The big idea: Buddhism begins from a diagnosis, not from a creator.
The Buddha is described in the tradition as a physician: he names the illness, its cause, that it can end, and the treatment. Everything else follows from that shape.
The tradition traces itself to Siddhartha Gotama, called the Buddha, "the awakened one", who taught in northern India. Theravada Buddhists hold that his teaching was passed on by memory for generations before it was written down.
Theravada Buddhists do not teach a creator god. That is why a definition of religion built on belief in a creator struggles here — and why you should never write that Buddhists "worship the Buddha as God".
Theravada
- "The Way of the Elders"
- Scriptures in Pali: the Tipitaka or Pali Canon
- Strong monastic emphasis; the arahant is the ideal
- Widespread in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia
Mahayana
- "The Great Vehicle"
- Scriptures in Sanskrit, including the Lotus and Heart Sutras
- The bodhisattva is the ideal; a more lay-oriented sangha
- Widespread in East Asia
Vajrayana
- "The Diamond Vehicle"
- Adds the tantras to the Mahayana scriptures
- Teaching through lamas; elaborate ritual
- Associated above all with Tibet and the Himalayan region
Two languages, two habits of spelling: The guide gives key terms in Pali/Sanskrit pairs: dukkha/dukha, nibbana/nirvana, dhamma/dharma, kamma/karma.
Pali belongs with Theravada, Sanskrit with Mahayana. Using the right one for the branch you are discussing is free terminology credit.
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The guide's first question: Buddhists hold that humans are caught in samsara — and that what keeps them there is tanha, together with aversion and illusion.
The word usually translated "suffering" is dukkha. "Unsatisfactoriness" is the better translation and the safer one in an exam.
The claim is not that everything hurts. It is that nothing inside the cycle stays, so nothing inside it can finally satisfy — including the good things, which end.
The Three Marks of Existence
Anicca — change
Nothing stays as it is. Everything that arises passes. This is a description of how things are, offered as something to be seen rather than believed.
Dukkha — unsatisfactoriness
Because nothing stays, clinging to anything sets a person up for loss. The craving, not the object, is where the problem sits.
Anatta — no permanent self
Theravada Buddhists hold that there is no unchanging self behind experience: what we call a person is five changing skandhas (aggregates) working together. This is the point on which Buddhist and Hindu accounts most sharply differ.
Nothing stays; clinging therefore hurts; and there is no fixed self doing the clinging.
The distinction worth having ready: Hindus hold that the atman — a self or soul — travels through samsara.
Theravada Buddhists hold anatta: no such permanent self. Both describe rebirth; they disagree about what, if anything, is reborn.
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The guide lists four possible destinations, and which of them a Buddhist has in view depends heavily on branch and on whether they are monastic or lay.
Within the cycle
- A favourable or unfavourable rebirth after death, shaped by kamma/karma
- Many lay Theravada Buddhists aim at punna (merit) for a good rebirth rather than at enlightenment in this life
Out of the cycle
- Enlightenment, entering nirvana/nibbana — the extinguishing of craving, and freedom from samsara
- Buddhahood
- Bodhisattvahood — in Mahayana Buddhism, the aim of enlightenment for the sake of all beings rather than oneself alone
How Buddhism answers the guide's three questions, in its own terms.
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What nirvana is not: Not a place, and not a reward given by anyone.
The word means something like blowing out: what is extinguished is craving. Describing it as "the Buddhist heaven" will cost you terminology marks.
The guide's answer is a list, and it is worth seeing that the items are not parallel: some are things a Buddhist takes refuge in, some are things to accept, and some are things to do.
The Three Jewels — what a Buddhist takes refuge in
- Buddha — the awakened one, and the fact that awakening is possible
- Dhamma / dharma — the teaching, and the truth it points to
- sangha — the community. Joining it is how the guide describes taking this step
The Four Noble Truths
There is dukkha
Existence within samsara is unsatisfactory. The diagnosis.
Dukkha has a cause
Tanha — craving — together with aversion and ignorance. The cause.
Dukkha can cease
If craving is extinguished, what it produces ceases with it. The prognosis.
There is a path to that cessation
The Noble Eightfold Path, also called the Middle Way because it avoids both indulgence and extreme self-denial. The treatment.
Diagnosis, cause, prognosis, treatment — the Buddha described as a physician.
The Noble Eightfold Path
- Wisdom: right view, right intention
- Ethical conduct (sila): right speech, right action, right livelihood
- Mental discipline (bhavana): right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration
The Five Precepts
- To refrain from harming living beings
- From taking what is not given
- From sexual misconduct
- From false speech
- From drink and drugs that cloud the mind
The branch difference to name: The guide also lists following the path of the bodhisattva, and developing wisdom and compassion.
In Mahayana Buddhism the bodhisattva postpones final nirvana for the sake of others. Naming that as a Mahayana emphasis, not Buddhism as a whole, is the kind of precision the markbands reward.