When most people think of Buddhism, their first thoughts probably go to the traditional sense of Buddhism and not about all the different types of Buddhism. Buddhism isn’t just one single thing, “Buddhism is a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches back over 2,500 years.” (Gethin, Back Cover) Over these 2,500 years Buddhism has expand to incorporate many different practices. Just a few of the many practices include the traditional gradual Bodhisattva path, Pure Land, Chan-Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism. These practices share many of the same philosophical ideas such as the 4 noble truths, middle way, rebirth and Bodhisattva path, all to gain wisdom but the method in which they put these philosophical ideas into place seem incredibly different. However looking closely one can see that it’s not just the philosophies that connect all of these practices. Many of the methods of the practices share commonalities even though at first glance it may not …show more content…
One can see the commonalities in the methods of the different practices by looking at how devotional practices cultivate compassion, patience, vigorous effort and letting go of attachment. Although the traditional gradual Bodhisattva path, Pure Land, Chan-Zen and Vajrayana Buddhism seem to be quite different they all still maintain a devotional practice of sorts. Even though all the Buddhist paths have devotional practices of sorts, there is still quite some differences and similarities between all the devotional practices. For example some of the devotional practices are necessary for certain Buddhist schools of practice like Pure Land, Chan-Zen, and Vajrayana but the traditional gradual Bodhisattva path doesn’t seem to require these devotional practices as part of the path.