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Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. Greek colonies existed in India during the Buddha's life, as early as the 6th century. [1] The first Westerners to become Buddhists were Greeks who settled in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period.
Most Buddhists do not consider Gautama Buddha to have been the only Buddha. The Pāli Canon refers to many previous ones (see list of the named Buddhas), while the Mahāyāna texts additionally have many Buddhas of celestial origin (see Amitābha or Vairocana as examples; for lists of many thousands of Buddha names, see Taishō Tripiṭaka ...
The Tibetan diaspora has also been active in promoting Tibetan Buddhism in the West. All of the four major Tibetan Buddhist schools have a presence in the West and have attracted Western converts. [183] The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million. [184]
A Buddha is a being who is fully awakened and has fully comprehended the Four Noble Truths.In the Theravada tradition, while there is a list of acknowledged past Buddhas, the historical Buddha Sakyamuni is the only Buddha of our current era and is generally not seen as accessible or as existing in some higher plane of existence.
[385] [403] [404] Scholars such as Bronkhorst also think that the four noble truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight". [405] According to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term "the middle way". [140]
Mahayana practitioners have historically lived in many other countries that are now predominantly Hindu or Muslim; remnants of reverence for bodhisattvas has continued in some of these regions. The following is a non-exhaustive list of bodhisattvas primarily respected in Buddhism.
The schools of Buddhism have existed from ancient times up to the present. The classification and nature of various doctrinal , philosophical or cultural facets of the schools of Buddhism is vague and has been interpreted in many different ways, often due to the sheer number (perhaps thousands) of different sects, subsects, movements, etc. that ...
Buddhism is the majority religion in Cambodia, Japan,Myanmar, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, and Mongolia. It is also the most followed religion in certain nations or territories without any majority religion, such as Mainland China , Hong Kong , [ 4 ] Macau , [ 5 ] [ 2 ] Singapore , [ 6 ] Taiwan , Vietnam , [ 7 ] and Kalmykia in Russia .