Basics of Buddhism

Here is an overview of Buddhist principles and practices. Buddha was a man named Siddartha Gautama, who lived 2500 years ago, and through a series of explorations, he discovered a way of life that brought more happiness than he had ever imagined possible. He went on to share his discovery with many people of his time, and they discovered that happiness as well. The Buddha always taught that there was nothing special about him—that each person has everything they need to dissolve suffering and experience happiness. The Buddha found that the key to real happiness is to change our thoughts, intentions and actions, and by doing so, we will find happiness innately within us, regardless of our external circumstances.

His first teaching was about the Four Noble Truth and the Eightfold Path:

The first Noble Truth is that Life can be difficult. Most of us will find that we sometimes have trouble coping with what is happening both around us and inside of us. Buddha recognized this truth and explained the importance of it in a story. He told the story of a mother who lost her only son. Overwhelmed with grief, she took his body to the Buddha to find a cure. The Buddha asked her to knock on the door of each house in the village and bring back a handful of mustard seeds from any family that had never lost a child, husband, parent or friend. When the mother returned, unable to find such a house in her village, she realized that death and suffering are common to us all.

So, the second Noble Truth is that we are all trying to be happy. We try to feel satisfied in our lives, but often we seek satisfaction in ways that are inherently dissatisfying. We eat too much or drink too much or smoke, trying to get some relief, trying to be distracted from our pain, trying to fit in or feel better, but somewhere within us we know that the long term result will be less happiness. Yet, we still continue to do things that become a vicious cycle. This is part of our seeking that is inherently dissatisfying. The other dissatisfying process we use is to put labels on everything around us, labels of good, bad or indifferent. Clinging to what we have labeled as good, pushing away the bad or the potentially painful, and ignoring everything else. This is the labeling and constant action of pulling and pushing and ignoring, trying to get ourselves and our friends and our houses and our jobs and our families JUST RIGHT, so they will make us happy and not make us irritated. The Buddha realized that it can never be made so. You can try as hard as you want to make yourself happy by manipulating your external circumstances, but you will never be happy for long until you find happiness within yourself, regardless of your external circumstances.

The good news, in the Third Noble Truth, that within each of us, we have everything we need to live a happy life, regardless of what’s going on around us. And he goes on to describe the eightfold path, which is the Fourth Noble Truth, which gives us a roadmap for living a life full of joy, compassion, love and wisdom.

The Eightfold Path includes the following steps:

• Right View: Seeing things as they truly are, not through the filters of our past experiences

• Right Intentions: Buddha emphasized, “ As we think, so we become” Changing our intentions changes the way we see and experience the world

• Right Speech: Speaking in a way that supports ourselves and others on their spiritual path

• Right Action: Acting in ways that are wise and compassionate

• Right Livelihood: Working in a way that supports oneself and others on their spiritual journey

• Right Effort: Having a passion for enlightenment

• Right Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness by being fully present in each moment

• Right Concentration: Practicing meditation to train our mind

(translation from “Awakening the Buddha Within” by Lama Surya Das)

In addition to this first teaching, there is another important Buddhist practice. It is called Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. All Buddhist traditions begin with a teaching on these three components for transforming your life. At the beginning of each meditation, we begin by reciting The Refuge Prayer, which reminds us that, until we attain complete enlightenment, we can take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, to support and encourage us.

First, The Buddha. Many of you, I’m sure, have seen pictures of Buddhist Temples and there are always lots of statues of Buddha all around. The Buddha statues remind us that each of us can attain enlightenment, just as the Buddha did. That within in each of us is this Buddha Nature, Unity would call it our Christ Consciousness. That innate goodness within each and every one of us. The statues do NOT mean that we are worshipping The Buddha. Buddha’s teaching emphasize that everything he did, anyone else can do also. So, we can take refuge in knowing that we are innately good and that someone before us was able to attain enlightenment, and not just Buddha but many after him, including Jesus. Taking refuge in the Buddha in our recognition of our own innate goodness, encourages us to keep trying.

Second, The Dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word, Sanskrit being the ancient language of Hindu and Buddhist texts, much like Hebrew and Greek were for Christian texts. Dharma has many definitions but in this context, it describes the “Eternal Truth” in Buddhism, the truth about the way things are and will always be. So, Dharma represents the teachings of all the enlightened teachers that came before us and were kind enough to write down or speak these eternal Truths, so that we can learn and grow as they did. So, we take refuge in the Dharma, the teachings of enlightened beings.

Third, The Sangha. Sangha is a Pali word that is translated as “community”, but more importantly in the refuge vows, Sangha represents all the people in our lives that are committed to supporting us on our spiritual path. Until we reach enlightenment, we can take refuge in the support of others on a similar spiritual journey, who will encourage us and urge us to grow spiritually and transform our lives. This refuge in the spiritual community is critical to our spiritual growth.

Then, there are two other important tools to practice to cultivate our innate goodness: Mindfulness and Meditation.

The first practice is meditation, which is about setting aside time during each day to practice being fully aware of our breath, or a mantra, or a chant or some other specific activity. With everything coming at us every day, each of us can benefit from even 5-10 minutes of quiet time each day. When you think about how many minutes there are in any given day, it seems ironic that we struggle to find even 5-10 minutes to just be quiet. Find the quietest place in your home. You can sit on a chair or a cushion. The importance is to daily spend a few minutes, preferably 20-30 minutes, just concentrating on your breath and loosening our stranglehold on thoughts. Meditation can be like untangling a knot, let the rope go loose. We practice to get more comfortable with just resting in natural awareness.

Mindfulness is perhaps better described as Compassionate Attention. Instead of sleepwalking through our lives—glossing over our thoughts and actions, looking for distractions and things and activities that numb us out, ignoring and trying to run away from our problems—instead, we commit to waking up and being more aware in our lives. Having recently been with a dear friend that passed away, I can unequivocally say that at the end of our lives, we will want to have lived as fully and as awakened as we possibly can, for as many moments as we possible muster. Now is the time to wake up to whatever is happening in your life, not trying to sleep through the bad parts and gobble up just the good. By awakening we can better deal with the pain and frustration that is a natural part of life and more fully experience the good. Buddha was trying to teach us that happiness is an inside job. First, decide to be happy, then adjust your thinking and actions accordingly. So, we can practice being mindful in each moment by breaking down our thoughts and action into smaller and smaller parts. Like breaking down the act of walking into smaller and smaller components—the thought of going walk, lifting the leg, feeling the muscles and tendons contract, moving the foot forward, placing the food. Etc

So, practicing Buddhism does not mean that we have to become a Buddhist or renounce whatever other spiritual practice or religion we might already have. Practicing Buddhism is about recognizing our innate goodness, and working with our thoughts and actions to live a more intentionally happy life. We learn to change our internal world, which is the only action that will ever transform our outer world. Each of us gets to choose whether we get to live the life of joy and compassion, love and wisdom

So each of us are always At the Brink of Truth

Every breathing moment of our lives presents us with the possibility of awakening to wisdom or getting mired in fear. Every action, every thought we generate gives us an opportunity to discover our true selves. We alone can choose.

–Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu with Emily Popp, from Meeting the Monkey Halfway (Weiser)

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