Understanding Buddhism: Core Beliefs and Practices

The Four Noble Truths

1. Life inevitably involves pain and suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is desire, clinging to things and people, causing the suffering of loss or the pain of not having them.
3. Suffering and pain can be extinguished at their root by eliminating desire, the extinction of the self.
4. The **Eightfold Noble Path** leads to the cessation of suffering:

• Right Understanding (of the Four Noble Truths)
• Right Thought (willingness to reject hate and violence)
• Right Speech (to live without lying and without unnecessary words)
• Right Action (moral behavior)
• Right Livelihood (that your work does not hurt others)
• Right Effort (taking all the inner strength to take action and overcome negative instincts)
• Right Mindfulness (taking special care of things and people, not relating to them from desire)
• Right Concentration (meditation, mental clarity to see things, people, and relationships from a place of gratuity)

Criticisms of the Four Noble Truths

1. One always suffers because the desire to achieve Nirvana is still a desire.
2. Nirvana, the extinction of the self, would be death, disappearance, and that is not negative, it just does not remove suffering.
3. Reduce cravings that lead to suffering, not all, differentiate them.

Purpose

This path (Dharma) leads to enlightenment and Nirvana, a great awakening, where after death one can enter and dissolve into Nirvana and finally end the cycle of death and rebirth. To become an indistinct part of everything. Separately (look at things from a distance). Released (from pain and desire). Joyful (without concern, at rest).

Religious Community

Religious practitioners include lay people, monks, and bhikkus who live in communities. The collective of bhikkus is called the Sangha.

Rites

Birth, marriage, death, ordination (shaving the head).

Sacred Texts

Sruti texts (what is heard) are the Samhitas of the Vedas:

• Rig-Veda: Hymns, songs, and prayers to the gods.
• Yajur-Veda: Formulas to be recited in rituals.
• Sama-Veda: A collection of musical notes from previous texts.
• Atharva-Veda
• Upanishads: An extension of the Vedas, explaining the deep meaning of rituals.

Smriti texts (what is written):

• Mahabharata: Within it, we find the Bhagavad Gita, where an epic dialogue takes place between Krishna and the warrior Arjuna.

Doctrine

Brahmin (the creative power of the universe) is manifested in each individual soul (Atman). To reach Atman, there are three paths:

• Devotion (rites) (Bhakti)
• Karma (duty, caste, and personal action)
• Knowledge (Jnana) (discovery of the absolute, only for the Brahmin caste).

Liberation (Moksha) from the cycle of births that occur after living life (Samsara) is only achieved if one breaks free from this cycle.

Castes

Castes (Brahmins are justified by body parts):

• Brahmins (mouth) (priestly caste)
• Kshatriyas (arms) (warriors)
• Vaishyas (hips) (artisans, merchants)
• Sudras (feet) (servants to other castes)
• Pariahs or untouchables (marginalized)

Key Figures

• Brahmins: Occupy the highest level of spiritual purity.
• Sadhus or Yogis: Wandering ascetics exclusively devoted to meditation, eating only one bowl of food a day.