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Rajneeshpuram was an intentional community in Wasco County, Oregon, briefly incorporated as a city in the 1980s, which was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho.

The city was on the site of a 64,229-acre (25,993ha) Central Oregon property known as the Big Muddy Ranch, which was purchased in 1981 for $5.75 million ($15.5million in today's dollars[1]). Within three years, the neo-sannyasins (Rajneesh's followers, also termed Rajneeshees in contemporaneous press reports) developed a community,[2] turning the ranch from an empty rural property into a city of up to 7,000 people, complete with typical urban infrastructure such as a fire department, police, restaurants, malls, townhouses, a 4,200-foot (1,300m) airstrip, a public transport system using buses, a sewage reclamation plant and a reservoir.[3] The Rajneeshpuram post office had the ZIP code 97741.[4]

Within a year of arriving, the commune leaders had become embroiled in a series of legal battles with their neighbours, the principal conflict relating to land use.[3] Initially, they had stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community, their land being zoned for agricultural use.[3] But it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure and services normally associated with a town.[3] The land-use conflict escalated to bitter hostility between the commune and local residents, and the commune was subject to sustained and coordinated pressures from various coalitions of Oregon residents over the following years.[3][5]

The city of Antelope, Oregon, became a focal point of the conflict.[3] It was the nearest town, 18 miles (29km) from the ranch, and had a population of under 60.[3] Initially, Rajneesh's followers had purchased only a small number of lots in Antelope.[3] After a dispute with the 1000 Friends of Oregon, an environmentalist group, Antelope denied the sannyasins a business permit for their mail-order operation, and more sannyasins moved into the town.[3] In April 1982, Antelope voted to disincorporate itself, to prevent itself being taken over.[3] By this time, there were enough Rajneeshee residents to defeat the measure.[3] In May 1982, the residents of the Rancho Rajneesh commune voted to incorporate the separate city of Rajneeshpuram on the ranch.[3] Apart from the control of Antelope and the land-use question, there were other disputes.[3] The commune leadership took an aggressive stance on many issues and initiated litigation against various groups and individuals.[3]

The June 1983 bombing of Hotel Rajneesh, a Rajneeshee-owned hotel in Portland, by the Islamist militant group Jamaat ul-Fuqra further heightened tensions.[3][6] The display of semi-automatic weapons acquired by the Rajneeshpuram Peace Force created an image of imminent violence.[3] There were rumors of the National Guard being called in to arrest Rajneesh.[3] At the same time, the commune was embroiled in a range of legal disputes.[3] Oregon Attorney General David B. Frohnmayer maintained that the city was essentially an arm of a religious organization, and that its incorporation thus violated the principle of separation of church and state. 1000 Friends of Oregon claimed that the city violated state land-use laws. In 1983, a lawsuit was filed by the State of Oregon to invalidate the city's incorporation, and many attempts to expand the city further were legally blocked, prompting followers to attempt to build in nearby Antelope, which was briefly named Rajneesh, when sufficient numbers of Rajneeshees registered to vote there and won a referendum on the subject.

The Rajneeshpuram residents believed that the wider Oregonian community was both bigoted and suffered from religious intolerance.[7] According to Latkin (1992) Rajneesh's followers had made peaceful overtures to the local community when they first arrived in Oregon.[3] As Rajneeshpuram grew in size heightened tension led certain fundamentalist Christian church leaders to denounce Rajneesh, the commune, and his followers.[3] Petitions were circulated aimed at ridding the state of the perceived menace.[3] Letters to state newspapers reviled the Rajneeshees, one of them likening Rajneeshpuram to another Sodom and Gomorrah, another referring to them as a "cancer in our midst."[3] In time, circulars mixing "hunting humor" with dehumanizing characterizations of Rajneeshees began to appear at gun clubs, turkey shoots and other gatherings; one of these, circulated widely over the Northwest, declared "an open season on the central eastern Rajneesh, known locally as the Red Rats or Red Vermin."[8]

As Rajneesh himself did not speak in public during this period and until October 1984 gave few interviews, his secretary and chief spokesperson Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman) became, for practical purposes, the leader of the commune.[3] She did little to defuse the conflict, employing a crude, caustic and defensive speaking style that exacerbated hostilities and attracted media attention.[3] On September 14, 1985, Sheela and 15 to 20 other top officials abruptly left Rajneeshpuram.[3] The following week, Rajneesh convened press conferences and publicly accused Sheela and her team of having committed crimes within and outside the commune.[3][9] The subsequent criminal investigation, the largest in Oregon history, confirmed that a secretive group had, unbeknownst to both government officials and nearly all Rajneeshpuram residents, engaged in a variety of criminal activities, including the attempted murder of Rajneesh's physician, wiretapping and bugging within the commune and within Rajneesh's home, poisonings of two public officials, and arson.[3][10]

Sheela was extradited from Germany and imprisoned for these crimes, as well as for her role in infecting the salad bars of several restaurants in The Dalles (the county seat of Wasco County) with salmonella, infecting 751 people (including several Wasco County public officials), and resulting in the hospitalization of 45 people. Known as the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack, the incident is regarded as the largest biological warfare attack in the history of the United States. These criminal activities had, according to the Office of the Attorney General, begun in the spring of 1984, three years after the establishment of the commune.[3] Rajneesh himself was accused of immigration violations, to which he entered an Alford plea. As part of his plea bargain, he agreed to leave the United States and eventually returned to Poona, India. His followers left Oregon shortly afterwards.

The legal standing of Rajneeshpuram remained ambiguous. In the church/state suit, Federal Judge Helen J. Frye ruled against Rajneeshpuram in late 1985, a decision that was not contested, since it came too late to be of practical significance.[11] The Oregon courts, however, eventually found in favor of the city, with the Court of Appeals determining in 1986 that incorporation had not violated the state planning system's agricultural land goals.[11] The Oregon Supreme Court ended litigation in 1987, leaving Rajneeshpuram empty and bankrupt, but legal within Oregon law.[11][12]

Dennis R. Washington's firm Washington Construction purchased The Big Muddy Ranch from the state in 1991. Washington attempted to run the ranch for profit, and also unsuccessfully negotiated with the state to turn it into a state park.[13]

In 1996 Washington donated the ranch to Young Life, a Christian youth camp organization. Since 1999 Young Life has operated a summer camp there, first as the WildHorse Canyon Camp, later as the Washington Family Ranch.[13][14]

The Big Muddy Ranch Airport is also located there.[15]

Coordinates: 444954N 1202906W / 44.831667N 120.484928W / 44.831667; -120.484928

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Moksha (Sanskrit: , moka), also called vimoksha, vimukti and mukti,[1] is a term in Jainism, Hinduism and Hindu philosophy which refers to various forms of emancipation, liberation, and release.[2] In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from sasra, the cycle of death and rebirth. In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha refers to freedom from ignorance: self-realization and self-knowledge.[4]

In Hindu traditions, moksha is a central concept[5] and the utmost aim to be attained through three paths during human life; these three paths are dharma (virtuous, proper, moral life), artha (material prosperity, income security, means of life), and kama (pleasure, sensuality, emotional fulfillment).[6] Together, these four concepts are called Pururtha in Hinduism.[7]

The concept of moksha is found in Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. In some schools of Indian religions, moksha is considered equivalent to and used interchangeably with other terms such as vimoksha, vimukti, kaivalya, apavarga, mukti, nihsreyasa and nirvana.[8] However, terms such as moksha and nirvana differ and mean different states between various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[9] The term nirvana is more common in Buddhism,[10] while moksha is more prevalent in Hinduism.[11]

Moksha is derived from the root Sanskrit: , muc, which means free, let go, release, liberate.[12][13] In Vedas and early Upanishads, the word Sanskrit: , mucyate[12] appears, which means to be set free or release - such as of a horse from its harness.

The definition and meaning of moksha varies between various schools of Indian religions.[14] Moksha means freedom, liberation; from what and how is where the schools differ.[15] Moksha is also a concept that means liberation from rebirth or sasra. This liberation can be attained while one is on earth (jivanmukti), or eschatologically (karmamukti, videhamukti). Some Indian traditions have emphasized liberation on concrete, ethical action within the world. This liberation is an epistemological transformation that permits one to see the truth and reality behind the fog of ignorance.[web 1]

Moksha has been defined not merely as absence of suffering and release from bondage to sasra, various schools of Hinduism also explain the concept as presence of the state of paripurna-brahmanubhava (the experience of oneness with Brahman, the One Supreme Self), a state of knowledge, peace and bliss.[16] For example, Vivekachudamani - an ancient book on moksha, explains one of many meditative steps on the path to moksha, as:

| ||||

Beyond caste, creed, family or lineage,That which is without name and form, beyond merit and demerit,That which is beyond space, time and sense-objects,You are that, God himself; Meditate this within yourself. ||Verse 254||

Moksha is a concept associated with sasra (birth-rebirth cycle). Samsara originated with religious movements in the first millennium BCE.[web 1] These movements such as Buddhism, Jainism and new schools within Hinduism, saw human life as bondage to a repeated process of rebirth. This bondage to repeated rebirth and life, each life subject to injury, disease and aging, was seen as a cycle of suffering. By release from this cycle, the suffering involved in this cycle also ended. This release was called moksha, nirvana, kaivalya, mukti and other terms in various Indian religious traditions.[18]

Eschatological ideas evolved in Hinduism.[19] In earliest Vedic literature, heaven and hell sufficed soteriological curiosities. Over time, the ancient scholars observed that people vary in the quality of virtuous or sinful life they lead, and began questioning how differences in each persons puya (merit, good deeds) or pp (demerit, sin) as human beings affected their afterlife.[20] This question led to the conception of an afterlife where the person stayed in heaven or hell, in proportion to their merit or demerit, then returned to earth and were reborn, the cycle continuing indefinitely. The rebirth idea ultimately flowered into the ideas of sasra, or transmigration - where ones balance sheet of karma determined ones rebirth. Along with this idea of sasra, the ancient scholars developed the concept of moksha, as a state that released a person from the sasra cycle. Moksha release in eschatological sense in these ancient literature of Hinduism, suggests van Buitenen,[21] comes from self-knowledge and consciousness of oneness of supreme soul.

The meaning of moksha in epistemological and psychological sense has been variously explained by scholars. For example, according to Deutsche, moksha is transcendental consciousness, the perfect state of being, of self-realization, of freedom and of "realizing the whole universe as the Self".[22]

Moksha in Hinduism, suggests Klaus Klostermaier,[23] implies a setting free of hitherto fettered faculties, a removing of obstacles to an unrestricted life, permitting a person to be more truly a person in the full sense; the concept presumes an unused human potential of creativity, compassion and understanding which had been blocked and shut out. Moksha is more than liberation from life-rebirth cycle of suffering (samsara); Vedantic school separates this into two: jivanmukti (liberation in this life) and videhamukti (liberation after death).[24] Moksha in this life includes psychological liberation from adhyasa (fears besetting ones life) and avidya (ignorance or anything that is not true knowledge).[23]

Moksha is, in many schools of Hinduism according to Daniel Ingalls,[15] a state of perfection. The concept was seen as a natural goal beyond dharma. Moksha, in the Epics and ancient literature of Hinduism, is seen as achievable by the same techniques necessary to practice dharma. Self-discipline is the path to dharma, moksha is self-discipline that is so perfect that it becomes unconscious, second nature. Dharma is thus a means to moksha.[25]

Samkhya school of Hinduism, for example, suggests one of the paths to moksha is to magnify one's sattvam.[26][27] To magnify one's sattvam, one must develop oneself where one's sattvam becomes one's instinctive nature. Dharma and moksha were thus understood by many schools of Hinduism as two points of a single journey of life, a journey for which the viaticum was discipline and self training.[27] Over time, these ideas about moksha were challenged.

Dharma and moksha, suggested Nagarjuna in the 2nd century, cannot be goals on the same journey.[28] He pointed to the differences between the world we live in, and the freedom implied in the concept of moksha. They are so different that dharma and moksha could not be intellectually related. Dharma requires worldly thought, moksha is unworldly understanding, a state of bliss. How can the worldly thought process lead to unworldly understanding, asked Nagarjuna?[28] Karl Potter explains the answer to this challenge as one of context and framework, the emergence of broader general principles of understanding from thought processes that are limited in one framework.[29]

Adi Shankara in 8th century AD, like Nagarjuna earlier, examined the difference between the world one lives in and moksha, a state of freedom and release one hopes for.[30] Unlike Nagarjuna, Shankara considers the characteristics between the two. The world one lives in requires action as well as thought; our world, he suggests, is impossible without vyavahara (action and plurality). The world is interconnected, one object works on another, input is transformed into output, change is continuous and everywhere. Moksha, suggests Shankara,[23] is that final perfect, blissful state where there can be no change, where there can be no plurality of states. It has to be a state of thought and consciousness that excludes action.[30] How can action-oriented techniques by which we attain the first three goals of man (kama, artha and dharma) be useful to attain the last goal, namely moksha?

