Buddhism: core beliefs
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Flip to reveal answersName the three main branches of Buddhism and their scriptural language.
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Question
Name the three main branches of Buddhism and their scriptural language.
Answer
Theravada (Pali Canon), Mahayana (Sanskrit sutras), Vajrayana (Mahayana scriptures plus the tantras).
Question
What is dukkha, and what is the better translation?
Answer
The first mark of existence. "Suffering" is the usual rendering; "unsatisfactoriness" is better — nothing within samsara stays, so nothing within it can finally satisfy.
Question
What is tanha?
Answer
Craving or thirst: wanting things to be other than they are, and wanting what is passing to stay.
Question
Name the Three Marks of Existence.
Answer
Anicca (change), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), anatta (no permanent self).
Question
What is anatta, and who does it divide Buddhists from?
Answer
The claim that there is no permanent self behind experience — a person is five changing skandhas. It is the sharpest difference from Hindu accounts, which hold that an atman travels through samsara.
Question
What are the Three Jewels?
Answer
Buddha, dhamma/dharma and sangha — what a Buddhist takes refuge in.
Question
Name the Four Noble Truths.
Answer
There is dukkha; its cause is craving; it can cease; and there is a path to that cessation — the Noble Eightfold Path.
Question
How is the Noble Eightfold Path divided?
Answer
Wisdom (right view, right intention); ethical conduct or sila (right speech, action, livelihood); mental discipline or bhavana (right effort, mindfulness, concentration).
Question
Name the Five Precepts.
Answer
To refrain from harming living beings, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, and from drink and drugs that cloud the mind.
Question
What is a bodhisattva?
Answer
In Mahayana Buddhism, one who seeks enlightenment for the sake of all beings rather than for themselves alone.
Question
Why is "the Buddhist heaven" a wrong description of nirvana?
Answer
Nirvana is not a place and not a reward given by anyone. The word carries the sense of blowing out: what is extinguished is craving.
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Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism
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