Founded in India 2,500 years ago, Buddhism remains the dominant religion of the Far East and is increasingly popular in the West.
Over its long history Buddhist has developed into a wide variety of forms, ranging from an emphasis on religious rituals and worship of deities to complete rejection of both rituals and deities in favor of pure meditation. But all share in common a great respect for the teachings of the Buddha, "The Enlightened One."
Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity"
- Albert Einstein
[1954, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
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