The second religion we studied in class was buddhism. While buddhism is similar to hinduism in many ways, there are also many ways that buddhism is different. For example, in hinduism the teachings are brought upon people by the teachings of several gods, while in buddism the teachings come from the Buddha. Hinduism also doesn't have a founder that is known by us, while buddhism's founder was a man named Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha was a prince who grew up in a palace and was sheltered in this palace from all the negative things in the world, such as hunger, disease, and violence. When he reached his mid-20's he was married and had several childeren of his own. As a child he was proclaimed the Buddha, or enlightened one. It was said that he was the reincarnation of the previous Buddha. One day after he had been married he took a trip outside the palace and he saw all the negative things in this world that he had been hidden from his entire life. Knowing these things existed bothered him so much that he finally decided that rather than live in the palace with everything he could ever want, he would leave the palace for good and try to help people out, as was, in his eyes, his duty as Buddha. .
In Buddhism there are what are called the Three Marks of Existence and they are: 1) Everything is suffering, 2) Everything is impermanent, and 3) Nothing has any self. These three marks are based on the Four Noble Truths which are as follows: 1) All existence is filled with suffering. 2) Suffering is caused by desire. 3) Liberation from suffering. 4) The Eight-fold Pathway is the route to Liberation. Suffering has three forms in buddhism 1) Dukkha dukkha - suffering comes from suffering (dukkha=suffering), 2) Viparanama dukkha - suffering from change, 3) Samkhara dukkha - suffering from conditional states. .
The Eight-fold Path is similar to the three yogas of hinduism, it is the way to achieve the goal of reaching nirvana or exiting samsara.
