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Show j WHAT IS BUDDHISM? Buddhism, considered as the body of doctrine attributed to Buddha, is not a religion, nor is it in sympathy with religion, Beeognizing neither a divinity nor a heaven, it is a system of Oriental atheism ; pronouncing man's existence as an evil, and his annihilation bliss. It is moreover, an embodiment em-bodiment of Oriental pessimism. The sum of its doctrines is, ethical culture without religion. This is the "pure" philosophy of Buddhism. Buddhiem was a modification, or to use a more modern word a heresy of the primitive religion re-ligion of Ilindoostan. It sprang out of Brahmin-ism. Brahmin-ism. Brahminism was a religion of great antiquity, some of its standard authorities having been written writ-ten prior to the time of Moses. The Brahmin creed was a very lofty and pure Monotheism. Brahminism Brahmin-ism recognizor the existence of one supreme, eternal eter-nal and infinite spirit, and its idea of God was wonderfully accurate. The moral code of Brahminism Brahm-inism was lofty in the extreme, and demanded profound pro-found admiration. Gradually this ancient and pure faith decayed and lapsed into the worship of God's work nature. It-was about tlHslime.that Buddha is supposed to have lived. Vhat-did "Buddha do? He took Brahminism as he found it and flung from it all its religion; he struck God out of it and made it atheism. In place of the theory of absorption in Brahma, he substituted annihilation. That was how he introduced light. He simply put out the light he found burning. What did he do with its morality? lie look its code of morals and struck out of it God and religion; he left the law, but took a way the lawgiver. He found ethical culture without with-out religion, and put the light, out, instead of giving giv-ing more light. That was what the sensualist, Buddha, accomplished for. humanity. Father Iloeffer. S. J. |