Buddhism: The Sacred Time (Essay Sample)

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Buddhism
The Sacred Time
The Brahmanic religion taught about the universe, and it claimed that the world had been created and damaged more than once throughout the enormous periods of time. Borrowing from this religion, the early Buddhists believed that life usually flowed in the cycles that were very immense. As time passed, the Buddhism expounded this vision in encompassing multiple universes, each of them having its Buddha. Each universe also became subject to vast cycles of both creation and destruction. Unless one were enlightened, he or she would be reborn over and over again all through these cycles. The Samsara is the endless cycle of both death and rebirth and as such, the Buddhism was to run away from samsara. The escape is called nirvana, and it was very distinct from an experience of the sacred time such as one may expect in the ecstatic experience or the shamanic journey.
There was a need to put out any individual experience or any sense of self to attain nirvana. Therefore, there was sentiment being that was remaining to have an experience of a sacred time beyond the ordinary time. As such, Nirvana has two senses; a this-worldly state that occurs when all the attachments have been eliminated, and the non-state when after and when rebirth no longer exists. The Buddha usually taught that those individuals who occupied the realms of heaven still existed in samsara and the gods also were subject to rebirth as well. Even those people who were reborn in the Pure Land, although they were not subject to future rebirths, were not free from samsara.
The scholars of Buddha brought the concept of shunyata, or otherwise called emptiness during the 2nd century C.E. it thus meant that by understanding the emptiness, someone can escape samsara just the way Buddha did the time he became enlightened. Therefore, the Heart Sutra deconstructed both the dependent cycle arising as well as the path of arhat that seek liberation from the death and rebirth through the self-extinction. The developments shifted the attention of Buddhism away from the endless time, which is samsara. However, neither Nagarjuna nor Heart Sutra produced the better concept of the sacred time. Everything is one and as such the sutras argued that the Enlightenment is only accessible through the immediate experience. The imagery of Garland Sutras in elaborating this experience was still of the ‘other' realm out of the ordinary experience, which is the Dharma Realm. In a sense, all the time is sacred time because to experience the present moment fully is to experience the enlightenment.
In conclusion, the journey of Buddhism right from the concept of escape from time-from the endless cycle of the death and the rebirth- up to the notion of enlightenment in the present period as too long and complicated. It took place a long time ago, over a lot of centuries of the Buddhist thought as well as the practice. In this process, the sacred time was transitioned from a thing that was beyond any experience to a trait of the life of everyday, at least for the people who are able to experience the true nature of the reality. The doctrines are relevant to the content covered in class. The concept of no-self was covered in the Buddhism Lecture 3 on June 12th while the emptiness concept was covered in Buddhism Lecture 6 on 23rd June, and they were both useful.
Response to Questions
Part One
Monasticism is usually characterized by devotion and simplicity to the practice Buddhism. It is essential because it the beneficial relationship enhances a long-term to the Buddhist community. It also helps the community to get a spiritual guidance and thus lead to enlightenment.
Part Two
The most interesting and challenging doctrine of the Buddhism human nature is Annata. The Annata doctrine is usually challenging when it is combined with the beliefs of the Buddhist in karma and reincarnation. The doctrine says that one human life gives rise to the next life if it has an accumulation of karma.