What Is Buddhism?

Buddhism is a religion based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived about 25 centuries ago in what is now Nepal and northeastern India. He came to be called "the Buddha," which means "awakened one," after he experienced a profound realization of the nature of life, death and existence. In English, the Buddha was said to be enlightened, although in Sanskrit it is bodhi, "awakened."

In the remaining years of his life, the Buddha traveled and taught. However, he didn't teach people what he had realized when he became enlightened. Instead, he taught people how to realize enlightenment for themselves. He taught that awakening comes through one's own direct experience, not through beliefs and dogmas.

In the centuries following the Buddha's life, Buddhism spread throughout Asia to become one of the dominant religions of the continent. Estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world today vary widely, in part because many Asians observe more than one religion, and in part because it is hard to know how many people are practicing Buddhism in Communist nations like China. The most common estimate is 350 million, which makes Buddhism the fourth largest of the world's religions.

Buddhism is not whatever you want it to be. It might best be understood as a discipline, and an exacting discipline at that. And although Buddhist teachings should not be accepted on blind faith, understanding what the Buddha taught is an important part of that discipline.

For example, the foundation of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths. The Truths are:

The truth of suffering (dukkha)
The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)

By themselves, the Truths don't seem like much, I realize. But beneath the Truths are countless layers of teachings on the nature of existence, the self, life, and death, not to mention suffering. The point is not to just "believe in" the teachings, but to explore them, understand them, and test them against one's own experience. It is the process of exploring, understanding, testing and realizing that is Buddhism.

The Buddha's first sermon after his Enlightenment centered on the Four Noble Truths, which are the foundation of Buddhism. The truths are:

The truth of suffering (dukkha)
The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)

Let's look at one truth at a time.

The Truth of Suffering

The First Noble Truth often is translated as "Life is suffering." Many people new to Buddhism tune out as soon as they hear this. But the Pali word dukkha also refers to anything that is temporary, conditional, or compounded of other things. Even something precious and enjoyable is dukkha, because it will end.

Related to the nature of life is the nature of self. Are we not also temporary, conditional and compounded of many parts? We can understand that life is impermanent but are we, also, impermanent? The Buddha taught that before we can understand life and death we must understand the self.

Among all the Buddha's teachings, those on the nature of the self are the hardest to understand, yet they are central to the religion. In fact, "fully perceiving the nature of the self" is one way to define enlightenment.

The Five Skandhas

The Buddha taught that an individual is a combination of five aggregates of existence, also called the Five Skandhas or the five heaps. These are:

Form
Sensation
Perception
Mental formations
Consciousness

Various schools of Buddhism interpret the skandhas in somewhat different ways. Generally, the first skandha is our physical form. The second is made up of our feelings, emotional and physical, and our senses -- seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling.

The third skandha, perception, takes in most of what we call thinking -- conceptualization, cognition, reasoning. This also includes the recognition that occurs when an organ comes into contact with an object. Perception can be thought of as "that which identifies." The object perceived may be a physical object or a mental one, such as an idea.

The fourth skandha, mental formations, includes habits, prejudices and predispositions. Our volition, or willfulness, also is part of the fourth skandha, as are attention, faith, conscientiousness, pride, desire, vindictiveness, and many other mental states both virtuous and not virtuous. The causes and effects of karma are especially important to the fourth skandha.

The fifth skandha, consciousness, is awareness of or sensitivity to an object, but without conceptualization. Once there is awareness, the third skandha might recognize the object and assign a concept-value to it, and the fourth skandha might react with desire or revulsion or some other mental formation. The fifth skandha is explained in some schools as base that ties the experience of life together.

The Self Is No-Self

What's most important to understand about the skandhas is that they are empty. They are not qualities that an individual possesses, because there is no-self possessing them. This doctrine of no-self is called anatman or anatta.

Very basically, the Buddha taught that "you" are not an integral, autonomous entity. The individual self, or what we might call the ego, is more correctly thought of as a by-product of the skandhas.

On the surface, this appears to be a nihilistic teaching. But the Buddha taught that if we can see through the delusion of the small, individual self, we experience that which is not subject to birth and death.

Two Views

Beyond this point, Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism differ on how anatman is understood. In fact, more than anything else it is the different understanding of self that defines and separates the two schools.

Very basically, Theravada considers anatman to mean that an individual's ego or personality is a fetter and delusion. Once freed of this delusion, the individual may enjoy the bliss of Nirvana.

Mahayana, on the other hand, considers all physical forms to be void of intrinsic self (a teaching called shunyata, which means "emptiness"). The ideal in Mahayana is to enable all beings to be enlightened together, not only out of a sense of compassion, but because we are not really separate, autonomous beings.

The Buddha didn't speak English. This should be obvious, since the historical Buddha lived in India almost 26 centuries ago. Yet it's a point lost on many people who get stuck on the definitions of English words used in translations.

For example, people want to argue with the first of the Four Noble Truths, often translated as "life is suffering." That sounds sonegative.

But, remember, the Buddha didn't speak English, so he didn't use the English word, "suffering." What he said, according to the earliest scriptures, is that life is dukkha.