Scholars[31] suggest Shankaras challenge to the concept of moksha parallels those of Plotinus against the Gnostics, with one important difference:[30] Plotinus challenged Gnostics that they have exchanged anthropocentric set of virtues with a theocentric set in pursuit of salvation; Shankara challenged that the concept of moksha implied an exchange of anthropocentric set of virtues (dharma) with a blissful state that has no need for values. Shankara goes on to suggest that anthropocentric virtues suffice.

Vaishnavism is one of the bhakti schools of Hinduism and devoted to the worship of God, that sings his name, anoints his image or idol, and has many sub-schools. Vaishnavas suggest that dharma and moksha cannot be two different or sequential goals or states of life.[32] Instead, they suggest God should be kept in mind constantly to simultaneously achieve dharma and moksha, so constantly that one comes to feel one cannot live without Gods loving presence. This school emphasized love and adoration of God as the path to "moksha" (salvation and release), rather than works and knowledge. Their focus became divine virtues, rather than anthropocentric virtues. Daniel Ingalls[32] calls Vaishnavas position on moksha as similar to Christian position on salvation, and the school whose views on dharma, karma and moksha dominated the initial impressions and colonial era literature on Hinduism, through the works of Thibaut, Max Mller and others.

The concept of moksha appears much later in ancient Indian literature than the concept of dharma. The proto-concept that first appears in the ancient Sanskrit verses and early Upanishads is mucyate, which means freed or released. It is the middle and later Upanishads, such as the Svetasvatara and Maitri, where the word moksha appears and begins becoming an important concept.[15][33]

Kathaka Upanishad,[34] a middle Upanishadic era script dated to be about 2500 years old, is among the earliest expositions about sasra and moksha. In Book I, Section III, the legend of boy Naciketa queries Yama, the lord of death to explain what causes sasra and what leads to liberation.[35] Naciketa inquires: what causes sorrow? Yama explains that suffering and sasra results from a life that is lived absent-mindedly, with impurity, with neither the use of intelligence nor self-examination, where neither mind nor senses are guided by ones atma (soul, self).[36][37] Liberation comes from a life lived with inner purity, alert mind, led by buddhi (reason, intelligence), realization of the Supreme Self (purusha) who dwells in all beings. Kathaka Upanishad asserts knowledge liberates, knowledge is freedom.[38][39] Kathaka Upanishad also explains the role of yoga in personal liberation, moksha.

Svetasvatara Upanishad, another middle era Upanishad written after Kathaka Upanishad, begins with questions such as why is man born, what is the primal cause behind the universe, what causes joy and sorrow in life?[40] It then examines the various theories, that were then existing, about sasra and release from bondage. Svetasvatara claims[41] bondage results from ignorance, illusion or delusion; deliverance comes from knowledge. The Supreme Being dwells in every being, he is the primal cause, he is the eternal law, he is the essence of everything, he is nature, he is not a separate entity. Liberation comes to those who know Supreme Being is present as the Universal Spirit and Principle, just as they know butter is present in milk. Such realization, claims Svetasvatara, come from self-knowledge and self-discipline; and this knowledge and realization is liberation from transmigration, the final goal of the Upanishad.[42]

Starting with the middle Upanishad era, moksha - or equivalent terms such as mukti and kaivalya - is a major theme in many Upanishads. For example, Sarasvati Rahasya Upanishad, one of several Upanishads of the bhakti school of Hinduism, starts out with prayers to Goddess Sarasvati. She is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, learning and creative arts;[43] her name is a compound word of sara[44] and sva,[45] meaning "essence of self". After the prayer verses, the Upanishad inquires about the secret to freedom and liberation (mukti). Sarasvatis reply in the Upanishad is:

It was through me the Creator himself gained liberating knowledge,I am being, consciousness, bliss, eternal freedom: unsullied, unlimited, unending.My perfect consciousness shines your world, like a beautiful face in a soiled mirror,Seeing that reflection I wish myself you, an individual soul, as if I could be finite!

A finite soul, an infinite Goddess - these are false concepts,in the minds of those unacquainted with truth,No space, my loving devotee, exists between your self and my self,Know this and you are free. This is the secret wisdom.

The concept of moksha, according to Daniel Ingalls,[15] represented one of many expansions in Hindu Vedic ideas of life and afterlife. In the Vedas, there were three stages of life: studentship, householdship and retirement. During the Upanishadic era, Hinduism expanded this to include a fourth stage of life: complete abandonment. In Vedic literature, there are three modes of experience: waking, dream and deep sleep. The Upanishadic era expanded it to include turiyam - the stage beyond deep sleep. The Vedas suggest three goals of man: kama, artha and dharma. To these, the Upanishadic era added moksha.[15]

The acceptance of the concept of moksha in some schools of Hindu philosophy was slow. These refused to recognize moksha for centuries, considering it irrelevant.[15] The Mimamsa school, for example, denied the goal and relevance of moksha well into the 8th century AD, until the arrival of a Mimamsa scholar named Kumarila.[47] Instead of moksha, Mimamsa school of Hinduism considered the concept of heaven as sufficient to answer the question: what lay beyond this world after death. Other schools of Hinduism, over time, accepted the Moksha concept and refined it over time.[15]

It is unclear when the core ideas of samsara and moksha were developed in ancient India. Patrick Olivelle suggests these ideas likely originated with new religious movements in the first millennium BCE.[web 1] Mukti and moksha ideas, suggests J. A. B. van Buitenen,[21] seem traceable to yogis in Hinduism, with long hair, who chose to live on the fringes of society, given to self-induced states of intoxication and ecstasy, possibly accepted as medicine men and "sadhus" by the ancient Indian society.[15] Moksha to these early concept developers, was the abandonment of the established order, not in favor of anarchy, but in favor of self-realization, to achieve release from this world.[48]

In its historical development, the concept of moksha appears in three forms: Vedic, yogic and bhakti. In the Vedic period, moksha was ritualistic.[21] Moka was claimed to result from properly completed rituals such as those before Agni - the fire deity. The significance of these rituals was to reproduce and recite the cosmic creation event described in the Vedas; the description of knowledge on different levels - adhilokam, adhibhutam, adhiyajnam, adhyatmam - helped the individual transcend to moksa. Knowledge was the means, the ritual its application. By the middle to late Upanishadic period, the emphasis shifted to knowledge, and ritual activities were considered irrelevant to the attainment of moksha.[50] Yogic moksha[21][51] replaced Vedic rituals with personal development and meditation, with hierarchical creation of the ultimate knowledge in self as the path to moksha. Yogic moksha principles were accepted in many other schools of Hinduism, albeit with differences. For example, Adi Shankara in his book on moksha suggests:

| || ||

By reflection, reasoning and instructions of teachers, the truth is known,Not by ablutions, not by making donations, nor by performing hundreds of breath control exercises. || Verse 13 ||

Bhakti moksha created the third historical path, where neither rituals nor meditative self-development were the way, rather it was inspired by constant love and contemplation of God, which over time results in a perfect union with God.[21] Some Bhakti schools evolved their ideas where God became the means and the end, transcending moksha; the fruit of bhakti is bhakti itself.[53] In the history of Indian religious traditions, additional ideas and paths to moksha beyond these three, appeared over time.[54]

The words moksha, nirvana (nibbana) and kaivalya are sometimes used synonymously,[55] because they all refer to the state that liberates a person from all causes of sorrow and suffering.[56][57] However, in modern era literature, these concepts have different premises in different religions.[9] Nirvana, a concept common in Buddhism, is a state of realization that there is no self (no soul) and Emptiness; while moksha, a concept common in many schools of Hinduism, is acceptance of Self (soul), realization of liberating knowledge, the consciousness of Oneness with Brahman, all existence and understanding the whole universe as the Self.[58][59] Nirvana starts with the premise that there is no Self, moksha on the other hand, starts with the premise that everything is the Self; there is no consciousness in the state of nirvana, but everything is One unified consciousness in the state of moksha.[58]

Kaivalya, a concept akin to moksha, rather than nirvana, is found in some schools of Hinduism such as the Yoga school. Kaivalya is the realization of aloofness with liberating knowledge of ones self and union with the spiritual universe. For example, Patanjalis Yoga Sutra suggests:

, |

After the dissolution of avidya (ignorance),comes removal of communion with material world,this is the path to Kaivalyam.

Nirvana and moksha, in all traditions, represents a state of being in ultimate reality and perfection, but described in a very different way. Some scholars, states Jayatilleke, assert that the Nirvana of Buddhism is same as the Brahman in Hinduism, a view other scholars and he disagree with.[61] Buddhism rejects the idea of Brahman, and the metaphysical ideas about soul (atman) are also rejected by Buddhism, while those ideas are essential to moksha in Hinduism.[62] In Buddhism, nirvana is 'blowing out' or 'extinction'.[63] In Hinduism, moksha is 'identity or oneness with Brahman'.[59] Realization of anatta (anatman) is essential to Buddhist nirvana.[64][65][66] Realization of atman (atta) is essential to Hindu moksha.[65][67][68]

Ancient literature of different schools of Hinduism sometimes use different phrases for moksha. For example, Keval jnana or kaivalya ("state of Absolute"), Apavarga, Nihsreyasa, Paramapada, Brahmabhava, Brahmajnana and Brahmi sthiti. Modern literature additionally uses the Buddhist term nirvana interchangeably with moksha of Hinduism.[57][58] There is difference between these ideas, as explained elsewhere in this article, but they are all soteriological concepts of various Indian religious traditions.

The six major orthodox schools of Hinduism have had a historic debate, and disagree over whether moksha can be achieved in this life, or only after this life.[69] Many of the 108 Upanishads discuss amongst other things moksha. These discussions show the differences between the schools of Hinduism, a lack of consensus, with a few attempting to conflate the contrasting perspectives between various schools.[70] For example, freedom and deliverance from birth-rebirth, argues Maitrayana Upanishad, comes neither from the Vedanta schools doctrine (the knowledge of ones own Self as the Supreme Soul) nor from the Samkhya schools doctrine (distinction of the Purusha from what one is not), but from Vedic studies, observance of the Svadharma (personal duties), sticking to Asramas (stages of life).[71]

The six major orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy offer the following views on moksha, each for their own reasons: the Nyaya, Vaisesika and Mimamsa schools of Hinduism consider moksha as possible only after death.[69][72] Samkhya and Yoga schools consider moksha as possible in this life. In Vedanta school, the Advaita sub-school concludes moksha is possible in this life,[69] while Dvaita and Visistadvaita sub-schools of Vedanta tradition believes that moksha is a continuous event, one assisted by loving devotion to God, that extends from this life to post-mortem. Beyond these six orthodox schools, some heterodox schools of Hindu tradition, such as Carvaka, deny there is a soul or after life moksha.[73]

Both Smkhya and Yoga systems of religious thought are mokshastras, suggests Knut Jacobsen, they are systems of salvific liberation and release.[74] Smkhya is a system of interpretation, primarily a theory about the world. Yoga is both a theory and a practice. Yoga gained wide acceptance in ancient India, its ideas and practices became part of many religious schools in Hinduism, including those that were very different from Smkhya. The eight limbs of yoga can be interpreted as a way to liberation (moksha).[74][75]

In Smkhya literature, liberation is commonly referred to as kaivalya. In this school, kaivalya means the realization of purusa, the principle of consciousness, as independent from mind and body, as different from prakrti. Like many schools of Hinduism, in Smkhya and Yoga schools, the emphasis is on the attainment of knowledge, vidy or jna, as necessary for salvific liberation, moksha.[74][76] Yogas purpose is then seen as a means to remove the avidy - that is, ignorance or misleading/incorrect knowledge about one self and the universe. It seeks to end ordinary reflexive awareness (cittavrtti nirodhah) with deeper, purer and holistic awareness (asamprjta samdhi).[75][77] Yoga, during the pursuit of moksha, encourages practice (abhysa) with detachment (vairgya), which over time leads to deep concentration (samdhi). Detachment means withdrawal from outer world and calming of mind, while practice means the application of effort over time. Such steps are claimed by Yoga school as leading to samdhi, a state of deep awareness, release and bliss called kaivalya.[74][76]

Three of four paths of spirituality in Hinduism. Each path suggests a different way to moksha.

Yoga, or mrga, in Hinduism is widely classified into four spiritual practices.[78] The first mrga is Jna Yoga, the way of knowledge. The second mrga is Bhakti Yoga, the way of loving devotion to God. The third mrga is Karma Yoga, the way of works. The fourth mrga is Rja Yoga, the way of contemplation and meditation. These mrgas are part of different schools in Hinduism, and their definition and methods to moksha.[79] For example, the Advaita Vedanta school relies on Jna Yoga in its teachings of moksha.[80]

The three main sub-schools in Vedanta school of Hinduism - Advaita Vedanta, Vishistadvaita and Dvaita - each have their own views about moksha.

