The influence of Buddhism on the West

The influence of Buddhism on the West is known to have existed even before Christ, and is thought to have left its imprint on early Christianity. In the beginning of the 16th Century, the Western world heard about Buddhism again, but it was not until the 19th and 20th Centuries that serious study of Buddhism began.

Knowledge of Buddhism developed thanks to the translation of Buddhist scripts performed by renowned British, German, French and other scholars. It was they who had to refute misleading concepts about the Buddhist religion which had been imposed by earlier “connoisseurs” of Eastern philosophy and religion. These misconceptions and prejudices are related to fundamental aspects of the Buddhist religion, but in the last decades Western people have begun to realise their discrepancy.

We will not focus on these false statements, but rather try to briefly explain what exactly Buddhist religion teaches and what its contribution to the Western world could be. When it first appeared around 25 centuries ago, Buddhism offered rather radical ideals, rising against social injustices connected to class and sex, religious superstitions, brutal rituals and tyranny. Buddhism considers all people as equal. During the whole history of humankind, it was only Buddhism which advocated the idea that man and only man is responsible for his life and his deeds, and that there is no other higher being who controls his destiny or judges his affairs. Man should not believe blindly in anything tradition or religion teaches; he must believe only in his own experiences.

Actually, Buddhism is neither a faith nor a belief, but rather a realistic perspective on life. It is in fact a way of life, which gives us the knowledge necessary to achieve freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness through our own efforts at attaining moral, spiritual and intellectual discipline. The aim of this way of life is to attain a perfect Wisdom-Love- Wisdom, to see things objectively as they are and to free yourself from selfish desire, hatred and violence; and to have love and understanding for every living creature in the world.

Buddhism is the only religion for which banners have never led to war or committed any other kind of violence. For Buddhism, all social conflicts are first born in the mind of the individual, and that’s why if we want peace and happiness, we have to find them in ourselves first.