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The idea of a Greek influence on the development of Buddhism has been particularly advocated by Étienne Lamotte [62] and Thomas McEvilley, who has speculated that “like the Gandharan art style, the Gandharan Buddhist style must have had a prominent Hellenic factor”, [63] although he does not employ the term "Greco-Buddhism" for this ...
Another important supporting quality of Buddhist morality is Trust or Confidence in the teachings of the Buddha and in one's own ability to put them into practice. Wisdom and Understanding are seen as a prerequisite for acting morally. Having an understanding of the true nature of reality is seen as leading to ethical actions.
Buddhist scriptural exegesis has always been driven by the soteriological needs of the tradition to find the true meaning (artha) of Buddhist scriptures. Another important issue in Buddhist hermeneutics is the problem of which sutras are to be taken to be 'Buddhavacana', "the word of the Buddha" and also which sutras contain the correct teachings.
When Buddhism spread to different places and people, the role of the precepts began to vary. In countries in which Buddhism was adopted as the main religion without much competition from other religious disciplines, such as Thailand, the relation between the initiation of a layperson and the five precepts has been virtually non-existent.
Buddhism is devoted primarily to liberation from Duḥkha or suffering by breaking free of samsara, the cycle of compulsory rebirth, by attaining nirvana. Buddhism emphasizes the importance of the individual's meditation practice in this process, and their subsequent liberation from samsara, which is to be enlightened.
Western Buddhist monastics and priests such as Nanavira Thera, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Nyanaponika Thera, Robert Aitken, Taigen Dan Leighton, and Matthieu Ricard have written texts on Buddhist philosophy. A feature of Buddhist thought in the West has been a desire for dialogue and integration with modern science and psychology, and various modern ...
For Buddhism, mental health is of supreme importance, and individuals must strive towards improving this by practicing non-violence and refraining from sexual misconduct and lying. However, Buddhist traditions do acknowledge physical ill-being. Pain and suffering are inevitable like death, for which taking any form of medication are not prohibited.
[52] [53] Like Buddhism, Whitehead also held that our understanding of the world is usually mistaken because we hold to the 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness' in seeing constantly changing processes as having fixed substances. [53] Buddhism teaches that suffering and stress arises from our ignorance to the true nature of the world. Likewise ...