The Vedantic school of Hinduism suggests the first step towards moka begins with mumuksutva, that is desire of liberation.[23] This takes the form of questions about self, what is true, why do things or events make us happy or cause suffering, and so on. This longing for liberating knowledge is assisted by, claims Adi Shankara of Advaita Vedanta,[81] guru (teacher), study of historical knowledge and viveka (critical thinking). Shankara cautions that the guru and historic knowledge may be distorted, so traditions and historical assumptions must be questioned by the individual seeking moksha. Those who are on their path to moksha (samnyasin), suggests Klaus Klostermaier, are quintessentially free individuals, without craving for anything in the worldly life, thus are neither dominated by, nor dominating anyone else.[23]

Vivekachudamani, which literally means "Crown Jewel of Discriminatory Reasoning", is a book devoted to moksa in Vedanta philosophy. It explains what behaviors and pursuits lead to moksha, as well what actions and assumptions hinder moksha. The four essential conditions, according to Vivekachudamani, before one can commence on the path of moksha include (1) vivekah (discrimination, critical reasoning) between everlasting principles and fleeting world; (2) viragah (indifference, lack of craving) for material rewards; (3) samah (calmness of mind), and (4) damah (self restraint, temperance).[82] The Brahmasutrabhasya adds to the above four requirements, the following: uparati (lack of bias, dispassion), titiksa (endurance, patience), sraddha (faith) and samadhana (intentness, commitment).[80]

The Advaita tradition considers moksha achievable by removing avidya (ignorance). Moksha is seen as a final release from illusion, and through knowledge (anubhava) of one's own fundamental nature, which is Satcitananda.[83][note 1] Advaita holds there is no being/non-being distinction between Atman, Brahman, and Paramatman. The knowledge of Brahman leads to moksha,[86] where Brahman is described as that which is the origin and end of all things, the universal principle behind and at source of everything that exists, consciousness that pervades everything and everyone.[87] Advaita Vedanta emphasizes Jnana Yoga as the means of achieving moksha.[80] Bliss, claims this school, is the fruit of knowledge (vidya) and work (karma).[88]

The Dvaita (dualism) traditions define moksha as the loving, eternal union with God (Vishnu) and considered the highest perfection of existence. Dvaita schools suggest every soul encounters liberation differently.[89] Dualist schools (e.g. Vaishnava) see God as the object of love, for example, a personified monotheistic conception of Shiva or Vishnu. By immersing oneself in the love of God, one's karmas slough off, one's illusions decay, and truth is lived. Both the worshiped and worshiper gradually lose their illusory sense of separation and only One beyond all names remains. This is salvation to dualist schools of Hinduism. Dvaita Vedanta emphasizes Bhakti Yoga as the means of achieving moksha.[90]

The Vishistadvaita tradition, led by Ramanuja, defines avidya and moksha differently from the Advaita tradition. To Ramanuja, avidya is a focus on the self, and vidya is a focus on a loving god. The Vishistadvaita school argues that other schools of Hinduism create a false sense of agency in individuals, which makes the individual think oneself as potential or self-realized god. Such ideas, claims Ramanuja, decay to materialism, hedonism and self worship. Individuals forget Ishvara (God). Mukti, to Vishistadvaita school, is release from such avidya, towards the intuition and eternal union with God (Vishnu).[91]

Among the Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta schools of Hinduism, liberation and freedom reached within ones life is referred to as jivanmukti, and the individual who has experienced this state is called jivanmukta (self-realized person).[92] Dozens of Upanishads, including those from middle Upanishadic period, mention or describe the state of liberation, jivanmukti.[93][94] Some contrast jivanmukti with videhamukti (moksha from samsara after death).[95] Jivanmukti is a state that transforms the nature, attributes and behaviors of an individual, claim these ancient texts of Hindu philosophy. For example, according to Naradaparivrajaka Upanishad, the liberated individual shows attributes such as:[96]

Balinese Hinduism incorporates moksha as one of five tattwas. The other four are: brahman (the one supreme god head, not to be confused with Brahmin), atma (soul or spirit), karma (actions and reciprocity, causality), samsara (principle of rebirth, reincarnation). Moksha, in Balinese Hindu belief, is the possibility of unity with the divine; it is sometimes referred to as nirwana.[98][99]

In Buddhism the most common term for liberation is Nirvana (Pali: Nibbana).[100][citation needed] It literally means blowing out, "quenching", or becoming extinguished.[101] This Buddhist concept is intimately tied as in later Hinduism and Jainism, states Steven Collins, to the ancient Indian idea of the world of rebirth and redeath.[102]

In Theravada Buddhism moksha is attained with nirvana, which ends the cycle of Dukkha and rebirth in the six realms of Sasra (Buddhism).[103][note 2] It is part of the Four Noble Truths doctrine of Buddhism, which plays an essential role in Theravada Buddhism.[109] Nirvana has been described in Buddhist texts in a manner similar to other Indian religions, as the state of complete liberation, enlightenment, highest happiness, bliss, fearless, freedom, dukkha-less, permanence, non-dependent origination, unfathomable, indescribable.[110][111] It has also been described as a state of release marked by "emptiness" and realization of non-Self.[112][113][114] Such descriptions, states Peter Harvey, are contested by scholars because nirvana in Buddhism is ultimately described as a state of "stopped consciousness (blown out), but one that is not non-existent", and "it seems impossible to imagine what awareness devoid of any object would be like".[103]

In Jainism, moksha and nirvana are one and the same.[57][116] Jaina texts sometimes use the term Kevalya, and call the liberated soul as Kevalin.[117] As with all Indian religions, moksha is the ultimate spiritual goal in Jainism. It defines moksha as the spiritual release from all karma.[117]

Jainism is a Sramanic non-theistic philosophy, that like Hinduism and unlike Buddhism, believes in a metaphysical permanent self or soul often termed Jiva. Jaina believe that this soul is what transmigrates from one being to another at the time of death. The moksa state is attained when a soul (atman) is liberated from the cycles of rebirths and redeaths (Sasra), is at the apex, is omniscient, remains there eternally, and is known as a Siddha. It is in Jainism, believed to be a stage beyond enlightenment and ethical perfection, states Paul Dundas, because they can perform physical and mental activities such as teach, without accruing karma that leads to rebirth.[117]

Jaina traditions believe that there exist Abhavya (incapable), or a class of souls that can never attain moksha (liberation).[117] The Abhavya state of soul is entered after an intentional and shockingly evil act, but Jaina texts also polemically applied Abhavya condition to those who belonged to a competing ancient Indian tradition called jvika.[117] A male human being is considered closest to the apex of moksha, with the potential to achieve liberation, particularly through asceticism. The ability of women to attain moksha has been historically debated, and the sub-traditions with Jainism have disagreed. In the Digambra tradition of Jainism, women must live an ethical life and gain karmic merit, to be reborn as a man, because only males can achieve spiritual liberation;[121][122] in contrast, the Shvetambara tradition has believed that women too can attain moksha just like men.[122][123][124]

The Sikh concept of mukti (moksha) is similar to other Indian religions, and refers to spiritual liberation.[125] It is described in Sikhism as the state that breaks the cycle of rebirths.[125] Mukti is obtained according to Sikhism, states Singha, through "God's grace".[126] According to the teachings in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the devotion to God is viewed as more important than the desire for Mukti.[126]

I desire neither worldly power nor liberation. I desire nothing but seeing the Lord.Brahma, Shiva, the Siddhas, the silent sages and Indra - I seek only the Blessed Vision of my Lord and Master's Darshan.I have come, helpless, to Your Door, O Lord Master; I am exhausted - I seek the Sanctuary of the Saints.Says Nanak, I have met my Enticing Lord God; my mind is cooled and soothed - it blossoms forth in joy.

Sikhism recommends Naam Simran as the way to mukti, which is meditating and repeating the Naam (names of God).[125][126]

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Moksha - Wikipedia

When most adults think about exercise, they imagine working out in the gym, runningon a treadmill, or lifting weights.

But for kids, exercise means playing and being physically active. Kids exercise when they have gym class at school, during recess, at dance class orsoccer practice, while riding bikes, or when playing tag.

Everyone can benefit from regular exercise. Kids who are active will:

Besides enjoying the health benefits of regular exercise, kids who are physically fit sleep better. They're also better able to handle physical and emotional challenges from running to catch a bus to studying for a test.

If you've ever watched kids on a playground, you've seen the three elements of fitness in action when they:

Parents should encourage their kids to do a variety of activities so that they can work on all three elements.

Endurance develops when kids regularly get aerobic activity. During aerobic exercise, the heart beats faster and a person breathes harder. When done regularly and for extended periods of time, aerobic activity strengthens the heart and improves the body's ability to deliver oxygen to all its cells.

Aerobic exercise can be fun for both adults and kids. Aerobic activities include:

Improving strength doesn't have to mean lifting weights. Instead, kids can do push-ups, stomach crunches, pull-ups, and other exercises to help tone and strengthen muscles. They also improve their strength when they climb, do a handstand, or wrestle.

Stretching exercises help improve flexibility, allowing muscles and joints to bend and move easily through their full range of motion. Kids get chances every day to stretch when they reach fora toy, practice a split, or do acartwheel.

Being overweight or obese in childhoodhas become a serious problem. Many things add tothisepidemic, but a big part of it is that kids are becoming more sedentary. In other words, they're sitting around a lot more than they used to.

Kids and teens now spend hours every day in front of a screen (TVs, smartphones, tablets, and other devices)looking at a variety of media (TV shows, videos, movies, games). Too much screen time and not enough physical activity add to the problem of childhood obesity.

One of the best ways to get kids to be more active is to limit the amount of time spent in sedentary activities, especially watching TV or other screens. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends parents:

Parents should make sure that their kids get enough exercise. So, how much is enough? Kids and teens should get 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily.

The National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) offers these activity guidelines for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers:

Age

Minimum Daily Activity

Comments

Infant

No specific requirements

Physical activity should encourage motor development

Toddler

1 hours

30 minutes planned physical activity AND 60 minutes unstructured physical activity (free play)

Preschooler

2 hours

60 minutes planned physical activity AND 60 minutes unstructured physical activity (free play)

School age

1 hour or more

Break up into bouts of 15 minutes or more

Infants and young children should not be inactive for long periods of time no more than 1 hour unless they're sleeping. And school-age children should not be inactive for periods longer than 2 hours.

Combining regular physical activity with a healthy diet is the key to a healthy lifestyle.

Here are some tips for raising fit kids:

Date reviewed: December 2016

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Kids and Exercise

Personal coaching - or 'life coaching' as it is commonly described and promoted - is a quite recent area of learning and development.

Life coaching can be effective in many situations, for example in helping a person's career direction and development, or for personal fulfillment or life change more generally.

Life coaching, or becoming a personal coach is also a career opportunity in itself that interests many people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

In recent years a big industry has grown under the heading of 'life coaching'. For this reason the term 'life coaching' appears widely in related marketing and publicity, which can create a perception that 'life coaching' is in some way quite different from other forms of personal coaching. In fact the term 'personal coaching' can be equally descriptive of what 'life coaching' entails: many personal coaches have capabilities which match those of 'life coaches', and many clients of personal coaches experience exactly the same coaching effects as in the 'life coaching' industry.

Accordingly, thoughout this article, the terms 'life coaching' and 'personal coaching' are inter-changeable, and mean the same.

Life coaching/personal coaching is interesting from the standpoint ofbeing coached, and alsobecoming a coach. This article aims to cover both angles.

Life coaching and personal coaching are interchangeable terms - they mean the same.

Life coaching aims todraws outa person's potential rather than puts in aims and knowledge from outside.

Itdevelopsrather than imposes.

Itreflectsrather than directs.

Effective life coaching or personal coaching is a form ofchange facilitation- itenablespeople, rather than trains them.

Life coaching isreactiveandflexible- it allows forpersonal transitionon anindividual basis.

Coaching of this sort makes no assumptions - it's not judgmental, nor is it prescriptive or instructional.

Empathyis central to the coaching process.

Good personal coaching seeks to help the other person's understanding of himself or herself.

Life coaching is rather like a brand or label of the life coaching industry, but it potentially covers virtually every aspect of personal development that an individual might aspire to - for career direction and development, management, executive and leadership, business start-up and entrepreneurialism, life skills, personal fulfilment, life-balance, and the aquisition of specific skills or knowledge.

Life coaching can be this adaptable because it is not concerned with delivery and specilaised training - it focuses on enablement and reflection, so that the individual decides and discovers their required progression themselves.

People use life coaches and personal coaches for various reasons, for example:

sounding board

career help

career direction

Coaching is about getting the very best out of someone and enabling them to make decisions that will improve their life. Coaches are hired for very many different and diverse reasons, for example: to climb the career ladder faster; to feel more fulfilled at work; to improve relationships with family and partners; to learn parenting skills that benefit both the child and parent; to gain a spiritual meaning to life, or a desire to 'get sorted'.

The profession is growing and coaching is becoming widely acknowledged also because people realise just how effective coaching is. Coaching is a relatively new and different profession - different to psychology, counselling or therapy. The big difference between coaching and these professions is that coaching doesn't claim to have the answers. A coach's job is not to go over old ground, be past-orientated or to force-feed information, but to work with clientsto help them find the answers themselves.

Also, when a person experiences being coached, their motivation comes from working with a coach who is him/herself an upbeat, positive role model. In this way coaching is a unique way of developing people. Coaches agree that helping clients to reach their full potential through this approach produces great satisfaction.

Many people enter the life coaching profession having been coached first, enjoying and benefiting from the experience, and feeling inspired to help others in a similar manner.

Life coaching offers a potentially rewarding additional or alternative career to people of all sorts.