"Dukkha" is Pali, a variation of Sanskrit, and it means a lot of things. For example, anything temporary is dukkha, including happiness. But some people can't get past that English word "suffering" and want to disagree with the Buddha because of it.

I've noticed that some translators are chucking out "suffering" and replacing it with "dissatisfaction" or "stress." I'm a bit dissatisfied with that approach, however. Sometimes translators bump into words that have no corresponding words meaning exactly the same thing in the other language. I believe "dukkha" is one of those words.

Understanding dukkha, however, is critical to understanding the Four Noble Truths. And the Four Noble Truths are the foundation of Buddhism.

Filling in the Blank

Because there is no single English word that neatly and tidily contains the same range of meaning and connotation as "dukkha," I think it's better not to translate it. Otherwise, you'll waste time spinning your wheels over a word that doesn't mean what the Buddha meant.

So, throw out "suffering," "stress," "dissatisfaction," or whatever other English word is standing in for it, and go back to "dukkha." Do this even if -- especially if -- you don't understand what "dukkha" means. Think of it as an algebraic "X," or a value you're trying to discover.

Defining Dukkha

The Buddha taught there are three main categories of dukkha. These are:

Suffering or pain (dukkha-dukkha)
Impermanence or change (viparinama-dukkha)
Conditioned states (samkhara-dukkha)

Let's take these one at a time.

Suffering or Pain (Dukkha-dukkha). Ordinary suffering, as defined by the English word, is one form of dukkha. This includes physical, emotional and mental pain.

Impermanence or Change (Viparinama-dukkha). Anything that is not permanent, that is subject to change, is dukkha. Thus, happiness is dukkha, because it is not permanent. Great success, which fades with the passing of time, is dukkha. Even the purest state of bliss experienced in spiritual practice is dukkha.

This doesn't mean that happiness, success and bliss are bad, or that it's wrong to enjoy them. If you feel happy, then enjoy feeling happy. Just don't cling to it.

Conditioned States (Samkhara-dukkha). To be conditioned is to be dependent on or affected by something else. According to the teaching of dependent origination, all phenomena are conditioned. Everything affects everything else. This is the most difficult part of the teachings on dukkha to understand, but it is critical to understanding Buddhism.

Life Is Dukkha

Understanding the First Noble Truth is not easy. For most of us, it takes years of dedicated practice, especially to go beyond a conceptual understanding to a realization of the teaching. Yet people often glibly dismiss Buddhism as soon as they hear that word "suffering."

That's why I think it is useful to toss out English words like "suffering" and "stressful" and go back to "dukkha." Let the meaning of dukkha unfold for you, without other words getting in the way.

The historical Buddha once summarized his own teachings this way: "Both formerly and now, it is only dukkha that I describe, and the cessation of dukkha." Buddhism will be a muddle for anyone who doesn't grasp the deeper meaning of dukkha.

What Is Karma? The Sanskrit word karma means "volitional act" or "deed." The law of karma is a law of cause and effect, or an understanding that every deed produces fruit.

Karma is created by the intentional acts of body, speech, and mind. Only acts pure of desire, hate and delusion do not produce karmic effects. Once set in motion, karma tends to continue in many directions, like ripples on a pond.

Karma is not mysterious or hidden. Once you understand what it is, you can observe it all around you. For example, let's say a man gets into an argument at work. He drives home in an angry mood, cutting off someone at an intersection. The driver cut off is now angry, and when she gets home she yells at her daughter. This is karma in action -- one angry act has touched off many more.

However, if the man who argued had the mental discipline to let go of his anger, the karma would have stopped with him.

What Is Rebirth? Very basically, when the effects of karma continue across lifetimes it causes rebirth. But in light of the doctrine of no-self, what exactly is reborn?

The classical Hindu understanding of reincarnation is that a soul, or atman, is reborn many times. But the Buddha taught the doctrine of anatman -- no soul, or no-self. The various schools of Buddhism approach this question in somewhat different ways.

One way to explain rebirth is to think of all existence as one big ocean. An individual is a phenomenon of existence in the same way a wave is a phenomenon of ocean. A wave begins, moves across the surface of the water, then dissipates. While it exists, a wave is distinct from ocean yet is never separate from ocean. In the same way, that which is reborn is not the same person, yet is not separate from the same person.

Samsara

Definition:

The Sanskrit word samsara means "journeying." In Buddhism, as well as in Hinduism and Jainism, samsara is defined as a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

Samsara is sometimes thought of as a circumstance or an illusion. In Buddhism it is also thought of as the process by which karma causes rebirth.

Samsara is sometimes depicted as the opposite of Nirvana. However, the Mahayana school of Buddhism views both Nirvana and Samsara as mental representations. To one who appreciates the true nature of the world, Nirvana and Samsara are not different from one another.

Six Realms of Existence

The Wheel of Samsara

The Six Realms are an allegorical description of conditioned existence, or samsara, into which beings are reborn. The nature of one's existence is determined by karma. Some realms seem more pleasant than others -- heaven sounds preferable to hell -- but all are dukkha, meaning they are temporary and imperfect.

The Six Realms often are illustrated by the Bhava Chakra, or Wheel of Life.

Please note that in some schools the realms of Devas and Asuras are combined, leaving five realms instead of six.