Hindu Vs Buddhist Essay

Regardless of any individual's personal religious beliefs, everyone can accept that religion often helps people find their way through a traumatic experience. In fact, one of the great ways to compare and contrast religions is to see how they respond to various situations. A potential situation being you are in the middle of a pool in which your own child is drowning on one end, three other children are drowning at the other end, and you can only go to one side of the pool fast enough to prevent death on that side. In this universally horrific scenario we will be able to have an in depth look at how a hindu and buddhist would respond to this situation, and why it would be religiously justified to them, if it even is.
Luckily for followers of Hinduism, they believe life is cyclical. Meaning, whoever they let die would be reborn. Whereas in Abrahamic religions, the totality of that person would die. The permanence of death is not as strong in hinduism, although it is obviously still immensely saddening. The same goes for buddhist as well. In these religions, both having origins in India, life is a endless cycle in which the ultimate goal is to escape it and join the universal soul. It is important to note that, because knowing how someone may view the afterlife is significant when they are in a scenario in which someone is guaranteed to
die.
If a hindu is in this pool, seemingly without lifeguards, more often than not they would save their own child. First and foremost, this is because Hinduism is mostly found in India and with indians abroad. In indian culture, family comes first. With this in mind, it is easy to see why this would be the “ethical decision”, if there even is one in this case. Although not all followers of Hinduism are Indian, a vast majority are therefore you must recognize indian culture in this situation.
Also, there is no guarantee that the individual would have another child despite the fact that all the children would be reborn. One of the greatest ways to increase your good karma is to appropriately raise a child. By way of that, saving their own child provides many years of opportunities to increase your good karma whereas saving the three other children would be a one time deal in terms of karma. Because of this, in addition to following indian norms and values, saving their own child also makes sense from a total karma potential standpoint as well.
As for buddhist, this situation would potentially play out differently. Although Buddhism started in India, it now finds its followers in other parts of Asia for the most part. Meaning, the value of family is not necessarily culturally instilled in a majority of its followers to the same degree as it is for hindus in India. In fact, Buddhism traces its start to Siddhartha, who finds enlightenment after leaving his family.
Siddhartha's spiritual journey to enlightenment and becoming a Buddha was an individualistic endeavor to say the least. A buddhist would not have the extra cultural and religious attachment to their child in the same way a hindu would. Admittedly, the maternal love for your child is universally strong anywhere however. However, it is fairly clear that a hindu is more likely to save his own child than a buddhist would be due to the less importance of family in the religion.
Another reason the buddhist may save the three children is because one child may have less impact on your mind compared to three.
The way to enlightenment is to have a clear mind, among many things, and it may be easier to move on from the death of your child compared to moving on from the death of three children. Also, a buddhist may view this situation as how many people can the buddhist help reach enlightenment. Playing the numbers game, the buddhist has the chance to help three people get on the right path instead of just one. While a hindu may feel similar, they also have the increased importance of family weighing on
them.
In conclusion, Buddhism is founded on the idea of ending suffering. His/her family would suffer for the loss of their child, but three other families would suffer for the loss of their children. A buddhist may look at the situation in terms of total suffering where as a hindu would look at the total karma potential. Due to this, the idea of more people reaching enlightenment, and the lesser importance of family, it is fair to assume the buddhist would find religious justification in saving the three children instead of his own child. In contrast, there is an increased value of karma and family in hinduism. Due to this, the hindu would be more likely to save their own child before attempting to save the other three.
There is no right or wrong response in this moral dilemma. In fact, a lot of people would likely freeze up and not even save anyone. One could argue that either the hindu or buddhist would respond in any way and be able to find justification for their prediction. Due to the differences between buddhist and hindus in terms of culture, values, and purpose, it is likely that they would respond to this pool scenario and find religious justification due to the reasons previously presented.