Whatever the reasons for people deciding to work with coaches; whatever the type of coaching given, and whatever results clients seek from coaching, a common feature in all coaching relationship is thatcoaching is a two-way process.

The two-way partnership is a main attraction for people to coaching. Both coach and client benefit. Personal development for the coach is a huge aspect of learning coaching and all coaches find that they themselves grow yourself, before starting to help others to do the same.

An excellent coach finds out new things about themselves and is on a continuous learning journey. Indeed, becoming a coach means a lifelong quest for personal excellence. For many this quest is the motivation to become a coach in the first place.

Helping clients discover where they want to go and helping them to get there is now a proven methodology, which is fuelling the increasing popularity of professional coaching.

Significantly, good coaches are never motivated entirely by money. The very nature of coaching means that it's a profession that is centered around 'making a difference' and helping people. Focusing mainly on making money generally leads to a lack of concern for the client, with the result that the client exits the relationship, not surprisingly. Happily, coaches who enter the profession chiefly for financial gain leave coaching quickly - which helps to maintain the integrity of the coaching professional reputation.

Common factors and reasons for coaches entering the profession:

Coaching entails helping yourself grow and become more self aware, at the same time, helping others to overcome problems in their lives.

Interestingly, most life coaching and personal coaching is conducted on the telephone. Many coaches never actually meet their clients. For several reasons coaching is just as effective over the telephone as it is face-to-face. In fact, many clients prefer to speak over the telephone. This makes the process very convenient for both coach and client, and it offers greater flexibility for people with a busy lifestyle. Coaching using the telephone offers other obvious advantages:

A coaching session is typically thirty minutes and rarely longer than an hour.

Being self-employed has its advantages in any area of business. Having the luxury to choose the hours you work, where you work and how much to charge for your service is a huge motivation for anyone considering joining the profession.

Coaches can choose how many clients they want - one client, or twenty.

And there are no overheads involved - working from home is a big incentive for people who want to enter the coaching profession.

The flexibility of the coaching role, along with the rewarding aspects of the job, is likely to ensure that coaching and the number of practising coaches grows considerably in coming years.

Coaching, as well as being hugely satisfying, a means of personal development and very flexible, is also financially rewarding. Clients value and benefit from the support and are therefore happy to pay for it.

Coaches are attracted into the profession because it gives them:

Little can compare to really making a difference in another person's life.

The ability to help people make lasting, positive changes in their lives is very special. Good coaches have this very special ability, and it is therefore no wonder that people are attracted to the coaching role.

Typical motivations for becoming a coach are explained in this example:

"It's a wonderful experience when a client makes a breakthrough, has a 'light bulb moment' and takes action on something they have been putting off for a long time. It's a fantastic feeling for both me and them." (Pam Lidford, a UK-based qualified coach and trainer)

On a day-to-day basis, coaches face many challenges. Coaching is an ongoing process, a method of continuous development and a significant learning experience for coaches and clients, so it's important to learn from 'mistakes'

The key to this is realising that these aren't 'mistakes' or failings in the first place.

What many people regard as mistakes are lessons, experiences, and opportunities to learn and develop.

Cherie Carter-Scott in her book'If Life Is Game, These Are The Rules'has some helpful things to say about mistakes and learning. So does Don Miguel Ruiz in his book'The Four Agreements'. See also theinspirational quotes, many of which help to approach mistakes and learning experiences positively. Perhaps one of the most powerful examples is "What does not kill us makes us stronger." (attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, based on his words: "Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger." from The Twilight of the Idols, 1899).

A coach must demonstrate resourcefulness and help people to see that if they think they have failed in the past, this bears no bearing to what they can do in the future.

John Cassidy-Rice is a qualified coach who has been working in personal development for many years. He explains typical challenges that coaches can face:

"Failure is only measured by time. If you look at the bigger picture, it's the 'failures' in our life that can actually turn out to be our greatest successes. What we learn from failure is invaluable. To give an example, when a football team loses an important match, they may regard themselves as failures; it's a natural thought process to go through. However, if they take it one match at a time, and look at where they went wrong in the game, and indeed, how they can improve for the next one, it means that these mistakes won't be made again - and they'll be successful in the future games they play. It can be a challenge to remove the 'failure' thought from clients. And showing them that it doesn't mean they can't achieve success in the future."

Listening skills, and resisting the urge to give advice are key attributes and methods of successful coaching, and central to truly helping people find their own direction and solutions.

Listening is the most important ability and behaviour of a coach. This takes patience, tolerance and practice, especially in order to develop real empathic listening techniques. See the section onempathy, which explains more about the different types of listening.

Communicating fully and expertly is a quality that most good coaches will possess. Many coaches draw on the techniques and principles of Neuro-Linguistic Programming to assimilate and master these important communicating capabilities.

Understanding the client's needs is also pivotal to the coach-client relationship, and a prerequisite for avoiding difficulties in the relationship and coaching support process.

It is essential that coachescoachand do not give advice. There's a huge difference between coaching and advising:

Coaching is centred around the client; whereas advising tends to be based on the beliefs, values and opinions of the advisor. In this respect a coach is most certainly not an advisor. The coach's role, and the coaching concept, is to help the other person find their own solutions, not to have them follow an advisor's recommendations or suggestions. This is a fundamental principle.

Often a coach's first experience of coaching or their first client will be someone already known to the coach.

Many other coaching relationships will result from recommendations or referrals by clients' or from past clients.

Integrity and trust are significant factors in successful coaching relationships, so it is logical that personal referrals and introductions are at the start of many coach-client relationships.

It is a fact that most coaches are recommended by existing or past clients.

Aside from this, coaches can and do market their services like any other professional provider, using a variety of appropriate methods, including internet websites, directories, brochures and leaflets. Many coaches offer free trial sessions.

Publicity from various media also helps to spread the word, and promote the reputations and availability of many coaches. Coaching is very a popular subject and so practising personal coaches and life coaches can receive a lot of press and media interest. Coaches are seen by the public as having special skills that not everyone has - so it's not unusual to see coaches being interviewed on local radio or asked for their advice in newspaper articles, etc.

The reputation of coaching is growing along with the use of the concept - and coaching is becoming increasingly associated with modern recognised requirements for success in life, work, business and organizations, notably the qualities of excellence, integrity, humanity and facilitative learning (as distinct from traditional 'training')

As previously stated, coaching is increasingly sub-dividing into specialist and new applications. There is already a considerable coaching presence and influence in the following areas:

In the future coaching is likely to incorporate and attract skills, resources and new coaches from many different areas, such as: teaching, human resources, training, healthcare and nursing, the armed forces, the police, counselling and therapy, etc.

Scientific research will improve cognisance throughout the profession, the processes performed and the reputation of coaches themselves. We will progressively understand more about why coaching works so well, and more about human behaviour and human response in the coaching context.

There will be a clearer definition, understanding and acceptance of life coaching and personal coaching, and its role in helping people to reach their goals.

Just as coaching is not the same as advising, so neither is coaching the same as consultancy. Coaching and consultancy are two very different disciplines, with different methods and aims.

Significantly, a consultant is a specialist in his or her field; whereasa coach is a specialist in coaching, and need not be a specialist in any other field.

That is not to say coaches do not benefit from having expertise in a particular field, in fact approaching coaching from a particular expertise or niche is becoming more prevalent among newly-trained coaches.

There will always be a demand for good coaches. And because coaching skills are so transferable, the coaching capability is hugely valuable for all sorts of other jobs and roles.

The very nature of coaching means that coaches will recommend it as a career. Coaches are passionate about what they do and want to 'spread the word' about the benefits of coaching from both the coach's and the client's perspective. Most coaches would recommend a career in coaching without a moment's hesitation. Helping people to be the very best they can be, touching people's lives, as well as guiding them to help them reach their goals provides immense job satisfaction. Coaching is a relatively young skill and service area and yet in recent years its growth is only exceeded by that of IT.

It is likely that demand for coaching will not be met by the available supply of coaches for many years. Compare this with management consultancy, which has been established as a service area for many decades, and is relatively well-supplied with management consultants.

Compared to established professional services, such as management consultancy, training, accountancy, legal services, etc., coaching is a much newer discipline. Coaching is fast growing and still relatively under-supplied, which is why many people are attracted to learn how to coach, either to become coaching professionals, or to add coaching skills to their existing role capabilities.

People seeking new career direction, or seeking to add new skills to an existing professional service capability are increasingly turning to coaching.

Coaching is unlike training, consultancy, advising, or providing a professional service in which work is completed on behalf of a client. The qualities required for good coaching are different to those found in these other other disciplines too:

In coaching, listening is more important than talking. By listening, people can be helped to overcome their fears, be offered complete objectivity and given undivided attention and unparalleled support. This leads to the intuitive questioning that allows the client to explore what is going on for themselves.

Coaching is a two-way process. While listening is crucial, so is being able to interpret and reflect back, in ways that remove barriers, pre-conceptions, bias, and negativity. Communicating well enables trust and meaningful understanding on both sides.

Coaches are able to communicate feeling and meaning, as well as content - there is a huge difference. Communicating with no personal agenda, and without judging or influencing, are essential aspects of the communicating process, especially when dealing with people's personal anxieties, hopes and dreams.

Good coaching uses communication not to give the client the answers, but to help the clients find their answers for themselves.

A coach's ability to build rapport with people is vital. Normally such an ability stems from a desire to help people, which all coaches tend to possess. Rapport-building is made far easier in coaching compared to other services because the coach's only focus is the client. When a coach supports a person in this way it quite naturally accelerates the rapport-building process.

Coaches motivate and inspire people. This ability to do this lies within us all. It is borne of a desire to help and support. People who feel ready to help others are normally able to motivate and inspire. When someone receives attention and personal investment from a coach towards their well-being and development, such as happens in the coaching relationship, this is in itself very motivational and inspirational.

Coaching patterns vary; people's needs are different, circumstances and timings are unpredictable, so coaching relationships do not follow a single set formula. Remembering that everyone is different and has different needs is an essential part of being a coach. Ultimately, everyone is human - so coaches take human emotions and feelings into account.

And coaching is client-led - which means that these emotions have to be tapped into from the very beginning of the coaching process. So, having the flexibility to react to people's differences, along with the curiosity and interest to understand fundamental issues in people's lives, are also crucial in coaching.

The coach's curiosity enables the client's journey to be full and far-reaching; both coach and client are often surprised at how expectations are exceeded, and how much people grow.

All this does take some courage - coaches generally have a strong belief in themselves, a strong determination to do the best they can for their clients, and a belief, or faith that inherently people are capable of reaching goals themselves.

Typically good coaches will use and follow these principles:

Life coaches and personal coaches come from all kinds of backgrounds and professions. Not surprisingly, coaches tend to like people, and many coaches come from 'people' and 'caring' professions.

Coaches come from backgrounds as varied as these, and the list is certainly not exhaustive:

And many people on business, institutions, management, and organisations of all sorts learn how to become coaches so as to enrich their existing roles with the very special skills, methodologies and philosophies that coaching entails.

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Violence in Buddhism includes acts of violence and aggression committed by Buddhists with religious, political, or socio-cultural motivations, as well as self-inflicted violence by ascetics or for religious purposes. Buddhism is generally seen as among the religious traditions least associated with violence, but in the history of Buddhism there have been acts of violence directed, promoted, or inspired by Buddhists. As far as Buddha's teachings and scriptures are concerned, however, Buddhism forbids all forms of violence, even in extreme cases of self-defense.[4]

Even if thieves carve you limb from limb with a double-handed saw, if you make your mind hostile you are not following my teaching.

Kakacpama Sutta, Majjhima-Nikya 28 at MN i 128-29

Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha.[5] Ahimsa, a term meaning 'not to injure', is a primary virtue in Buddhism.

Nirvana is the earliest and most common term used to describe the goal of the Buddhist path and the ultimate eradication of dukkhanature of life that innately includes "suffering", "pain" or "unsatisfactoriness". Violent actions and thoughts, actions which harm and debase others and thoughts which contemplate the same, stand in the way of spiritual growth and the self-conquest which leads to the goal of existence and they are normally deemed unskilled (akusala) and cannot lead to the goal of Nirvana. Buddha condemned killing or harming living beings and encouraged reflection or mindfulness (satipatthana) as right action (or conduct), therefore "the rightness or wrongness of an action centers around whether the action itself would bring about harm to self and/or others". In the Ambalatthika-Rahulovada Sutta, the Buddha says to Rahula:

If you, Rahula, are desirous of doing a deed with the body, you should reflect on the deed with the body, thus: That deed which I am desirous of doing with the body is a deed of the body that might conduce to the harm of self and that might conduce to the harm of others and that might conduce to the harm of both; this deed of body is unskilled (akusala), its yield is anguish, its result is anguish.

The right action or right conduct (samyak-karmnta / samm-kammanta) is the fourth aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path and it said that the practitioner should train oneself to be morally upright in one's activities, not acting in ways that would be corrupt or bring harm to oneself or to others. In the Chinese and Pali Canon, it is explained as:

And what is right action? Abstaining from taking life, from stealing, and from illicit sex [or sexual misconduct]. This is called right action.

