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Buddhism 101: Orientation to Buddhism

Core Beliefs and Practices

Through The Three Learnings, morality, meditation, and wisdom, everyone can realize ultimate reality and attain liberation.

Core Beliefs and Practices

Dependent Origination, Impermanence, Causality, and Emptiness

• Dependent Origination : All phenomena we observe in this world arise from a certain set of causal conditions, which in turn depend on other conditions. The world and all our experiences are a result of a complicated, mutually interdependent web of cause and effect.
• Impermanence: As a result, since each causal condition is changing every moment, all things are impermanent. When we do not realize this fact, we cling to people and things, which results in suffering.
• Causality: All actions we perform have influences on other sentient beings (including humans, animals, and other conscious beings). The Principle of Causality states that when our actions benefit others (“good karma”), then blessings will return to the doer. When our actions harm others (bad karma), then suffering will return to the doer. This is not due to an external will but is a natural consequence of the web of cause and effect.
• Emptiness: Because of dependent origination and impermanence, all things have no intrinsic, unchanging characteristics. Realizing the empty nature of all phenomena brings liberation.
Four Noble Truths
• First Noble Truth: All human beings suffer in the course of their lives. Examples of universal suffering include aging, illness, death, separation from loved ones, meeting with people you dislike, unfulfilled wishes, and imbalance of body and mind.
• Second Noble Truth: The causes of all suffering are from our mind and actions, specifically from our greed, anger, and ignorance.
• Third Noble Truth: The complete extinction of suffering, which is nirvana (ultimate peace/bliss), is attainable by everyone.
• Fourth Noble Truth: The path to nirvana is by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thought (or intention), right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right samadhi (meditation).

The Six Perfections: perfection of charity, morality, tolerance, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. This is the path of the bodhisattva, who is someone who sets his/her goal to become a Buddha and to liberate countless sentient beings.

• The practice of charity: giving of material goods, including one’s own body and life, giving of Dharma (the teaching), giving to remove fear, and doing all these with respect and without asking anything in return.
• Perfection of charity is achieved when one can perform all the above types of charity with the Triple Emptiness: emptiness of the giver (self, the ego), emptiness of the receiver, and emptiness of the goods given.
• Other practices are perfected in a similar way.

Sacred texts that frame the beliefs

• Tripitaka (Three Collections):
  Sutras, which are Buddha’s words;
  Vinaya, which are monastic and lay precepts and ethics codes;
  Abhidharma, which are commentaries and explanations of the sutras by Buddhist masters.
• Since the Buddha taught for 45 years, many thousands of sutras have been handed down to this day. They cover the Dharma (Buddha’s teaching) from many angles, aimed to guide the widest possible range of followers. These texts, originally in Sanskrit and Pali, are now best preserved in Chinese and Tibetan translations. Partial translations of the Tripitaka are available in many languages.

Man’s relationship with the eternal

Buddhism believes that unenlightened sentient beings all go through rebirths endlessly. Sentient beings are unborn and undying. What we see as life or lifespan is an illusion, a cross-section in the ever-continuing process of the mind in transit. Thus, eternal life is already a reality, though it becomes eternal suffering if one is not awakened to the truth. Once awakened, and with proper practice, eternal suffering becomes eternal bliss.

The path to spiritual growth

• The path to spiritual growth is the path to enlightenment.
• There are several paths possible:
• The Noble Eightfold Path: This path leads to nirvana, which is liberation for oneself. Foundational to the Eightfold Path is the first, “right understanding”. This mainly consists of the Four Noble Truths.
• Another important path is the bodhisattva path, which involves the practice of the Six Perfections, and leads to the liberation not only of oneself but also of countless other sentient beings.

The divine presence in all creation

Everyone has the “buddha nature” within; when they awaken to it and let it fully manifest, they are then buddhas themselves. When we recognize or believe that we all have the buddha nature, then we can agree that everyone is fundamentally equal, but because of our various delusions or karma (actions), we take on different forms and have different fates. Therefore we can have compassion and treat all beings with kindness and respect.

Eventual union with the Divine (heaven, hell, nirvana, etc.)

When we create bad karma, we may fall into one of the suffering realms of existence (animals, hungry ghosts, hell). When we perform good deeds, we may be reborn as humans or heavenly/celestial beings. However, neither the heavens nor hells in Buddhism are eternal, because no action (karma) can generate eternal evil or good. When we transcend all duality such as good/bad, heaven/hell, self/others, we achieve unity and harmony within and without, which is a state free from all suffering called nirvana. One may say nirvana is “divine bliss”. When we attain nirvana as well as perfect wisdom, that is called Buddhahood and it is the state of ultimate enlightenment.

Denominations and hierarchies within Buddhism

During the 45 years of Buddha’s teaching in India, there were no separate schools or denominations. After Buddha’s passing into nirvana, slightly different views on how closely the Sangha should observe the precepts and spread the teaching evolved into the Theravada and Mahayana traditions.

The Mahayana tradition considers the Theravada teachings as foundational and integral to its tradition and sees no conflict. Similarly, the different schools of Buddhism all generally agree on the teachings of nirvana, liberation, eradication of desire, emptiness, etc. While there have been verbal debates among the different schools, there have never been wars fought based on religious interpretations, as Buddhism views peace and harmony to be of utmost importance.

Hierarchy: There are no universal hierarchies within Buddhism as in Catholicism, for instance. Different Buddhist masters usually follow the lineage of one of the Buddhist schools, but within each school there is generally no one highest priest or authority. Within each country there may be someone similar to a highest priest; in Japan, for example, there are national Zen hierarchies, and in Tibet there are the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, but these are exceptions.

• Theravada Buddhism: more closely in line with the way of life during the Buddha’s time, it focuses on the practice of Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Pats, becoming an arhat (Buddhist saint free from desires), and the attainment of nirvana. Its main scriptures are written in Pali. From India it spread to and is the dominant form of Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka and many Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, etc., and is gaining popularity in the western world.
• Mahayana Buddhism: more liberal in its interpretation of the precepts, with many more Mahayana scriptures primarily written in Sanskrit, which elaborate on the bodhisattva way (“Mahayana” means “great vehicle”) and the practice of the Six Perfections. It is the dominant Buddhist tradition in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
• There are several schools of Buddhism within the Mahayana tradition, most notably Zen (Chan) Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism.
• Vajrayana is another prominent school of Mahayana, but is sometimes considered separately. It involves additionally a set of tantric (esoteric) practices and is mainly practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Shared Values with Other Faiths

• Equality: all sentient beings are fundamentally equal. As sentient beings (humans, animals, and others), we are all dependent on our bodies, feelings, ideas, and consciousness. And we all have the same original nature (one of pure awareness and yet empty of permanent traits). Therefore we are all fundamentally equal and should treat each other as equals.

“Living the Faith” in the San Francisco Bay Area

The Buddhist teaching of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right understanding, right thought/intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi (meditative concentration), while being a way to eradicate greed, anger, and ignorance to attain nirvana and spiritual liberation,is also fruitful guidance for every aspect of living our lives.

Contemporary global issues surrounding our faiths

Separation of church and state

Buddhist monastics in general do not take on public offices as governors or elected officials of the people. There are notable exceptions, such as in Tibet, where the traditional religious leader and political leader are one (the Dalai Lama).