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As shown in Early Buddhist Texts, the precepts grew to be more important, and finally became a condition for membership of the Buddhist religion. When Buddhism spread to different places and people, the role of the precepts began to vary. In countries where Buddhism had to compete with other religions, such as China, the ritual of undertaking ...
Buddha is often portrayed as a male figure, such as in this painting from a monastery in Laos.. Within the earliest monastic texts such as the Vinaya (c. 4th century BCE), male monks are explicitly forbidden from having sexual relations with any of the four genders: male, female, ubhatovyañjanaka and paṇḍaka; various meanings of these words are given below.
Buddhism categorizes sexuality, in particular sexual arousal and pleasure, as a type of kama, or earthly pleasure, that must be abandoned to achieve enlightenment.Many Buddhists avoid drawing a distinction between monastic sexual abstinence and other forms of religious self-discipline, while some traditions actively incorporate sexual concepts or acts in a yogic or ritualistic context.
Buddhism was advanced by Gautama Buddha as a method by which human beings could end dukkha (suffering) and escape samsara (cyclic existence). Normally this entails practicing meditation and following the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path as a way to subdue the passions which, along with the skandhas , cause suffering and rebirth.
Buddhism in its various forms affirms that, while suicide as self-sacrifice may be appropriate for the person who is an arhat, one who has attained enlightenment, it is still very much the exception to the rule. [12] Sokushinbutsu in Japanese Buddhism involves asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive. [13]
The Tibetan Buddhist tantric teachings have recently been spread to the Western world by the Tibetan diaspora. Nepalese Newar Buddhism meanwhile is still practiced in the Kathmandu Valley by the Newar people. The tradition maintains a canon of Sanskrit texts, the only Buddhist tantric tradition to still do so.
Buddhist nuns from the Tibetan tradition, volunteering in Kyegundo (Tibet Earthquake zone) In pre-Buddhist Indian religion, women were seen as inferior and subservient to men. Buddha's teachings tended to promote gender equality as the Buddha held that women had the same spiritual capacities as men did.
In Buddhism, smoking is not explicitly prohibited and Buddhist communities have generally tolerated the practice. [28] A definite Buddhist view towards smoking is ambiguous, and attitudes towards it vary from positive to negative; which vary by institution, teaching, and personal views. [28]