For the lay follower, the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta elaborates:

And how is one made pure in three ways by bodily action? There is the case where a certain person, abandoning the taking of life, abstains from the taking of life. He dwells with his... knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, compassionate for the welfare of all living beings. Abandoning the taking of what is not given, he abstains from taking what is not given. He does not take, in the manner of a thief, things in a village or a wilderness that belong to others and have not been given by them.[21]

Sarambha can be translated as "accompanied by violence". As the mind filled with lobha, dosa and moha (lust, hatred and delusion) is led to actions which are akusala. Indulging in violence is a form of self-harming. The rejection of violence in society is recognized in Buddhism as a prerequisite for the spiritual progress of society's members, because violence brings pain to beings with similar feelings to oneself. The Buddha is quoted in the Dhammapada as saying, "All are afraid of the stick, all hold their lives dear. Putting oneself in another's place, one should not beat or kill others". Metta (loving kindness), the development of mindstates of limitless good-will for all beings, and karuna, compassion that arises when you see someone suffering of the human being, are attitudes said to be excellent or sublime because they are the right or ideal way of conduct towards living beings (sattesu samma patipatti). The Sutta Nipata says "'As I am, so are these. As are these, so am I.' Drawing the parallel to yourself, neither kill nor get others to kill."[27]

In Buddhism, to take refuge in the Dharmaone of the Three Jewelsone should not harm other sentient beings. The Nirvana Sutra states, "By taking refuge in the precious Dharma, One's minds should be free from hurting or harming others". One of the Five Precepts of Buddhist ethics or la states, "I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing." The Buddha reportedly stated, "Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live in pain. Happily the peaceful live giving up victory and defeat." These elements are used to indicate Buddhism is pacifistic and all violence done by Buddhists, even monks, is likely due to economic or political reasons.[34]

The teaching of right speech (samyag-vc / samm-vc) in the Noble Eightfold Path, condemn all speech that is in any way harmful (malicious and harsh speech) and divisive, encouraging to speak in thoughtful and helpful ways. The Pali Canon explained:

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This is called right speech.[14][15]

Michael Jerryson,[36] Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Ohio's Youngstown State University and co-editor of the book Buddhist Warfare, said that "Buddhism differs in that the act of killing is less the focus than the 'intention' behind the killing" and "The first thing to remember is that people have a penchant for violence, it just so happens that every religion has people in it."

Gananath Obeyesekere, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, said that "in the Buddhist doctrinal tradition... there is little evidence of intolerance, no justification for violence, no conception even of 'just wars' or 'holy wars.' ... one can make an assertion that Buddhist doctrine is impossible to reconcile logically with an ideology of violence and intolerance"

There is however in Buddhism a long tradition of self-inflicted violence and death, as a form of asceticism or protest, as exemplified by the use of fires and burns to show determinations among Chinese monks or by the self-immolations of monks such as Thch Qung c during the Vietnam war.

In Southeast Asia, Thailand has had several prominent virulent Buddhist monastic calls for violence. In the 1970s, nationalist Buddhist monks like Phra Kittiwuttho argued that killing Communists did not violate any of the Buddhist precepts. The militant side of Thai Buddhism became prominent again in 2004 when a Malay Muslim insurgency renewed in Thailand's deep south. At first Buddhist monks ignored the conflict as they viewed it as political and not religious but eventually they adopted an "identity-formation", as practical realities require deviations from religious ideals.

In recent years the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the military regime of Burma from 1988 to 2011, had strongly encouraged the conversion of ethnic minorities, often by force, as part of its campaign of assimilation. The regime promoted a vision of Burmese Buddhist nationalism as a cultural and a political ideology to legitimise its contested rule, trying to bring a religious syncretism between Buddhism and its totalitarian ideology.

The Saffron Revolution, a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during 2007, were led by students, political activists, including women, and Buddhist monks and took the form of a campaign of nonviolent resistance, sometimes also called civil resistance.

In response to the protests dozens of protesters were arrested or detained. Starting in September 2007 the protests were led by thousands of Buddhist monks, and those protests were allowed to proceed until a renewed government crackdown in late September 2007.[42] At least 184 protesters were shot and killed and many were tortured. Under the SPDC, the Burmese army engaged in military offensives against ethnic minority populations, committing acts that violated international humanitarian law.[43]

Myanmar had become a stronghold of Buddhist aggression and such acts are spurred by hardline nationalistic monks.[44][45][46][47][48] The oldest militant organisation active in the region is Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), headed by a Buddhist monk U Thuzana, since 1992.[49] In the recent years the monks, and the terrorist acts, are associated with the nationalist 969 Movement particularly in Myanmar and neighboring nations.[50][51] The violence reached prominence in June 2012 when more than 200 people were killed and around 100,000 were displaced.[52][53] As of 2012, the "969" movement by monks (the prominent among whom is Wirathu) had helped create anti-Islamic nationalist movements in the region, and have urged Myanmar Buddhists to boycott Muslim services and trades, resulting in persecution of Muslims in Burma by Buddhist-led mobs. However, not all of the culprits were Buddhists and the motives were as much economic as religious.[50][54][55] On 20 June 2013, Wirathu was mentioned on the cover story of Time magazine as "The Face of Buddhist Terror".[56] According to the Human Rights Watch report, the Burmese government and local authorities played a key role in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya people and other Muslims in the region. The report further specifies the coordinated attacks of October 2012 that were carried out in different cities by Burmese officials, community leaders and Buddhist monks to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population.[57] The violence of Meiktila, Lashio (2013) and Mandalay (2014) are the latest Buddhist violence in Burma.[58][59][60][61]

Michael Jerryson, author of several books heavily critical of Buddhism's traditional peaceful perceptions, stated that, "The Burmese Buddhist monks may not have initiated the violence but they rode the wave and began to incite more. While the ideals of Buddhist canonical texts promote peace and pacifism, discrepancies between reality and precepts easily flourish in times of social, political and economic insecurity, such as Myanmar's current transition to democracy."[62]

However several Buddhist leaders including Thch Nht Hnh, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Shodo Harada and the Dalai Lama among others condemned the violence against Muslims in Myanmar and called for peace, supporting the practice of the fundamental Buddhist principles of non-harming, mutual respect and compassion. The Dalai Lama said "Buddha always teaches us about forgiveness, tolerance, compassion. If from one corner of your mind, some emotion makes you want to hit, or want to kill, then please remember Buddha's faith. We are followers of Buddha." He said that "All problems must be solved through dialogue, through talk. The use of violence is outdated, and never solves problems."[63][64]

Maung Zarni, a Burmese democracy advocate, human rights campaigner, and a research fellow at the London School of Economics who has written on the violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, states that there is no room for fundamentalism in Buddhism. "No Buddhist can be nationalistic," said Zarni, "There is no country for Buddhists. I mean, no such thing as me, my community, my country, my race or even my faith."[65]

Ashokavadana states that there was a mass killing of Jains for disrespecting the Buddha by King Ashoka in which around 18,000 followers of Jainism were killed.[66] However this incident is controversial.[67][68] According to K.T.S. Sarao and Benimadhab Barua, stories of persecutions of rival sects by Ashoka appear to be a clear fabrication arising out of sectarian propaganda.[67][68][69]

Buddhism in Sri Lanka has a unique history and has played an important role in the shaping of Sinhalese nationalist identity. Consequently, politicized Buddhism has contributed to ethnic tension in the island between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population and other minorities, especially the Tamils.

The mytho-historical accounts in the Sinhalese Buddhist national chronicle Mahavamsa ('Great Chronicle'), a non-canonical text written in the sixth century CE by Buddhist monks to glorify Buddhism in Sri Lanka, have been influential in the creation of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and militant Buddhism.[70][71][72][74][75][76][77][78] The Mahavamsa states that Lord Buddha made three visits to Sri Lanka in which he rids the island of forces inimical to Buddhism and instructs deities to protect the ancestors of the Sinhalese (Prince Vijaya and his followers from North India) to enable the establishment and flourishing of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This myth has led to the widely held Sinhalese Buddhist belief that the country is Sihadipa (island of the Sinhalese) and Dhammadipa (the island ennobled to preserve and propagate Buddhism). In other words, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists maintain that they are the Buddha's chosen people, and that the island of Sri Lanka is the Buddhist promised land. The Mahavamsa also describes an account of the Buddhist warrior king Dutthagamani, his army, and 500 Buddhist monks battling and defeating the Tamil king Elara, who had come from South India and usurped power in Anuradhapura (the island's capital at the time). When Duthagamani laments over the thousands he has killed, the eight arhats (Buddha's enlightened disciples) who come to console him reply that no real sin has been committed by him because he has only killed Tamil unbelievers who are no better than beasts and go onto say: "thou wilt bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha in manifold ways; therefore cast away care from the heart, O ruler of men".[86]

The Dutthagamani's campaign against king Elara was not to defeat injustice, as the Mahavamsa describes Elara as a good ruler, but to restore Buddhism through a united Sri Lanka under a Buddhist monarch, even by the use of violence.[87] The Mahavamsa story about Buddha's visit to Sri Lanka where he (referred to as the "Conqueror") subdues forces inimical to Buddhism, the Yakkhas (depicted as the non-human inhabitants of the island), by striking "terror to their hearts" and driving them from their homeland, so that his doctrine should eventually "shine in glory", has been described as providing the warrant for the use of violence for the sake of Buddhism and as an account that is in keeping with the general message of the author that the political unity of Sri Lanka under Buddhism requires the removal of uncooperative groups.

According to Neil DeVotta (an Associate Professor of Political Science), the mytho-history described in the Mahavamsa "justifies dehumanizing non-Sinhalese, if doing so is necessary to preserve, protect, and propagate the dhamma (Buddhist doctrine). Furthermore, it legitimizes a just war doctrine, provided that war is waged to protect Buddhism. Together with the Vijaya myth, it introduces the bases for the Sinhalese Buddhist belief that Lord Buddha designated the island of Sri Lanka as a repository for Theravada Buddhism. It claims the Sinhalese were the first humans to inhabit the island (as those who predated the Sinhalese were subhuman) and are thus the true "sons of the soil". Additionally, it institutes the belief that the island's kings were beholden to protect and foster Buddhism. All of these legacies have had ramifications for the trajectory of political Buddhism and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism."

With the rise of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a reaction to the changes brought under the British colonialism,[90] the old religious mytho-history of the Mahavamsa (especially the emphasis on the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicities of Duthagamani and Elara, respectively) was revitalized and consequently would prove to be detrimental to the intergroup harmony in the island. As Heather Selma Gregg writes: "Modern-day Sinhalese nationalism, rooted in local myths of being a religiously chosen people and of special progeny, demonstrates that even a religion perceived as inherently peaceful can help fuel violence and hatred in its name."[92]

Buddhist revivalism took place among the Sinhalese to counter Christian missionary influence. The British commissioned the Sinhala translation of the Mahavamsa (which was originally written in Pali), thereby making it accessible to the wider Sinhalese population.[93] During this time the first riot in modern Sri Lankan history broke out in 1883, between Buddhists and Catholics, highlighting the "growing religious divide between the two communities".

The central figure in the formation of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism was the Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala (18641933), who has been described as "the father of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism". Dharmapala was hostile to all things un-Sinhalese and non-Buddhist. He insisted that the Sinhalese were racially pure and superior Aryans while the Dravidian Tamils were inferior.[96][97] He popularized the impression that Tamils and Sinhalese had been deadly enemies in Sri Lanka for nearly 2,000 years by quoting the Mahavamsa passages that depicted Tamils as pagan invaders.[98] He characterized the Tamils as "fiercely antagonistic to Buddhism".[99] He also expressed intolerance toward the island's Muslim minorities and other religions in general.[100] Dharmapala also fostered Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the spirit of the King Dutthagamani who "rescued Buddhism and our nationalism from oblivion" and stated explicitly that the Island belongs to the Sinhalese Buddhists. Dharmapala has been blamed for laying the groundwork for subsequent Sinhalese Buddhists nationalists to create an ethnocentric state and for hostility to be directed against minorities unwilling to accept such a state.[103]

Upon independence Sinhalese Buddhist elites instituted discriminatory policies based on the Buddhist ethno-nationalist ideology of the Mahavamsa that privileges Sinhalese Buddhist hegemony in the island as Buddha's chosen people for whom the island is a promised land and justifies subjugation of minorities. Sinhalese Buddhist officials saw that decreasing Tamil influence was a necessary part of fostering Buddhist cultural renaissance.[105] The Dutthagamani myth was also used to institute Sinhalese Buddhist domination with some politicians even identifying with such a mytho-historic hero and activist monks looked to Dutthagamani as an example to imitate. This principal hero of Mahavamsa became widely regarded as exemplary by the 20th century Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists because of his defense of Buddhism and the unification of Sri Lanka that journalists started talking about "the Mahavamsa mentality".[106]

D. S. Senanayake, who would become Sri Lanka's first prime minister in 1947, reaffirmed in 1939 the common Mahavamsa-based assumption of the Sinhalese Buddhist responsibility for the island's destiny by proclaiming that the Sinhalese Buddhists "are one blood and one nation. We are a chosen people. Buddha said that his religion would last for 5,500 [sic] years. That means that we, as the custodians of that religion, shall last as long." Buddhists monks became increasingly involved in post-independence politics, promoting Sinhalese Buddhist interests, at the expense of minorities. Walpola Rahula, Sri Lanka's foremost Buddhist monk scholar and one of the leading proponents of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, played a major role in advocating for the involvement of monks in politics, using Buddhist king Dutthagamani's relationship with the sangha to bolster his position. Rahula also argued for a just war doctrine to protect Buddhism by using the example of wars waged by Dutthagamani to restore Buddhism. Rahula maintained that "the entire Sinhalese race was united under the banner of the young Gamini [Dutthagamani]. This was the beginning of nationalism among the Sinhalese. It was a new race with healthy young blood, organized under the new order of Buddhism. A kind of religionationalism, which almost amounted to fanaticism, roused the whole Sinhalese people. A non-Buddhist was not regarded as a human being. Evidently all Sinhalese without exception were Buddhists." In reflecting on Rahula's works, anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne writes that, "it suits Rahula to be an advocate of a Buddhism that glorifies social intercourse with lay society ... the receipt of salaries and other forms of material remuneration; ethnic exclusivism and Sinhala Buddhist hegemony; militancy in politics; and violence, war and the spilling of blood in the name of "preserving the religion"".

