Examples of Tenacious and Pervasive Eastern Paradigms: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism

Interesting, brief overview of essential tenets:

From Northern California State University: Comparative Religions:

Homo Sapiens: "Humans the wise". Ever wonder why we are called that? (Answer: Because we named ourselves.) As the thinking animal, humans are at the same time economic, political, social, psychological entities. But that is not the whole story. Humans also need to be recognized as symbolic and religious beings, as homo religiosus, homo symbolicus, and homo orientus. Indeed, humans orient themselves, as do many animals. However we not only orient ourselves geographically in terms of physical space but psychologically, temporally (indeed time and history are crucial to our self-understandings), and spiritually. As far back as we can reconstruct humanity we discover traits and activities that demonstrate concerted efforts to orient lives and activities in relationship to the sacred. From burial sites to cave paintings archaic humanity displays religious significations that are hard-pressed to be accounted for without the recognition of a deeply rooted propensity for religion in the essential nature of humanity.

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http://www.csun.edu/~rcummings/TheoiesMethods/TheoiesMethods10.html