Eastern philosophy includes some of the oldest ideas on record about the nature of human beings, the cosmos, and the purpose of existence. After nearly four millennia, it remains vitally meaningful in many of its modern-day incarnations, and continues to guide millions of people in their search for wisdom and contentment. There are four ways to wisdom in Eastern philosophy: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism; in this guide, we will look at the principles and traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Hinduism
Much of Hinduism is deeply religious and deeply philosophical at the same time. There are all kinds of ideas about worldly reality and appearance on the one hand and cosmic reality on the other. And in between these two “realities,” there are a whole slew of ideas about human reality: what human nature is, what human consciousness is capable of doing, and how human society should function.
One God, or Many
There are many ways that Hindus believe in God—or Gods, as the case may be:
- The belief that there is one God who—much like Jesus Christ—is an all-powerful being who cares deeply about them and whom they lovingly adore as a personal savior.
- The belief in many gods and worship each one for different reasons.
- The belief that there are many gods who are especially happy, lucky, and blessed beings who should not be worshiped or even imitated, but rather left to themselves; that humans should resist the desire for things the gods enjoy so as to concentrate more on their own cosmic destiny.
While ideas about the relationship between God or the gods and humanity differ from place to place in India, they have continually changed over time in response to changing attitudes and changing social and economic conditions.
The Vedas and the World of Maya
Many Indians believe that reading and writing are not adequate substitutes for the personal philosophical instruction that can be supplied by a guru, who is thought to possess knowledge that cannot be expressed in written form. This is not to say, of course, that written sources are not crucial to understanding Hindu thought. In fact, the oldest philosophical writings ever produced come from India and contain the first kernels of Hinduism, the Vedas.
The Vedas are the oldest and most important writings in the cultural history of India and are among the most renowned ancient texts in the world. The philosophical ideas in the Vedas, stemming from around 1500 b.c.e. or even before, are profound but somewhat contradictory and undeveloped.
One of the key insights found in the Vedas and emphasized by Vedantic philosophy is the idea that the world of apparent reality—the world as we perceive it with our senses—is a world of illusion, or maya. Things as they appear are impermanent, misleading, and unreliable. This concept accounts for everything that goes wrong with life. When good things go wrong and when plans and hopes don’t pan out, the reason is that the shifting world of appearances cannot be depended upon.
To deal with the problem of maya, Vedantic philosophy turns inward in an attempt to find a permanent and reliable answer. This answer is the merging of the individual enlightened consciousness with the divine inner self, called Atman, which is identical with absolute, transcendent being: the ultimate reality known as Brahman. This merger of the finite self with ultimate reality produces perfect clarity of consciousness, so that one is no longer deceived by maya or troubled by the shifting, swirling world of appearances.
Buddhism
Even though Buddhists everywhere recognize and accept many of the basic teachings, including the importance of the quest for enlightenment, the notion of what it takes to attain enlightenment varies from place to place.
Achieving Nirvana
Much like the Hindus believing in God in different ways, there are several different ways that Buddhists believe you can achieve enlightenment, or nirvana. It’s broken down into three groups:
- Attaining nirvana is difficult and requires years of meditation and yoga and the ceaseless effort to renounce, once and for all, every inclination to feel tempted by the vain pleasures life has to offer.
- The difference between the state of enlightenment and the state of nonenlightenment is itself illusory. The belief is that everyone is, in a sense, already enlightened, even though they may not realize it, and the challenge of Buddhism is to free the mind of unnecessary and troublesome distinctions.
- The challenge of enlightenment as so great that believers have no intention of meeting it by themselves. They rely on the help of Boddhisattvas in making their spiritual journey. Boddhisattvas are exalted beings who have attained nirvana already, but remain involved with humanity in order to help others. Some Buddhists worship and pray to Boddhisattvas as gods. Others venerate them as teachers and role models.
The Two Forms of Buddhism
Buddhism is traditionally broken into two forms:
Theravada (“Doctrine of the Elders”) emphasizes the importance of working to attain nirvana on one’s own through practice and meditation and without the assistance of Boddhisattvas. Theravadans believe their brand of Buddhism most closely adheres to original Buddhist teachings.
Because of its emphasis on personal inward effort and original teachings, Theravada Buddhism has generally resisted the influence of folk beliefs and other new and alien ideas. In particular, the idea that it is possible to attain nirvana with outside help is contrary to the Theravada attitude. Perhaps as a result of its more rigorous attitude, Theravada has not spread widely, but is concentrated today mainly on the island of Sri Lanka and a few other places in the East.
Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”) is the set of teachings that carries your understanding to enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhists recognize many different Buddhist teachings in addition to those accepted by Theravada Buddhists. Over the course of time, new ideas became added to Mahayana and incorporated into its many approaches, though some Mahayanans say that all of the teachings, both new and old, represent the original teachings of the Buddha. They explain this variety of teachings by saying that the Buddha recognized that different people have different capacities and are inclined to benefit more from some ideas than others, so he gave different lessons intended for different audiences. This major strand of Buddhism has been more open to new influences and has adopted many different forms as it has spread throughout the East to China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and elsewhere.
Buddhism and Hinduism are the two most popular ways to wisdom. To find out about the other two ways, check out the guide, Eastern Philosophy 101, Part 2: Taoism and Confucianism. Namaste!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eastern Philosophy by Jay Stevenson