In 1956, the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC) released a report titled, "The Betrayal of Buddhism", inquiring into the status of Buddhism in the island. The report argued that Buddhism had been weakened by external threats such as the Tamil invaders mentioned in the Mahavamsa and later Western colonial powers. It also demanded the state to restore and foster Buddhism and to give preferential treatment to Buddhist schools. The same year, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike capitalized on the ACBC report and its recommendations as the foundation for his election campaign, using it as the 'blueprint for a broad spectrum of policy', which included introducing Sinhala as the sole official language of the state. With the help of significant number of Buddhist monks and various Sinhalese Buddhist organizations, Bandaranaike became prime minister after winning the 1956 elections. Bandaranaike had also campaigned on the basis of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, drawing influences from the writings of Dharmapala and the Mahavamsa, arguing that it was the duty of the government to preserve the Sinhalese Buddhist nature of the island's destiny. Once in power, Bandaranaike implemented the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which would make Sinhala the country's official language and hence all official state transactions would be conducted in Sinhala. This put non-Sinhala speakers at a disadvantage for employment and educational opportunities. As a result, Tamils protested the policy by staging sit-ins, which in turn prompted counterdemonstrations by Buddhist monks, later degenerating into anti-Tamil riots in which more than one hundred people were injured and Tamil businesses were looted. Riots then spread throughout the country killing hundreds of people. Bandaranaike tried to mitigate tensions over the language policy by proposing a compromise with the Tamil leaders, resulting in a 1957 pact that would allow the use of Tamil as an in administrative language along with Sinhala and greater political autonomy for Tamils. Buddhist monks and other Sinhalese nationalists opposed this pact by staging mass demonstrations and hunger strikes.[110] In an editorial in the same year, a monk asks Bandaranaike to read Mahavamsa and to heed its lessons: "[Dutthagamani] conquered by the sword and united the land [Sri Lanka] without dividing it among our enemies [i.e. the Tamils] and established Sinhala and Buddhism as the state language and religion." In the late 1950s, it had become common for politicians and monks to exploit the Mahavamsa narrative of Dutthagamani to oppose any concession to the Tamil minorities.

With Buddhist monks playing a major role in exerting pressure to abrogate the pact, Bandaranaike acceded to their demands in April 9, 1958 by tearing up "a copy of the pact in front of the assembled monks who clapped in joy". Soon after the pact was abrogated, another series of anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, which left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Preceding the 1958 riots, rhetoric of monks contributed to the perception of Tamils being the enemies of the country and of Buddhism. Both Buddhist monks and laity laid the foundation for the justifiable use of force against Tamils in response to their demand for greater autonomy by arguing that the whole of Sri Lanka was a promised land of the Sinhalese Buddhists and it was the role of the monks to defend a united Sri Lanka. Tamils were also portrayed as threatening interlopers, compared to the Mahavamsa account of the usurper Tamil king Elara. Monks and politicians invoked the story of the Buddhist warrior king Dutthagamani to urge the Sinhalese to fight against Tamils and their claims to the island, thereby providing justification for violence against Tamils. As Tessa J. Bartholomeusz explains: "Tamil claims to a homeland were met with an ideology, linked to a Buddhist story, that legitimated war with just cause: the protection of Sri Lanka for the Sinhala-Buddhist people." In order to appease Tamils amidst the ethnic tension, Bandaranaike modified the Sinhala Only Act to allow Tamil to be used in education and government in Tamil areas and as a result a, Buddhist monk named Talduwe Somarama assassinated him on September 26, 1959. The monk claimed he carried out the assassination "for the greater good of his country, race and religion".[114] It has also been suggested that the monk was guided in part by reading of the Mahavamsa.

Successive governments after Bandaranaike implemented similar Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist agenda, at the expense of minorities. In 1972, the government rewrote its constitution and gave Buddhism "the foremost place [in the Republic of Sri Lanka]" and making it "the duty of the state to protect and foster Buddhism". With another pact in 1965 that sought to establish greater regional autonomy for Tamils being abrogated (some members of the Buddhist clergy were at the forefront in opposing the pact) and the implementation of discriminatory quota system in 1974 that severely restricted Tamil entrance to universities, Tamil youth became radicalized, calling for an independent homeland to be established in the Tamil-dominated northeastern region of the island. In 1977, anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, killing hundreds of Tamils and leaving thousands homeless.[116] A leading monk claimed that one of the reasons for the anti-Tamil riots of 1977 was the Tamil demonization of the Sinhalese Buddhist epic hero Dutthagamani which resulted in a justified retaliation. Another anti-Tamil riot erupted in 1981 in Jaffna, where Sinhalese police and paramilitaries destroyed statues of Tamil cultural and religious figures; looted and torched a Hindu temple and Tamil-owned shops and homes; killed four Tamils; and torched the Jaffna Public Library which was of great cultural significance to Tamils.[105] In response to the militant separatist Tamil group LTTE killing 13 Sinhalese soldiers, the largest anti-Tamil pogrom occurred in 1983, leaving between 2,000 and 3,000 of Tamils killed and forcing from 70,000 to 100,000 Tamils into refugee camps, eventually propelling the country into a civil war between the LTTE and the predominately Sinhalese Buddhist Sri Lankan government.[118] In the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, Buddhist monks lead rioters in some instance. Cyril Mathew, a Senior Minister in President Jayawardene's Cabinet and a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist who in the year preceding the pogrom reaffirmed the special relationship between Buddhism and Sinhalese and the Buddhist nature of the country, was also responsible for the pogrom.[119] In the months following the anti-Tamil pogrom, authorizations for violence against Tamils began to appear in the press, with Tamils being depicted as interlopers on Dhammadipa. The Mahavamsa narrative of Dutthagamani and Elara was also invoked to justify violence against Tamils. The aftermath of the pogrom spawned debates over the rights to the island with the "sons of the soil" ideology being called into prominence. A government agent declared that Sri Lanka's manifest destiny "was to uphold the pristine doctrine of Theravada Buddhism". This implied that Sinhalese Buddhists had a sacred claim to Sri Lanka, while the Tamils did not, a claim which might call for violence. The Sinhalese Buddhists, including the Sri Lankan government, resisted the Tamil claim to a separate homeland of their own as the Sinhalese Buddhists maintained that the entire country belonged to them. Another government agent linked the then Prime Minister Jayewardene's attempts to thwart the emergence of a Tamil homeland to Dutthagamani's victory over Elara and went on to say, "[w]e will never allow the country to be divided," thereby justifying violence against Tamils.

In the context of increasing Tamil militant struggle for separatism, militant Buddhist monks founded the Mavbima Surakime Vyaparaya (MSV) or "Movement for the Protection of the Motherland" in 1986 which sought to work with political parties "to maintain territorial unity of Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Buddhist sovereignty over the island". The MSV used the Mahavamsa to justify its goals, which included the usage of force to fight against the Tamil threat and defend the Buddhist state. In 1987, along with the MSV, the JVP (a militant Sinhalese nationalist group which included monks) took up arms to protest the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord which sought to establish peace in Sri Lanka by requiring the Sri Lankan government to make a number of concessions to Tamil demands, including devolution of power to Tamil provinces. The JVP, with the support of the Sangha, launched a campaign of violent insurrection against the government to oppose the accord as the Sinhalese nationalists believed it would compromise the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.[121]

From the beginning of the civil war in 1983 to the end of it in 2009, Buddhist monks were involved in politics and opposed negotiations, ceasefire agreements, or any devolution of power to Tamil minorities, and most supported military solution to the conflict.[124] This has led to Asanga Tilakaratne, head of the Department of Buddhist Philosophy in the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies in Colombo, to remark that "the Sinhala Buddhist nationalists are ... opposed to any attempt to solve the ethnic problem by peaceful means; and they call for a 'holy war' against Tamils". It has been argued that the absence of opportunities for power sharing among the different ethnic groups in the island "has been one of the primary factors behind the intensification of the conflict". Numerous Buddhist religious leaders and Buddhist organizations since the country's independence have played a role in mobilizing against the devolution of power to the Tamils. Leading Buddhist monks opposed devolution of power that would grant regional autonomy to Tamils on the basis of Mahavamsa worldview that the entire country is a Buddhist promised land which belongs to the Sinhalese Buddhist people, along with the fear that devolution would eventually lead to separate country.[127][128]

The two major contemporary political parties to advocate for Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism are The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) or "National Heritage Party", the latter of which is composed solely of Buddhist monks. According to A. R. M. Imtiyaz, these groups share common goals: "to uphold Buddhism and establish a link between the state and religion, and to advocate a violent solution to the Tamil question and oppose all form of devolution to the minorities, particularly the Tamils". The JHU, in shunning non-violent solutions to the ethnic conflict, urged young Sinhalese Buddhists to sign up for the army, with as many as 30,000 Sinhalese young men doing just that.[129] One JHU leader even declared that NGOs and certain government servants were traitors and they should be set on fire and burnt due to their opposition to a military solution to the civil war.[130] The international community encouraged a federal structure for Sri Lanka as a peaceful solution to the civil war but any form of Tamil self-determination, even the more limited measure of autonomy, was strongly opposed by hard-line Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist groups such as the JVP and JHU, who pushed for the military solution.[131][132] These groups in their hard-line support for a military solution to the conflict, without any regard for the plight of innocent Tamil civilians,[133] have opposed negotiated settlement, ceasefire agreement, demanded that the Norwegians be removed as peace facilitators, demanded the war to be prosecuted more forcefully and exerted influence in the Rajapaksa government (which they helped to elect), resulting in the brutal military defeat of the LTTE with heavy civilian casualties.[134] The nationalist monks' support of the government's military offense against the LTTE gave "religious legitimacy to the state's claim of protecting the island for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority."[135] President Rajapaksa, in his war against the LTTE, has been compared to the Buddhist king Dutthagamani by the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists.[136]

Other minority groups have also come under attack by Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists. Fear of country's Buddhist hegemony being challenged by Christian proselytism has driven Buddhist monks and organizations to demonize Christian organizations with one popular monk comparing missionary activity to terrorism; as a result, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists, including the JVP and JHU, who oppose attempts to convert Buddhists to another religion, support or conduct anti-Christian violence. Number of attacks against Christian churches rose from 14 in 2000 to 146 or over 200 in 2003 and 2004, with extremist Buddhist clergy leading the violence in some areas. Anti-Christian violence has included "beatings, arson, acts of sacrilege, death threats, violent disruption of worship, stoning, abuse, unlawful restraint, and even interference with funerals". It has been noted that the strongest anti-West sentiments accompany the anti-Christian violence since the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists identify Christianity with the West which they think is conspiring to undermine Buddhism.[137][138]

In the postwar Sri Lanka, ethnic and religious minorities continue face threat from Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism.[139][140][141] There have been continued sporadic attacks on Christian churches by Buddhist extremists who allege Christians of conducting unethical or forced conversion.[142] The Pew Research Center has listed Sri Lanka among the countries with very high religious hostilities in 2012 due to the violence committed by Buddhist monks against Muslim and Christian places of worship.[143] Extremist Buddhist leaders justify their attacks on the places of worship of minorities by arguing that Sri Lanka is the promised land of the Sinhalese Buddhists to safeguard Buddhism.[144][145] The recently formed Buddhist extremist group, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force, founded by Buddhist monks in 2012, has been accused of inciting the anti-Muslim riots that killed 4 Muslims and injured 80 in 2014.[146] The leader of the BBS, in linking the government's military victory over the LTTE to the ancient Buddhist king conquest of Tamil king Elara, said that Tamils have been taught a lesson twice and warned other minorities of the same fate if they tried to challenge Sinhalese Buddhist culture.[135] The BBS has been compared to the Taliban, accused of spreading extremism and communal hatred against Muslims[147] and has been described as an "ethno-religious fascist movement".[148] Buddhist monks have also protested against UN Human Rights Council resolution that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes during the civil war.[149] The BBS has received criticism and oppostition from other Buddhist clergy and politicians. Mangala Samaraweera, a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2015, has accused the BBS of being "a representation of Taliban terrorism" and of spreading extremism and communal hatred against Muslims.[150][151] Samaraweera has also alleged that the BBS is secretly funded by the Ministry of Defence.[150][151] Anunayake Bellanwila Wimalaratana, deputy incumbent of Bellanwila Rajamaha Viharaya and President of the Bellanwila Community Development Foundation, has stated that "The views of the Bodu Bala Sena are not the views of the entire Sangha community" and that "We dont use our fists to solve problems, we use our brains".[152] Wataraka Vijitha Thero, a buddhist monk who condemns violence against Muslims and heavily criticized the BBS and the government, has been attacked and tortured for his stances.[153][154][155]

Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism is opposed to Sarvodaya, although they share many of the same influences like Dharmapla's teachings by example, by having a focus upon Sinhalese culture and ethnicity sanctioning the use of violence in defence of dhamma, while Sarvodaya has emphasized the application of Buddhist values in order to transform society and campaigning for peace.[156]

These Buddhist nationalists have been opposed by the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, a self-governance movement led by the Buddhist Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and based in Buddhist ideals, who condemn the use of violence and the denial of Human rights to Tamils and other non-Buddhists.[157] Ariyaratne calls for non-violent action and he has been actively working for peace in Sri Lanka for many decades, and has stated that the only way to peace is through "the dispelling of the view of 'I and mine' or the shedding of 'self' and the realization of the true doctrines of the interconnection between all animal species and the unity of all humanity,"[158] thus advocating social action in Buddhist terms. He stated in one of his lectures, "When we work towards the welfare of all the means we use have to be based on Truth, Non-violence and Selflessness in conformity with Awakening of All".[159] What Ariyaratne advocates is losing the self in the service of others and attempting to bring others to awakening. Ariyaratne has stated, "I cannot awaken myself unless I help awaken others".[159]

The beginning of "Buddhist violence" in Japan relates to a long history of feuds among Buddhists. The shei or "warrior monks" appeared during the Heian period, although the seeming contradiction in being a Buddhist "warrior monk" caused controversy even at the time.[160] More directly linked is that the Ikk-sh movement was considered an inspiration to Buddhists in the Ikk-ikki rebellion. In Osaka they defended their temple with the slogan "The mercy of Buddha should be recompensed even by pounding flesh to pieces. One's obligation to the Teacher should be recompensed even by smashing bones to bits!"[161]

During World War II, Japanese Buddhist literature from that time, as part of its support of the Japanese war effort, stated "In order to establish eternal peace in East Asia, arousing the great benevolence and compassion of Buddhism, we are sometimes accepting and sometimes forceful. We now have no choice but to exercise the benevolent forcefulness of 'killing one in order that many may live' (issatsu tash). This is something which Mahayana Buddhism approves of only with the greatest of seriousness..."[162] Almost all Japanese Buddhists temples strongly supported Japan's militarization.[163][164][165][166][167][168] These were heavily criticized by the Chinese Buddhists of the era who disputed the validity of the statements made by those Japanese Buddhists supporters of the war. In response the Japanese Pan-Buddhist Society (Myowa Kai) rejected the criticism and stated that "We now have no choice but to exercise the benevolent forcefulness of 'killing one in order that many may live' (issatsu tash)" and that the war was absolutely necessary to implement the dharma in Asia. The society re-examined more than 70 text written by Nichiren and re-edited his writings, making changes in 208 places, cutting all the statements that disagreed with the state Shinto.[169][170] In contrast, a few Japanese Buddhists such as Ichikawa Haku[171] and Senoo Gir opposed this and were targeted. During the 1940s, "leaders of the Honmon Hokkeshu and Soka Kyoiku Gakkai were imprisoned for their defiance of wartime government religious policy, which mandated display of reverence for the state Shinto".[172][173][174] Brian Daizen Victoria, a Buddhist priest in the St Zen sect, documented in his book Zen at War how Buddhist institutions justified Japanese militarism in official publications and cooperated with the Imperial Japanese Army in the Russo-Japanese War and World War II. In response to the book, several sects issued an apology for their wartime support of the government.[175][176]

In more modern times instances of Buddhist-inspired terrorism or militarism have occurred in Japan, such as the assassinations of the League of Blood Incident led by Nissho Inoue, a Nichirenist or fascist-nationalist who preached a self-styled Nichiren Buddhism.[175][177][178]

Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese new religion and doomsday cult that was the cause of the Tokyo subway sarin attack that killed thirteen people and injured more than a thousand, drew upon a syncretic view of idiosyncratic interpretations of elements of early Indian Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism, taking Shiva as the main image of worship, Christian millennialist ideas from the Book of Revelation, Yoga and the writings of Nostradamus.[179][180] Its founder, Chizuo Matsumoto, claimed that he sought to restore "original Buddhism"[181] and declared himself "Christ",[182] Japan's only fully enlightened master and identified with the "Lamb of God".[183] His purported mission was to take upon himself the sins of the world, and he claimed he could transfer to his followers spiritual power and ultimately take away their sins and bad deeds.[184] While many discount Aum Shinrikyo's Buddhist characteristics and affiliation to Buddhism, scholars often refer to it as an offshoot of Japanese Buddhism,[185] and this was how the movement generally defined and saw itself.[186]

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Definitions

Synonyms

SentencesSentence examples

After having a moment of enlightenment, Bekah was finally able to solve the riddle.

He hoped to achieve a state of enlightenment by attending numerous courses about unfamiliar topics.

Young adults typically seek enlightenment from older people who have more wisdom and experience.

Major advances were made in science and philosophy during The Enlightenment period in Europe.

As a young person, you should take advantage of every opportunity to seek enlightenment from adults.

It was impossible for her to find enlightenment in such a hectic environment.

Derek sought enlightenment from his professors so that he could be more successful in the workplace after graduating.

He encouraged the study of Sanskrit, and furthered schemes for the enlightenment and amelioration of the Hindus.

A valiant soldier and a man of much enlightenment, John Albert was a poor politician, recklessly sacrificing the future to the present.

The people exhibit every stage of human progress, and every type of human enlightenment and superstition from the educated classes to primitive hill tribes.

