Talk:Buddhism

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Is Siddhārtha really the first Buddha? I'm certain that it isn't the case and there's other texts that points out so but I'm s bit lacking in this subject so anyone cares to enlighten this? --Bobbagum 07:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There have been many Buddhas before Siddhartha and many will come in the future, but Siddhartha is considered the "Historical Buddha" because he gave us the teachings that Buddhists know and practice today. Csbodine 12:22, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Emptiness

The concept of emptiness is very important in Mahayana Buddhism, but not as important in Theravada Buddhism. I think this article needs to mention emptiness and refer to an article on Mahayana teachings.Erixoltan (talk) 17:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The intro to the Buddhism article is excellent. It manages to smoothly combine all different perspective on what Buddhism is. There is, however, a minor thing I would suggest changing, ie to change BC, which is the same as AD to BCE (before common era). I would have changed it myself, but don't know how to create a link to BCE page, without which only more mess would be created.

We sometimes decide these things differently from En wiki. Our interest is to choose the form best understood worldwide. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Length of Article

Hi Wikipedia! I was doing some research on Buddhism that I can summarise into dot points. I went to the Simple English Wikipedia page for Buddhism, but the article was much longer than I had anticipated! As this is the Simple English page, I suggest that the content of this page be reviewed, and the content that is not necessary (for readers who are only attempting to grasp a simple idea of what Buddhism is) be removed.

That's all! 110.20.38.26 (talk) 08:24, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Buddhism includes a range of views, and so it may not possible to summarise it more briefly. You might point to sections you think are not needed. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:06, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Article edit protected

Hello all, Unfortunately, we have had trouble with unknown editors (usually ips) adding nonsense/making non-constructive edits. For this reason, the page is now semi-protected, autoconfirmed status is needed for editing. Users who do not have this status can still propose/discuss changes here. --Eptalon (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

word choice in "Three poisons" section

In this brief section, I'm wondering why the word "stupidity" is used rather than "ignorance." Jorjulio (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"left on our own we are never truly happy"

This text appears under "Three marks of existence" as a parenthetical. Does it refer to the importance of the Sangha? What about the teaching that one should be one's "own refuge"?

By the way, here as elsewhere, we see a short introductory phrase that isn't followed by a comma. I think adding more commas in such places could improve the article in general. Jorjulio (talk) 12:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"left on our own ...": Or does it refer to a failure to see interdependence? Jorjulio (talk) 12:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot that's inaccurate in this section.

There's nothing in the early scriptures that defines unsatisfactoriness as "left on our own we are never truly happy," and "interdependence" was also not something that the Buddha taught. You could see is as being implied in his teachings, but it's not something that's named. I don't believe he ever says that "the self is better understood as an illusion." He does say that all dharmas are "not-self" but the article neglects to point this out.

This section would benefit from being drawn more from a competent scholarly explanation of the three lakkhanas. At present it's close to being original research.

TwaWings (talk) 22:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Whether gods exist or not

The article says, "The Buddha would not say if gods exist or not, although gods play a part in some Buddhist stories. If someone asked the Buddha, "Do gods exist?" he maintained a noble silence. That is, he would not confirm or deny."

This is incoherent, since the Buddha often talks about gods and has conversations with them. Also, the citation given, to the Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta, doesn't address the existence of gods. This is not one of the undetermined questions. TwaWings (talk) 05:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]