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Southern Buddhism

Southern Buddhism represents Buddhism as practiced in Sri Lanka and most of Southeast Asia. Southern Buddhism refers to a general style of practicing the Buddhist religion. In conjunction with Eastern Buddhism and Northern Buddhism, Southern Buddhism points to the geographical location of those who practice Buddhism outside of the county of India. It is usually considered to be synonymous with the Theravada. Dai people in Xishuangbanna Prefecture, Yunnan Province believe in Southern Buddhism. Southern Buddhism, like most major religions or philosophies, is now practiced worldwide and, like any set of practices and traditions spanning the globe and dating back over 2500 years, it is extremely diverse.
Southern Buddhism embraces the wisdom of life through intelligence and understanding of different aspects of human life, including birth and death, going and coming, kindness and evil, commonness and holy, reason and desire. Southern Buddhism divided human life into five difficult passages, and had a different approach to each. These can be seen through many stories and beliefs handed down in this strand of Buddhism. Around the 11th century, the existing Southern Buddhism entered Yunnan from Burma and Thailand after the wars. With its combination of religion and politics, Southern Buddhism, absorbing Tai culture, has flexible doctrines. Monks can eat meat and can secularize. Women do not become nuns for to do so would break their ancestral line.

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