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Puritan society found these new ideas of thought to be extremely radical in comparison to what they believed which was a belief of strong rational religion and morality.... [tags: Age of Reason, Revolution]796 words(2.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] Age of Enlightenment - The 18th century is referred to as the Age of Enlightenment. The trends in thought and letters from Europe to the American colonies brought a new light and attention upon mankind. This new movement described a time in Western philosophy and cultural life in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. To understand the natural world and humankinds place in it solely on the basis of reason and without turning to religious belief was the goal of the wide-ranging intellectual movement (Hackett).... 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This brief quotation was spoken by the famous writer and philosopher Voltaire; I believe it vaguely points out that some people are full of absurd ideas, and for others to follow such nonsense is foolish. The quote is just a taste of Voltaires wisdom and knowledge of the world, during the Age of Reason. The Age of Reason or The Enlightenment is defined as a change in not just a way of thinking, but an establishment of values and rational actions.... [tags: Enlightenment]:: 5 Works Cited 1167 words(3.3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Influence of the Enlightenment on American History - It was during and after the American Revolution that many of the main ideas of the Enlightenment were used as the guidelines to help influence things such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The United States was founded on key figures such as Thomas Jefferson, who was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment ideas, which helped shaped the country as well. Great Britian had its own Enlightenment before America, whih was developed by thinkers like John Locke, and many others.... [tags: American History]:: 1 Works Cited 869 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] Romanticism as a Reaction to the Enlightenment - Romanticism as a Reaction to the Enlightenment The epoch known as the Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment, was a secular intellectual movement that looked to reason as an explanation of the world. The Enlightenment began in 1687 with the publishing of Sir Isaac Newtons Principia and ended in 1789 with the French Revolution (Fiero 134). The epoch of Romanticism was a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. The movement of Romanticism began in 1760 and ended in 1871. Romanticism as a movement was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210).... 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[tags: Social Studies]:: 8 Works Cited 1557 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Period of Enlightenment or Period of Reason - The Period of Enlightenment (or plainly the Enlightenment or Period of Reason) was a traditional movement of intellectuals commencing in the late 17th- and 18th-century Europe emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. Its intention was to reform area employing reason, trial thoughts based in rehearse and faith, and advance vision across the logical method. It promoted logical believe, skepticism, and intellectual interchange. It challenged superstition and intolerance, alongside the Catholic Church as a favorite target.... [tags: complexity, government, powers]2333 words(6.7 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Influence of the Science Revolution on the Enlightenment - Discoveries and innovation during the science revolution played a very important role that turned out to be very beneficial to the Enlightenments early stages. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century the educated classes of Europe followed a strict religious foundation of values. The Europeans would soon change their world view to a primarily laical and scientific-based contrast. The development of scientific knowledge was the key cause of this intellectual change. Most would say the push that triggered the scientific revolution began with the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle.... [tags: Religious Traditions, Innovations]:: 7 Works Cited 862 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Enlightenment and the Emergence of Free Thinkers - The Enlightenment brought a wave of new thought and information into a society dominated by one controlling force: The Church. This final authority over the people in these dark times controlled them with religious dogma and powerful suggestive power over their state leaders. Being the largest and richest organization in the world for centuries gave The Church the ability to squash any free thinkers. Before the printing press, the majority of the educated and literate were the christian monks who controlled the information, mostly religious texts, and delivered this selected information to the ignorant masses.... [tags: Philosophy]785 words(2.2 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment - ... (7) It was believed that God had created the universe for man, and that he had given the central position in his creation to man, giving people a profound sense of security however Copernicus theory took away mans central position in the universe. (7) The new scientific discoveries were detrimental to authority as they fostered doubt uncertainty, anxiety and threated belief in the faith (*), however the full implications of these discoveries were not fully understood by people during the scientific revolution.... [tags: authority, darwinism, scientific ideas]1694 words(4.8 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] The Key Ideas of the Enlightenment - This essay will be examining the key concepts of the Enlightenment also known as The Age of Reason that occurred from the 16th and 17th century, before considering the manner in which it helped to shape the sociological view on societies and how it has linked to the birth of sociology. Before doing so I will give a brief historical context. All the profound questioning that emerged during the Enlightenment came out of the undermining of the old Catholic authority over all social truth that was produced by the Reformation when Luther (1483 1546) and others had challenged this over-arching authority with the idea that each of us had our own personal relationship with God.... [tags: Sociology ]:: 12 Works Cited 1857 words(5.3 pages)Term Papers[preview] Enlightenment and Siddhartha's Reunion with Vasudeva - Hermann Hesses Siddhartha discusses the life and spiritual journey of Siddhartha, a Brahmin contemporary of Gautama Buddha. Siddharthas name, a portmanteau of the Sanskrit words for achieved and what was searched for, invites comparison to the Buddha himself, who went by the same name when he was a prince. Unsatisfied with his spiritual state as a Brahmin, Siddhartha immerses himself in various other life philosophies. In his pursuit of enlightenment, he becomes a Samana, meets Buddha, and attempts a citified materialistic lifestyle, but these options all leave him unfulfilled.... [tags: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha Essays]:: 2 Works Cited 1790 words(5.1 pages)Term Papers[preview] The Enlightenment Period and Napoleon's Rule - The time of the Enlightenment was a time of great change, reform, and the emergence of great minds such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and even Copernicus. These men cleared the path to thinking in a new way and brought about the change necessary for the Scientific Revolution. The Enlightenment allowed people to think more critically and even was the time in which the Experimental Method was consolidated by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642, Buckler, J., Crowston, p.592 para. 6). It allowed people to begin to think out of the box if you will.... [tags: European History, French History]:: 2 Works Cited 1229 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] What is Enlightenment? Emmanuel Kant - In his essay writing What is Enlightenment? Immanuel Kant defines enlightenment as mans emergence from his self-imposed immaturity (Kant, 1). In order for us to completely understand this definition, we must first understand what Kant meant by Immaturity. In the writing Kant defines immaturity as the inability to use ones understanding without the guidance from another(Kant, 1). Furthermore, Kant believes that this immaturity is self-imposed, and that it is the individuals fault for lacking the courage and resolve to think for themselves, but instead pay others to think and understand for them.... [tags: freedom, reason, philosophy]:: 1 Works Cited 1099 words(3.1 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Enlightenment and a Desire for a Free Market - Men desire to have some share in the management of public affairs chiefly on account of the importance which it gives them. This famous quote by Adam Smith proves what people in the Enlightenment period wanted the most free market economy and public services. Adam Smith was, in fact, a Scottish economist, who tried to influence the government and convince the ruler to fulfil peoples wishes and needs. Such craving for an adjustable trade, led to the first major economic establishment in the Enlightenment period, laissez faire, which banned the government from interfering with private trade.... [tags: economics]:: 5 Works Cited 1442 words(4.1 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries - The scientific revolution had a great impact on the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. The greatest contribution given the Enlightenment by the scientific revolution was the notion to question the Christian dogma by means of logic, which the philosophes would take further to satirize/question their own governments in many instances as well. This went beyond the speculations some may have had in private amongst friends, to a level that would reach beyond the borders of any one nation. Gutenbergs printing press in the 15th century enabled these great thinkers to spread their theories to those not possessed of great wealth.... [tags: Scientific Revolution, Ethics]1155 words(3.3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Enlightenment Era and The Ottoman Empire - The motivations that drove the forces of both colonialism in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as imperial expansion in the 19th and 20th centuries overlap in several key ways. One of the major factors that initially drove the expansion of empire abroad was the desire to spread religion and bring enlightenment and salvation to the 'savages' of the world. This became evident in the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, in which the efforts of missionaries to convert and teach that native people played a large part in the success of their expansion into those territories.... [tags: Colonialism, Religion As Education]1528 words(4.4 pages)Powerful Essays[preview] Which Way to the Plain of Enlightenment? - Meditation is defined as continued or extended thought; reflection; contemplation. With this in mind how does meditation become categorized under a school of thought. Meditation is different for every person; however there are ideas that stem from certain places. Two of the largest types of meditation are Buddhist meditation and Christian meditation. These large religions have ways in which they suggest to their members to meditate. With Christianity and Buddhism stemming from different parts of the world, would there origins be the main reason for their differences.... [tags: Religion]:: 7 Works Cited 2176 words(6.2 pages)Term Papers[preview] Rebirth of Hellenism during the Enlightenment - The Enlightenment was the highlight of the eighteenth century because it brought about dramatic change that was a rebirth of the classical ideas of Greece and Rome. This philosophical, cultural, and social movement spread through England, France, Germany, and other parts of Europe as a result of the unsuccessful ways of feudalism. It resulted in an intelligent and more aware society due to the revival of government, philosophy, and morals. To begin with, the Enlightenment applied scientific methods to the study of human society just as prominent philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome.... [tags: Literature]1344 words(3.8 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Enlightenment - The Enlightenment and Religion is an important study that questions assumptions about religion and modernity in the eighteenth century and, specifically, the role of deism. S. J. Barnett, Subject Leader in History of Ideas at the University of Kingston-Upon-Thames, argues that an exaggeration of the role of deism has led to a failure to engage with more traditional forces for religious change (Black). Barnett also focuses on the question, What was the general character of the intellectual phenomenon we term the Enlightenment?(Barnett 1) He also states that his aim has been to begin illustrating the problems inherent in a history of the enlightenment unduly based on the discourses of the e... [tags: Religion, Philosophy, Literary Analysis]613 words(1.8 pages)Good Essays[preview] What is Enlightenment? by Emmanuel Kant - Everything changed, and will go on changing. But will the changes of the past and those that are to come be useful to humanity. Will they give man one day more peace, more happiness, or more pleasure. Will his condition be better, or will it be simply one of constant change? (526) This quote by Abb Gaillaume Thomas Francois Raynal, from the Philosophical and Political History of European Settlements and Trade in the Two Indies, eloquently exemplifies the rational of the 18th Century philosophes.... [tags: to dare, to know, social contratct, rousseau]:: 1 Works Cited 942 words(2.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] Enlightenment Philosophers : Reason and Ration - The time was 18th century Europe, ideas were flowing and intellectuals were making a name for themselves in academics. Many well-educated and cultured members of the humankind were digging deeper into their brains to make up reason for all that happens on Earth and beyond. The philosophers Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Cesare Beccaria, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke contributed to the Enlightenment by educating people of Western Europe on the ideas of logic and philosophy to help explain the world around them.... [tags: revolutionary ideas]1232 words(3.5 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Enlightenment of the Great Julius Caesar - The Enlightenment of the Great Julius Caesar In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar could definitely be thought of as a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a character in a story that is high standing in society, but has a flaw that inevitably leads to their downfall. Julius Caesar definitely fits this description. He is a leader in Rome and has everything he could ever want. However, he does have a weakness which will be devastating to his life. There are many people who would like to kill him but Caesar is not worried.... [tags: Character Analysis]665 words(1.9 pages)Better Essays[preview] Influence of The Enlightenment Period - Influence from Global History 1500-1900 As educators we need to remember that the things we have today come from our past. Every action, every thought, or even question that might have been raised wouldnt of been answered if it wasnt from brave people willing to question the what if and wanted to know how. Could you image a world that didnt have computers. Illness was because of a curse or evil has gotten to you, or even knowing that our planet was once considered flat and that we would fall off the edge if we sailed out to the deep.... [tags: global history, age of reason, change]:: 2 Works Cited 886 words(2.5 pages)Better Essays[preview] Enlightenment of the 18th Century - THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY!. Oh goodness the 18th century There is so much to say about the 1700s such as it was a time of enlightenment. Now now do not let the word enlightenment take you for a loop and think this was a time for strictly gaining knowledge and understanding becauseFight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Yes, thats right Wars. Throughout the 18th there were numerous wars such as the Seven Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession in which we will discuss farther down. This timeline will focus on mostly only WARS because like stated above the 18th century was packed with them, but will also touch on, the enlightenment of course, expansion, Slave Trade, and some lagniappe.... [tags: timeline, slave, war]1633 words(4.7 pages)Better Essays[preview] Modernity and The Age of Enlightenment - When talking about the concept of modernity, most people will probably think such concept is related to the contemporary era they live in where many advanced technology present in everyday life. In this so-called modern era, people from different regions and cultural backgrounds share many similar characteristics, such as their daily technology or civilization, general knowledge and science, and even the way they dressed. In fact, many characteristics or values that are different with those shared contemporary characteristics or values are often labelled as traditional or alternative.... [tags: colonialism, non european countries, technology]:: 2 Works Cited 1361 words(3.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Revolution as a Product of the Enlightenment Period - What is a revolution. Revolution is defined, is the overthrow of one government with replacement of another. We are all familiar with the phrase history repeats itself over and over each in very different situations. The same can be said about the American and French Revolutions however these two revolutions end in very different situations. Both the American Revolution, (1775 -1783) and the French Revolution (1789 -1799) were the products of Enlightenment ideals that struck a large population of the people which emphasized the idea of natural rights and equality and led to many changes in society.... [tags: American Revolution, French Revolution]1069 words(3.1 pages)Strong Essays[preview] The Influence of Enlightenment Ideas - The ideas from the Enlightenment and its thinkers greatly influenced the world today, everything from our ideas of modern government to our view of everyday life. Important Enlightenment philosophes such as Locke, Montesquieu, Hobbes and Voltaire established controversial ideas and theories on human nature, natural rights, and how government should be run and which form of it was superior. These ideas were all never even thought of before, and shattered many of the previous notions of ideas, such as ideas of how to run government, that had already been established and taken as a standard for several hundreds of years.... [tags: European history]735 words(2.1 pages)Better Essays[preview] The Chapel of Vence: Art and Enlightenment - The Chapel of Vence: Art and Enlightenment Best known for his use of color, Henri Matisse cleverly cultivated his status as a modern artist using many different styles of painting from Impressionism to Fauvism. The artwork of Matisse has been a milestone in the history of painting. Henri Matisses self-proclaimed masterpiece, however, a chapel in Vence, France, is a small, minimalist building. The amalgamation of modern art and the sacred creates a unique spiritual experience in that it welcomes Christians and non-Christians alike to appreciate the artists religious symbolism.... [tags: Art]999 words(2.9 pages)Better Essays[preview] Losing Enlightenment in the Midst of Pandemonium - There are countless religions in our world today; Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and more. These religions are all so different, yet bear the same mindset behind them: to be a better person. People strive to come to peace with themselves and others by practicing and worshiping certain deities. While the overall mentality of these religions are equivocal, the details become astoundingly diverse. For example, Buddhisms core belief system goes off the approach of knowing suffering will happen in the world and coming to peace with it through meditation.... [tags: Burma, George Orwell, socialism, Buddhism]:: 7 Works Cited 1103 words(3.2 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Famous Pioneers of the Enlightenment - The breakthroughs that came out of the Scientific Revolution had a profound impact on the Enlightenment period. The Enlightenment movement would not have been possible if it werent for the brave men who dared to go against established ways of thinking. These men took risks and put themselves at the mercy of public scrutiny. They not only asked questions about the workings of our world but also devised new scientific methods that uncovered new truths about our very existence. 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His parents had fairly well off jobs; his father being an antenna specialist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); and his mother worked as a secretary at Hughes Aircraft. After some time, his mother and father started their own business that was a home-based consulting company that ended up being very successful.... [tags: Into the Wild Essays]632 words(1.8 pages)Good Essays[preview] John Locke and the Enlightenment - This paper is about John Locke who was a philosopher in the 17-century. He was an Englishmen and his ideas formed the basic concept for the government and laws, which later allowed colonist to justify revolution. I agree with what Locke is saying because everybody should be able to have their own freedom and still respect the freedom of other people. John said, Individuals have rights, and their duties are defined in terms of protecting their own rights and respecting those of others. This paper will present to you information about his enlightenment, personal information, and how we as people feel about his decisions. The Enlightenment is a time in history when there was a want in great... [tags: philosophy, biography, european history]:: 5 Works Cited 575 words(1.6 pages)Good Essays[preview] Siddharta's Journey to Self Enlightenment - Siddhartha is a novel about the ultimate quest every man must take in life. The protagonist Siddhartha is on a quest of the self. The ultimate question, why are we here. He is on a quest to lose one self and find Nirvana. Which religion or way of living is the most divine. He is also on a quest to achieve enlightenment. The author of this novel is Hermann Hesse. He was born in the German Empire in the year of 1877. He wrote Siddhartha in 1922. It has similarities to many other works of the same time period and from the same region.... [tags: Self-Actualization, Hermann Hesse]671 words(1.9 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Montesquieu's Contributions to the Enlightenment - Many people living in The United States like to think that our founding fathers thought of the basic construction of our whole government system. They really did not; Charles-Louis Secondat, baron de Montesquieu thought of the system of checks and balances plus the three branches of government. The whole framework of our Constitution is based on what Montesquieu thought of during the enlightenment period. The purpose of the three branches is to make it where no one person or group of people is greater than the rest.... [tags: Influences, Constitution, Citizen Relationships]807 words(2.3 pages)Better Essays[preview] Enlightenment Influences on American Ideals - By the late eighteenth century, the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason as it was called had begun to rapidly spread across Europe. 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During the Neo-Classical era, many world famous writers such as Jean-Baptiste Poquelin known by Moliere, Jonathan Swift, and Francois-Marie Arouet know by Voltaire wrote some incredible stories, poems, plays and articles about the age of reason.... [tags: Social Studies]:: 3 Works Cited 1172 words(3.3 pages)Strong Essays[preview] Chan Samadhi: Enlightenment in Buddhism - Buddhas are considered to manifest from Chan Samadhi. Those who lack the skill of Chan Samadhi, cannot become enlightened or attain Buddhhood. Since beings can be born in ignorance, and life remain meaningless if we were to die in confusion, humanity needs to find how it comes to this world and how it will die. Can we be free independently the time when we die. The Chan meditation tell us in order to clear the confusion. The goal of this practice is to attain freedom over birth and death, which is considered to be true freedom the ability to come and to go whenever we want, without afflictions or worries.... 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What was their eventual impact on the western intellectual world. The Scientific revolution and The Enlightenment period overlapped by a hundred years and were co-occurring between 1650-1750. The Scientific Revolution happening first and beginning around 1600, was a period of time when new ideas and tools were created and used to experiment with the physical world, occurring between 1600-1750.... [tags: Humanities]:: 1 Works Cited 904 words(2.6 pages)Good Essays[preview] Great Awakening vs Enlightenment - Both the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment had significant impacts on society in the 1700s and even had long-term effects that can be recognized today. The Great Awakening was a religious revival which emphasized every persons potential to break away from their past and begin anew in their relationship with God. It was considered the first great American revival, and was the result of concerns about declining piety and growing secularism. The Enlightenment, conversely, focused on human rationality and science as methods of making decisions and coming to conclusions.... [tags: Types of Revival]787 words(2.2 pages)Better Essays[preview] Enlightenment Philosophy in Frankenstein - Egotism is characterized by an inflated appraisal of ones intellect, ability, importance, and appearance. It is practiced by placing oneself at the center of his or her world. In Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, Shelley seeks to deliver her idea of the egotistic archetype as it relates to the ideals of The Enlightenment Period, a time period she sees as self-centered. Shelley sees the arrogance in the fact that Enlightenment philosophers test the limits of human understanding and attempt to simplify the ambiguities of nature.... [tags: Literary Analysis ]:: 6 Works Cited 1876 words(5.4 pages)Term Papers[preview] Overcoming Poverty Through Enlightenment - Contents Introduction Part One: Song Lyric, Wavin Flag, KNAAN Part Two: Essay, What is Poverty? by Theodore Dalrymple Part Three: Documentary, Solar Mamas directed by J.Noujaim & M.Eldaief Part Four: Critical Analysis Introduction In the media form of a song, Wavin Flag by Knaan, an essay, What is Poverty? by Theodore Dalrymple and the documentary, Solar Mamas, directed by J.Noujaim & M.Eldaief the unifying message that is relevant through all these pieces of work is that in order to overcome poverty individuals must experience enlightenment.... [tags: Enlightened Development]:: 3 Works Cited 2623 words(7.5 pages)Research Papers[preview]

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I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say this is good, this is bad, you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

Thats the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being. Osho

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Enlightenment Quotes (1203 quotes)