Buddhism teaches that life is suffering. It also preaches reincarnation--that is, when a person dies, the soul is reborn in a new body. A person’s misery will be endless, say the Buddhists, until he learns to rid himself of all earthly desires and attachments. This could take many lifetimes. But the Buddhists offer hope that the soul can finally learn its lesson and free itself from the cycle of rebirth.
The Buddhists’ goal is to reach nirvana--a state of heavenly peace in which the soul is released form the pain and suffering of earthly life and becomes one with the universe. By the sixth century A.D. Buddhism was widely accepted in China. The new religion existed side by side with Confucianism and Taoism. Many Chinese considered these different schools of thought as “three ways to one goal.”