Buddha Paintings :: Golden Buddha Painting

All things have a story...

Buddhism is a religious philosophy that teaches people to love and respect each other, the planet and all living things. It believes in building positive karma so that we can escape the seemingly endless cycle of births and deaths. Perhaps the greatest difference from the Judeo-Christian worldview is that Buddhists believes that human beings are reborn with a new body after they die. They further believe that if we as people do not change our behavior then we are often doomed to the fate of repeating the same mistakes year-after-year and lifetime-after-lifetime. By incorporating the Buddha’s principles in our life, we can increase our positive karma and begin traveling down the path to enlightenment.

In Buddhism, enlightenment (sometimes referred to as Nirvana) is the end of suffering in this current lifetime and all future lifetimes. This is because after enlightenment the Buddhist practitioner melts into the universe (which contains all that is) and becomes one with it. The individual ego or personality ceases to exist. Science has proven that everything in the universe (including planets, stars, people, etc.) is interconnected on a deeper, fundamental level than we can perceive with our five senses. When we realize this on a soul level, and not just a logical left-brain way, we begin to lose our sense of self and feel ourselves connected with the world. This may explain why many advanced Buddhist monks feel a great deal of compassion for those who suffer. Indeed, during the Vietnam war, Buddhist monks lit themselves on fire to protest the war, having little regard for the pain associated with such an act. Their compassion was so great that they wished to sacrifice their own bodies to make a statement that would help end the war and the suffering of others.

Buddha himself vowed to help all sentient beings before going on to Nirvana. When we see the image of the Buddha, it is important not to think of it as a deity, but as a reminder of our true nature - that we are all one on a deeper, soul level. It may take us some time to realize this, but when we do, the world will seem like a very different place and people will treat each other with goodness and kindness and not the violence we see permeating our world today.