Buddhism Basics: The Buddha, the Four Noble Truths and the Path

Buddhism is one of the world’s major religions, practiced by more than 500 million people and rooted in the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, “the Awakened One.” It offers a path for understanding suffering, cultivating wisdom and living an ethical life, and it does not center on belief in a personal god.

What Buddhism is

Buddhism grew from one teacher’s search for an answer to suffering, and it has since developed into many traditions. Tricycle, the Buddhist magazine, names three main branches, Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana, which share core principles such as karma, mindfulness and compassion. The BBC describes the path to enlightenment as the development of three things: morality, meditation and wisdom.

Buddhist teaching does not ask for faith in a creator god. Tricycle notes that the Buddha discouraged blind faith and urged his followers to test his teachings in their own experience rather than accept them on authority alone.

Where Buddhism comes from

Siddhartha Gautama lived about 2,600 years ago in the Gangetic Plain, near the border of modern India and Nepal. He was born in the 5th century BCE in Lumbini, in what is now southern Nepal, into the Shakya people, which is why texts often call him Shakyamuni, “Sage of the Shakyas.”

The Buddhist account of his life tells that his father shielded him from the world and surrounded him with luxury. At 29, Siddhartha went beyond the palace walls and, for the first time, saw sickness, old age and death. On a final trip he met a peaceful ascetic, and he left his palace, his wife and his young child to follow that life. For six years he practiced extreme self-denial, nearly starving himself, before deciding it did not lead to awakening either. He turned instead to the middle way, a path between indulgence and self-denial.

According to Buddhist accounts, seated beneath a tree in Bodhgaya, later called the Bodhi tree, he vowed not to rise until he understood the nature of suffering. Buddhists hold that there he attained enlightenment and became the Buddha. He gave his first teachings at Sarnath and taught for 45 years, to kings, beggars, ascetics and householders alike, teaching that anyone, of any status or gender, could reach enlightenment. When he died in the 5th century BCE he left no formal successor, and his followers in time formed the different schools that exist today.

The core teachings

The four noble truths. Buddhist teaching holds that the Buddha’s awakening rests on four truths.

1. Suffering exists. Life involves suffering, called dukkha. Tricycle stresses that this does not mean life is only misery: happiness exists, but even happiness is ultimately unsatisfying because everything changes.
2. Suffering has a cause. That cause is craving: wanting pleasure, resisting pain, clinging to what is loved and pushing away what is disliked.
3. Suffering can end. If craving ceases, suffering ceases. Buddhists call this freedom nirvana, liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
4. There is a path. The way to that freedom is the eightfold path.

The eightfold path. Known as the middle way, the path guides moral action, mental training and the growth of wisdom. Its eight parts are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

The three marks of existence. Buddhism teaches that everything, including thoughts and feelings, shares three marks: impermanence, suffering or dissatisfaction, and nonself, meaning nothing has a fixed and eternal essence.

Karma and rebirth. In Buddhist teaching, karma is the law of moral cause and effect, in which actions shape this life and future lives. Tricycle notes that the Buddhist view of karma places particular weight on intention.

How Buddhism is practiced

Becoming a Buddhist, in the traditional sense, means taking refuge in the three jewels: the Buddha, the dharma, which is his teaching, and the sangha, the community of monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen. The refuge formula, “I go for refuge to the Buddha, I go for refuge to the dharma, and I go for refuge in the sangha,” has stayed unchanged for more than 2,000 years.

Tricycle notes that daily life itself is a practice: living ethically, cultivating wisdom and treating others with kindness. Most lay Buddhists follow five precepts, committing to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying or harmful speech, and intoxicants. Tricycle describes these as personal commitments rather than commandments. On retreat or special observance days, lay people may take on eight precepts, novice monks and nuns follow ten, and fully ordained monastics follow hundreds of rules.

Many Buddhists also cultivate four qualities of heart: loving-kindness, compassion, joy in the happiness of others, and equanimity. Meditation is part of practice for many, but Tricycle notes that for most Buddhists practice reaches well beyond sitting in silence. It includes offerings, chanting scriptures, festivals marking the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death, and pilgrimages to sacred places such as Bodhgaya and Sarnath.

The three main branches

Theravada. One of the oldest surviving traditions, Theravada is the main form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. It follows the Pali canon, called the Tipitaka or “three baskets,” and teaches meditation practices of calm (samatha) and insight (vipassana). Its traditional ideal is the arhat, an “accomplished one” who reaches nirvana.

Mahayana. The BBC describes Mahayana as strongest in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia. Its ideal is the bodhisattva, a being who seeks awakening in order to help all beings reach it. Mahayana is especially associated with the teaching of emptiness, the idea that everything arises in dependence on other things, and its Heart Sutra is chanted daily by many practitioners.

Vajrayana. The name means “diamond” or “thunderbolt vehicle.” Vajrayana builds on the core teachings and the bodhisattva ideal and adds practices such as deity visualization, sacred hand gestures called mudras, and complex rituals. Himalayan traditions generally use the Tibetan canon.

Next steps

Start with the four noble truths and the eightfold path. Try a simple breath meditation, read a short introduction from a Buddhist publisher, or visit a local Buddhist center or temple to sit with a sangha. If one branch draws you, look for a teacher or group within that tradition.