Buddhism is one of the most tolerant of religions-everywhere it went, it adapted a local condition, yet the basic tenets have remained the same and all schools are bound together in their faith in the value of the teachings of Shakyamuni. The uddhism is the archetype of the enlightened consciousness that, by attaining his own awakening as the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, proved that enlightenment bodhi was possible for all sentient beings. In brief, Buddhism teaches that all life is essentially suffering, an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth that can only be broken by attaining Nirvana. This can only be achieved by loosing desire for all things of the world. Nirvana means cessation or to extinguish-liberation from the cycle of rebirth and should not be equated with a western 'heaven' concept. An essential concept is the interconnectedness of all things; the uddha concept of the universe is often depicted as a net of jewels: each jewel endlessly reflecting the totality of reality.

There are two principal school of Buddhism.

1. Hinayana or Theravada

Practiced in: Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Burma, and Sri Lanka.
Originated in Sri Lanka
The earliest available teaching of the Buddha is to be found in pali literature and belong to school of the Theravadins, who may be called the most orthodox school of Buddhism. This school admits the human characteristics of the Buddha, and is characterized by a psychological understanding of human nature; and emphasizes a meditative approach to the transformation of consciousness. The teaching of the Buddha according to this school is very plain. He asks us to 'abstain from all kinds of evil, to accumulate all that is good and to purify our mind'. These can be accomplished by the three trainings; the development of ethical conduct, meditation and insight-wisdom.

2. Mahayana

Practiced in: Nepal, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
Elevates compassion to an all important idea and teaches that perfection for the individual is not possible without perfection for all, and that many of those who    have     already attained enlightenment would remain in the world as bodhisattvas came to be ascribed miraculous powers and were   worshiped in a manner very similar to traditional ancestor worship.

The Mahayana is more of an umbrella body for a great variety of schools, from the Tantra schools, (the secret teaching of Yoga) well represented in Tibet and Nepal to the Pure Land sect, whose essential teaching is that salvation can be attained only through absolute trust in the saving power of Amitabha, longing to be the reborn in his paradise through his grace, which is found in China, Korea and Japan. Ch'an    and Zen Buddhism, of China and Japan, are meditation schools. According to these schools, to look inward and not to look outward is the only way to achieve enlightenment, which to the humankind mind is ultimately the same as Buddhahood. In this system, the emphasis is upon 'intuition', its peculiarity being that it has no words in which to express it self at all, so it does this in symbols and images. In the course of time this system developed its philosophy of intuition to such a degree that it remains unique to this day

It is generally accepted, that what we know today as the Mahayana arose from the Mahasanghikas sect who were the earliest seeders, and the forerunners of the Mahayana. They took up the cause of their new sect with zeal and enthusiasm and in a few decades grew remarkably in power and popularity. They adapted the exiting monastic rules and thus revolutionized the Buddhist Order of Monks. Moreover, they made alternations in in the arrangements and interpretation of the   sutra (Discourse) and the Vinaya (Rules) texts. And they rejected certain portions of the canon that had been accepted in the First Council.

According to it, the Buddhas are lokottara (supramundane) and are connected only externally with the worldly life. this conception of the Buddha contributed much to the growth of the mahayana philosophy.

Mahayana Buddhism is divided into two main systems of thought: the Madhyamikaand the Yogakara. The Madhyamikas were so called on account of the emphasis they laid on the middle view. Here the middle path stands for the non-acceptance of the two views concerning existence and nonexistence, eternity and non-eternity, self and non-self; in short it advocates neither the theory of the reality nor that of the unreality of the world, but merely of relativity. It is however, to be noted that the middle path propounded at Sarnath by the Buddha had an ethical meaning, while that of the madhyamikas is a metaphysical concept. The Yogakara School is another important branch of the Mahayana. It was also called because it emphasized the practice of Yoga (meditation) as the most effective method for the attainment of the highest truth (Bodhi). All the ten stages of spiritual progress of Bodhisattva hood have to be passed through before Bodhi can be attained. The idle of the Mahayana school, therefore, is that of the Bodhisattva, a person who delays his or her own enlightenment in order to compassionately assist all other beings and ultimately attains to the highest Bodhi.