Key Buddhist Teachings, Beliefs, and Practices

What follows is an attempt to present central teachings, beliefs, and practices of a major world religion. Few outside a religion are likely to express its essence adequately and therefore completely do it justice.

Buddhism is the world’s fourth largest religion. It is one of the four dharmic religions, each of which subscribes to beliefs in karma, reincarnation, and impermanence. Dharma may be thought of as an overarching cosmic law, universal truth, or ultimate reality. Buddhism does not include belief in a permanent self or soul, nor in a personal God. Its emphasis is on spiritual development and the quest for enlightenment.

The two largest traditions of Buddhism are Mahayana, which appears across Asia, and Theravada, predominant in southeast Asia and notably prevalent in Sri Lanka. Theravada Buddhism centers upon the sangha (monastic community), while the Mahayana tradition is broader and includes Zen. A third Buddhist tradition is Vajrayana (tantric), influential in Tibet. Although Buddhism began in India and for centuries coexisted with Hinduism and Jainism, it was driven out of India about a thousand years ago by Hindus and Muslims, whereupon it spread to other parts of Asia, including China and Japan.

Buddhist belief and practice developed in northern India in the sixth or early fifth century BC. It is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who appears to have been a younger contemporary of the founder of Jainism. He may have been born in 563. After Buddha died somewhere around 483, his followers further developed his teachings and Buddhism became the dominant religion in several countries.

Buddhists believe Siddhartha reached enlightenment as the result of a crisis. He is believed to have been a prince in a royal family. It was prophesied at his birth that he would be a mighty king or great spiritual leader. His father, worried that if Siddhartha witnessed suffering the latter would turn out to be the case, shielded him from coming in contact with anyone sick, dying, or old. When Siddhartha was twenty-nine, he ventured out of the palace and encountered three men who were, respectively, old, sick, dead. He also met a religious ascetic.

Siddhartha realized that life was filled with suffering and that he, too, might become sick, was certain to grow old and die, and would eventually lose everything he held dear. He decided to follow the example of the ascetic, and so left his wife, son, and parents, who wept as they watched him exchange his royal garments for a monk’s robe and cut off his hair. Siddhartha spent the next six years wandering through northern India, trying to reconcile pain and suffering with the precepts of India’s Vedic religion.

After following different teachers and their disciplines, he remained unfulfilled, disappointed, and dejected. Legend has it that he found enlightenment and became the Buddha (awakened one) while he meditated under what became known as the Bodhi or enlightenment tree. He then became an itinerant monk and spiritual teacher. The site of his enlightenment is believed to be the Mahabodhi (Great Awakening)Temple

Buddhist scriptures are unusual because they are voluminous and vary with different Buddhist traditions. They reveal little about the life of Buddha but focus instead on conveying the teachings of Buddhism.

Buddha advocated the Middle Way, which entailed detachment from material objects and moving beyond illusion and the ignorance that fostered it. A key difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is that Buddhists believe it possible to end the cycle of death and rebirth by attaining nirvana, total enlightenment. Good karma is conducive to a favorable rebirth, and bad karma to an unfavorable one. Everything a person thinks, feels, and does affects karma and the possibility of reaching nirvana.

Buddha advocated the Middle Way, which entailed detachment from material objects and overcoming illusion and the ignorance that fostered it. It is the path between the extremes of hedonism and asceticism. Buddhists teach that there are three main sources of human suffering: greed (lust); anger (hatred); and ignorance (delusion). Buddhism teaches that the power of suffering comes from attachment and the assumption and expectation that things are permanent. Everything a person owns or possesses changes continually. People suffer because their attachments leave them imprisoned in an endless cycle of wanting, clinging, and striving.

To end this cycle is to embrace Four Noble Truths: (1) life involves suffering; (2) suffering results from craving; (3) suffering stops when craving stops; and (4) there is a way to end suffering, which is to follow the Eight-fold Path, a guide for how to live without attachments. Following this path enables one to transcend the Wheel of Becoming.

Two of the eight paths concern wisdom. They are, first, to hold the right perspective, which includes the existence of karma and rebirth, the centrality of the Four Noble Truths, and that Buddha pointed the way to nirvana. The second concerns right intention, living with peaceful renunciation of sensuality and whatever else might get in the way of good will and compassion.

The next three paths have to do with ethical virtue. First, there is right speech. This is to renounce falsehood, gossip, and verbal impoliteness, on one hand, and to speak of what leads to salvation on the other. Next, there it right action, which is not to injure, kill, steal, or engage in sexual misconduct. Third is right livelihood, which includes never cheating others and working for an honest living, or in the case of monks, begging only for the food that is necessary for sustenance.

Finally, three paths relate to modes of consciousness. Right effort, the first one, means guarding oneself against unwholesome thoughts. such as sexual fantasies, that prevent proper meditation. The second is right mindfulness, being fully aware of what one;s actions and the fleeting nature of thoughts and feelings. Third and the last of the eight paths is right concentration, the ability to focus one’s mind on only one object to the exclusion of all else.

Chanting and the use of mantras (repeated words or phrases), are key features of Buddhist religious practices. These may be engaged in alone at home, with others, or in a monastery or temple. They are believed to influence a person’s spiritual state and capacity to focus inwardly.

Differences from Christianity

At the center of Christianity is coming to terms with moral failings, recognizing them as modes of rebellion against God who brought everything into existence, and acknowledging Jesus as the one in whom God revealed the divine nature and through whom we can escape egocentricity. There is nothing in Buddhist belief that points to the relational God of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. Although some forms of Buddhism border on the deification of Buddha, the idea of enjoying a relationship with a divine creator is irrelevant if not meaningless. Buddhism is inward-looking, and it is from within that salvation (nirvana) comes. While Christian theologians have suggested that the search for God begins with awareness of oneself, Christianity is also outward- and upward-looking.