Buddhist worship

For the Buddhists, it doesn’t matter, if they worship at home or in a temple, you don’t need to go to a temple. At home most of the Buddhists have a shrine with candles and statues of the Buddha. The temples all have a statue of the Buddha, and are built to represent the five elements:

·         Fire

·         Air

·         Earth

·         Water

·         Wisdom

One of the most famous temples is the Stupa, which represent the teachings of the Buddha and the believes of the Buddhist.

The process of worshiping works in the following way: They worshipping Buddhist sits barefoot (which is maybe, because they want to show how poor they are compared to the Buddha) in front of a Buddha statue and prays. Furthermore they listen to music from religious texts maybe accompanied by some instruments.

The Mantras and prayer aids (wheels)

A Mantra is like a short prayer, but can also be a just a word or a phrase, which is spoken once or a couple times. It can also be thought. The Buddhists use these phrases to get a spiritual effect on theirselfs.

Prayer wheels in a Buddhist monastery in Dharamshala

One of the most used is called “Avalokiteshvara”. If you translate the mantra it would mean something like “Behold! The jewel in the Lotus”, which is not really useful to understand the real meaning of the Avalokiteshvara.

Prayer wheels are small or huge wheels, where the Buddhists wrote down a mantra. When you walk by one of these mantras you spin it.

The Buddhists use mental- and physical worships. I think for a Buddhists it is not only important to think about the things they have in mind about the Buddha, they also do it in and physical way with the shrines and the prayer wheels, with music and group prayers.

The Realms of the Buddhist Universe

The Buddhist think that their existence endless. There are three signs of existence called tilakhana:

1.       Individuals are reincarnated and experience suffering in different lives.

2.       None of the realms, either good or bad, lasts forever. Even if you are born in the hell realm. It won’t take forever. You will be reincarnated until your bad karma is worked off.

3.        Suffering can only be ended when the individual reaches nirvana.

As a soul you can be born in 6 different realms:

1.       Heaven: It is the realm for the long-living beings and is the realm of enjoyment.

2.       Humanity:  The main realm, where the most souls are reincarnated in. Since the humans have the biggest desire to suffer, they have the biggest chance to reach enlightenment.

3.       Titans and angry gods. Angry beings, who can’t reach enlightenment.

4.       Hungry ghosts. Unhappy souls, with huge bellies and small mouths. They are always hungry and aren’t able to escape. 

5.       Animals. They live together with the human beings, but don’t have the desire to reach enlightenment.

6.       Hell. Beings with bad karma get reincarnated into the hell realm, but they just have to stay there until their bad karma is worked off.

This Buddhism realm system can be compared to the Hinduism cast system: If you did everything right you get born into a good realm, if you get bad karma, you will be born into a one of the bad realms.

The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are one of the most important parts of Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha understood these four truths, while he meditated under the bodhi tree.

1.              

1.  1. There is suffering.

2.        2. Suffering has an origin.

3.        3. Suffering can cease.

4.        4. There is a path out of suffering.

The first two noble truths are about the suffering as a problem and its cause. The third is about the knowledge that there is a cure. And the fourth is description how to achieve enlightenment and be released from suffering.

The Bhavachakra

The Bhavachakra (Hindi: भवचक्र) means the wheel of life or the wheel of becoming. It represents the view that the Buddhist have for the universe. The Bhavachakra reveals the cycle of life, dead, rebirth and suffering which they try to escape from and reach Nirvana. Each of those realms your soul can be born into. The wheel is held by a demon. Around the wheel are twelve stages of dependent origination. The demon, which holds the wheel, is called Yama. In the middle of the wheel are represented the three causes of suffering, hatred, greed and ignorance in form of a pig a rooster and a snake.

Different realms:

-realm of humans

-realm of gods

-realm of hungry ghosts

-realm of animals

-realm of hell

Outside of the wheel there is the Buddha, who is showing the way. He is outside of the wheel to show that he escaped from the cycle of rebirth.