• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

The Essence of Buddhism in 5 Minutes

October 1, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“One thing I teach: suffering and the end of suffering. It is just Ill and the ceasing of Ill that I proclaim.” The historical Buddha is said to have announced at his first sermon (Dharmacakrapravarta) to a group of five former ascetic companions (the Pañcavargika.) Following his enlightenment, the Buddha was living at the Deer Park (Mṛgadāva) at the Resort of Seers (Ṛṣipatana) near the Bārāṇasī Forest, in the modern-day Sārnāth in India.

The Buddha’s teaching centered on the notion that all sentient beings seek happiness—and happiness is anchored in the freedom from suffering.

To discover the essence of Buddhism, then, is to become aware of what causes suffering and how you can cease suffering.

The truth of the nature of suffering is also the path to the end of suffering.

The Essence of Buddhism: You suffer because of your ignorance American psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein has argued (Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 1991) that the answer to this question is the whole of Buddha’s teaching:

If you pay attention for just five minutes, you know some very fundamental dharma [of the Buddha]: things change, nothing stays comfortable, sensations come and go quite impersonally, according to conditions, but not because of anything you think or do. Changes come and go quite by themselves. In the first five minutes of paying attention, you learn that pleasant sensations lead to the desire that these sensations will stay and that unpleasant sensations lead to the hope that they will go away. And both the attraction and the aversion amount to tension in the mind. Both are uncomfortable. So in the first five minutes, you get a big lesson about suffering: wanting things to be other than they are. Such a tremendous amount of truth to be learned just closing your eyes and paying attention to bodily sensations.

While you must welcome pleasant, pleasurable feelings, you must bear in mind that pleasure is transient, like every other feeling. Clinging—wishing to hang on to those people, places, possessions, or experiences that bring about pleasant experiences—is hopeless. By the same token, being aversive to painful or unpleasant experiences is impossible.

Idea for Impact: The essence of Buddhism isn’t a dogma, but the very practical problem of suffering.

Buddhism teaches that you, too, can initiate into the dharma “spiritual” practice by learning to cease your attachment to pleasant experiences and your revulsion against unpleasant ones.

The essence of the Buddha’s teaching is … that you suffer because of your ignorance—because you don’t realize the real nature of reality.

The truth of the nature of suffering is also the path to the end of suffering. In other words, pleasure without pain is achievable only as you evolve toward higher states of mindfulness.

The Buddha’s teaching isn’t pessimistic. It doesn’t stress only the suffering, pain, and unhappiness at the heart of the human experience. In fact, it’s the opposite. The Buddha’s teaching summons joyful participation in a world of sorrows by clarifying what is unsatisfactory and suggesting how to overcome it.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  2. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  3. What the Buddha Taught About Restraining and Dealing with Anger
  4. The Nature of Worry
  5. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself

Filed Under: Belief and Spirituality, Mental Models Tagged With: Buddhism, Emotions, Happiness, Mindfulness, Suffering

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Popular Now

Anxiety Assertiveness Attitudes Balance Biases Books Coaching Conflict Conversations Creativity Critical Thinking Decision-Making Discipline Emotions Entrepreneurs Etiquette Feedback Getting Along Getting Things Done Goals Great Manager Leadership Leadership Lessons Likeability Mental Models Mentoring Mindfulness Motivation Networking Parables Performance Management Persuasion Philosophy Problem Solving Procrastination Relationships Simple Living Social Skills Stress Thinking Tools Thought Process Time Management Winning on the Job Wisdom Worry

About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

Get Updates

Signup for emails

Subscribe via RSS

Contact Nagesh Belludi

RECOMMENDED BOOK:
How to Talk to Anyone

How to Talk to Anyone: Leil Lowndes

Communication consultant Leil Lowndes discusses 92 tricks to become a better conversationalist and improve social relationships---body language, words to say, telephone techniques, social tactics.

Explore

  • Announcements
  • Belief and Spirituality
  • Business Stories
  • Career Development
  • Effective Communication
  • Great Personalities
  • Health and Well-being
  • Ideas and Insights
  • Inspirational Quotations
  • Leadership
  • Leadership Reading
  • Leading Teams
  • Living the Good Life
  • Managing Business Functions
  • Managing People
  • MBA in a Nutshell
  • Mental Models
  • News Analysis
  • Personal Finance
  • Podcasts
  • Project Management
  • Proverbs & Maxims
  • Sharpening Your Skills
  • The Great Innovators
  • Uncategorized

Recently,

  • How to … Plan in a Time of Uncertainty
  • How to … Rethink Work-Life Balance
  • How to … Pop the Filter Bubble
  • Inspirational Quotations #981
  • How to Be Happy, per Cicero
  • Serve the ‘Lazy Grapefruit’
  • Co-Workation Defeats Work-Life Balance

Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.