This stage and mind set is called Nirvana. Like most religions and philosophies of the world, Buddhism has been divided into several groups and segments that differentiate each group when it comes to some visions and doctrines of Buddhism. There are two major schools of Buddhism, Theravada that is the one that follow the old ways and Mahayana, a newer version, which happens to be the biggest one. Tibetan Buddhism falls under the Mahayana school. This school puts very high emphasis on certain individuals called Lamas. This name is given to the instructors of Dharma on this particular line of Buddhism. The base of the teachings of this set of beliefs is suffering and the inevitable occasion of death. Siddharta Gautama or Buda who is known to be the creator of this doctrine understood that suffering comes from the wants that one has in all forms. When someone wants something and cannot have it, frustration occurs creating suffering and also when what was want is obtained the need to keep what you now have is an object of the want. For Siddharta Gautama the wants have to be purified in order to eliminate suffering. For this to be achieved an individuals must live a life free from unnecessary wants and see the material things of life as something that only has value in the mind. Individuals tend to see death as a catastrophic event that will lead them into deep sorrow and suffering.