Comparing Buddha and Jesus

It is being said by so many people in modern American society that all religions have so many similarities they are practically the same and all lead to the same God. This is so fundamentally false and it is due to the secularism’s prominent influence of colossal misinformation about all religions and their respective doctrines in similarity and dissimilarity. Modern day secularism is making a crucial mistake in both deliberated and undelierberated ignorance of being willing and bold to thoroughly probe religion as much as they possibly can in effort to differentiate for themselves between what has been prevaricated and what the original story is or was. Accepting all religions as a way to God is really being narrow minded in of itself, despite what secular culture declares; it is an easy way out of truthfully edifying oneself and shows a lack of conscientiousness.

To prove that all religions are not exactly the same or lead to the same God, we will use the comparison between Christianity and Buddhism as one example Let’s compare the four noble truths of Buddhism to the Bible. The four noble truths very briefly say of what is the source of suffering: desires, cravings, ignorance, delusion, hatred, and destructive urges. Furthermore, the trajectory that the four noble truths intend to direct someone on is the trajectory going onward through a long journey of acquiring full enlightenment and omniscience via elimination of suffering which is partway done by eliminating desires and cravings which are the guiding forces of all thoughts and actions.

First of all, the Bible reiterates again and again, almost to the point of redundancy, that no one can achieve omniscience because of human beings’ innate iniquitousness and inability of fully comprehending the supernatural. Otherwise, if people could attain such things they would become God or become like God.

The Bible implicitly says of suffering being chiefly caused by desires and cravings through its anecdotal sayings and detailed insight on the causes and effects of suffering. Incongruously, Buddhism promises a life of blissfulness as a reward of attaining enlightenment and having the four noble truths not give guidelines of enumerated precise precepts on how to perceive of life in the way that will ensure that rewarding blissfulness. Whereas, the Bible actually gives precise guidelines on what to avoid and what to embrace to partially eliminate suffering and bring joy. Not to mention, at the same time, it also promises for suffering to abound from the unending contumelies that a Christian will face from the those who proudly dissent against the teachings of Christ. The Bible, in some explicit and implicit ways, says that suffering cannot cease to persist because everyone in mankind, both malignant and innocent alike, will repetitively experience suffering because of the afflictions mankind will incur upon each other via mankind’s undying practices in murder, adultery, greed, gossip, backstabbing, swindling, thievery, trickery, belligerence, inimicality, lust for power, malfeasance, and various forms of misappropriations. Carnal thinking is innate and inveterate for all mankind and is thereby forever remaining the causation of misdeeds leading to suffering.  

Many say that the story of the lives of the Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) and Jesus Christ are very similar, when in actuality they are very different but are still compatible in some aspects and share some paradigms.

The Buddha was raised in great luxury and in wealth. His parents practically held him in captivity inside their castle.  His father did not want him to experience the outside world, because it was predicted by a sage that Siddhartha would end up becoming a “light unto the world” instead of becoming what his father desired of him to become, which was the ruler of his castle and land. Until the age of 29, while being wedded and with a son, Siddhartha was held captive in his father’s castle before he requested of his father to allow him to go on an exploration of the city. While exploring, Siddhartha ended up seeing things that he never thought could possibly exist. He saw four things: a dead man, a sick man, a poor man, and an old man. This caused him to pensively inquire the nature and purpose of life and why it had all of its causes and effects. Shortly thereafter, he decided to leave his life of grandeur and forget about his upbringing of wealth and royalty and a destiny of becoming a ruler of the land. Stunningly, he seemingly didn’t really have much of a struggle leaving the wife and son he had at the time. He left to travel the lands and live amongst paupers; starving himself, becoming emaciated, and living a life of asceticism. He did this for about six years before realizing that no such thing could lead him to enlightenment. He also did a lot of preaching while he traveled much like what Jesus did.

  

Jesus was not at all born into wealth but was born to a mother and father who were very young and poor with his father being a carpenter. Jesus ended up becoming a carpenter as well. Not much is said of the life of Jesus while he was growing up. The Bible focuses mainly on the last three years of his life which is when he had his ministry.

Jesus and the Buddha are strikingly similar in what they preached concerning how someone should morally conduct themselves with their speech and actions and what they should allow enter into their mind and heart through the gateway of their eyes and ears. Both Jesus and the Buddha emphasized about sin and their consequence in a way that was identical in ideals, sentiments, values, and goals; the only difference is the wording of their rhetoric. In both Buddhism and Christianity, you are to not inflict harm upon anyone and there is to be no demonstrations of sexual misconduct. You are to take care of the wounded and the poor. You are to have wholesome intentions, wholesome thoughts, wholesome speech, wholesome conduct, and a concentrated effort on having goodness become abound. You are supposed to exercise chastity, tolerance, temperance, gentleness, honesty, compassion, gracefulness, and shrewd discernment. You are to work courteously, cohesively, and assiduously with others to achieve as much tranquility and harmony as possible. Most of all, you are to love others as much as you love yourself.

When we juxtapose some Buddhist scriptures with Biblical scriptures we find strong similarities in their fundamental precepts.

The Buddha said “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.”

Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The Buddha said, “The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour's faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die from the gambler.”

Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Despite the overabundance of doctrinal graciousness, compassion, and generosity in both of these religions, they give a lot of notice to the imperativeness of recompense being made when a terrible misdeed is committed. The Buddha said this, “He who inflicts pain on innocent and harmless persons, will soon come to one of these ten states: He will have cruel suffering, loss, injury of the body, heavy affliction, or loss of mind, or a misfortune coming from the king, or a fearful accusation, or loss of relations, or destruction of treasures, or lightning-fire will burn his houses; and when his body is destroyed, the fool will go to hell.”

And Jesus said this, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

The Buddha was a normal sentient being who had to work to achieve what he believed to be truth. The Buddha had to sit underneath a pipal tree, which is now called the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India, and refuse not to depart from underneath it until he fully underwent the process of meditative jhana, which he found to be the true way to enlightenment. The meditative jhana is what the Buddhists called the Middle Way in which is a path of moderation away from the extremes of sensual indulgence and self mortification. Supposedly, after 49 days, he finally unlocked the indubitable truth about all that is of the nature, essence, and meaning of life. He reached nirvana and the state of peace of mind dispelling anything and everything soulfully, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually afflictive.

Jesus already had the indubitable truth with him since He was God in the form of a man. Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father unless he goes through me.” The Buddhist scriptures never speak of the Buddha as being the only way to salvation and to God. He helped the diseased, the crippled, the paupers, and the wounded but he never did it by means of supernatural powers. It was Jesus who was God in the form of a man and exercised supernatural powers to heal the blind, feed the hungry, and cure sickness.

            
             And now finally, the most important part of this all, the Buddha’s death was very simple. He died of old age when he was eighty years old. The death was triggered by his body reaction to a dish of wild mushroom. Jesus on the other hand, died a very violent and bloody crucifixion for publicly calling himself a king. This, according to the Romans, was considered to be blasphemy and the worst form of heresy, something iniquitous enough to be punishable by crucifixion. Jesus died for the sake of bringing atonement to God for the transgressions of everyone in all mankind.