Abstract:
Humanism is a constructive philosophy that goes far beyond the negating of errors in thought to the whole-hearted affirmation of the joys, beauties, and values of human living. We can discern five humanistic approaches as the essence of the humanist approach: understanding reality, understanding ourselves, the good life and the whole person, morality, and practical action. Buddhism is also an anthropocentric constructive philosophy that discusses the above approaches to a greater extent. Hence, those approaches would be compared to find out the humanistic approach of Buddhism. The problem of this research is whether Humanism is a new philosophy or a new edition of Buddhism. The objective of this research is to emphasize the humanistic approach of Buddhism. Therefore, Early Buddhist teachings in Sutta Piṭaka were compared with five humanistic approaches. This is qualitative research based on literature. Therefore, information has been collected from the primary sources in Sutta Piṭaka and the relevant secondary sources and articles related to the field. Findings were philosophically analysed to compare Buddhism and Humanism. Although Buddhism and Humanism appear to be philosophical genres from two different time zones with entirely different orientations, it is surprisingly evident that there is much of a common ground that can be observed between the two disciplines. However, five humanistic approaches show us the level that can be compared with Buddhism and Humanism. Therefore, a conclusion can be given based on the findings discussed in this paper. Buddhism is a great teaching that can be experienced with a humanistic approach than Humanism.