No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions About Core Buddhist Teachings

by Noah Rasheta

In our day-to-day lives, we’re continually making meaning and

creating stories about everything that happens. A thought arises, we create a story about it, the story evokes an emotion, we create another story about that, and on and on until, before we know it, we’re hardly paying attention to our lived reality at all, trapped in a habitual reactivity to our own thoughts.

In fact, in one Buddhist scripture, the Buddha seems to be critical of god worship, telling a young man that it’s far more important to live ethically than it is to worship anything.

Instead of determining whether these teachings are true or not, we are encouraged to verify if they work or not. In other words, do these teachings really lead to the reduction, and ultimately the cessation, of suffering?

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Buddhist monk, says that “the secret of Buddhism is to remove all

ideas, all concepts, in order for the truth to have a chance to penetrate, to reveal itself.” The Buddha taught that we are essentially prisoners of our own minds, bound by our beliefs, perceptions, and ideas. We see an inaccurate version of reality—a version, not coincidentally, that causes us unnecessary suffering. We tend to go through life thinking that external circumstances are to blame for our suffering and our lack of contentment. The Buddha’s teachings help us alter that perspective and learn that the unnecessary suffering we experience has more to do with how we see things than with what we see. It’s an internal change, not an external

one, that will bring about the joy and conte...

Because Buddhism is less concerned with big, unknowable, supernatural questions, we can comfortably say that Buddhism, in addition to being a religion, is a way of life or a philosophy: a set of practices that don’t depend on any dogmatic beliefs, a way to live that maximizes our chances for peace and contentment in the present moment—which is, after all, the only moment we’ll ever have. The Buddha encouraged his followers to test his teachings for themselves in their own lives.

It’s important to know that Buddhist texts are not equivalent to writings like the Bible in other spiritual traditions. Buddhist writings are not considered to be dictated or revealed by a deity. They’re meant to guide us on the path of enlightenment, not to indoctrinate us in a particular set of beliefs. Buddhist teachings are not something you’re meant to believe; they’re something you do—you put them into practice.

The Buddha said that the greatest of all teachings is the teaching of impermanence. How could Buddhism possibly stay the same in a world that’s constantly changing? You can learn something from all the various Buddhist traditions, finding which teachings ring true for you and resonate with your specific personality or learning style. And as you change, your practice can change with you.

To be enlightened is to be liberated from our habitual reactivity, freed from our perceptions and ideas in order to see reality as it is without wanting it to be different.

I would go further and say that enlightenment is also freedom from wanting to be enlightened. Any notion we have about what enlightenment is can get in the way of actually experiencing it.

Rather than thinking of evil as an external agent acting upon us, Buddhism teaches that greed, hatred, and ignorance are the sources of what we typically think of as “evil.” In Buddhism, these three qualities are called “the three poisons” or “the three fires.”

The Buddhist

teaching of nonself says that there is no permanent or fixed you—there’s only a complex web of inseparable, impermanent causes and effects.

There is only the momentary me that is continually changing and being changed by everything around me. The me of now is not the me of yesterday or five years ago or five years from now. This is what Buddhism teaches with regard to nonself.

Think about attachment in the context of the labels we apply to ourselves: our job titles, belief systems, political views, opinions, and so on. We attach to these concepts and identify with them to the point

that we feel tremendous suffering when they’re attacked or we lose them. Our tendency is to think that we must be either attached strongly to an idea or detached from that idea entirely. Buddhism proposes a different option: We can be non-attached to our ideas. Without dropping our labels and concepts completely, we loosen the death grip we have on them. When someone attacks a belief or opinion we hold, we can see that they’re attacking the idea, not us directly. When we’re nonattached to our ideas, they no longer own us—we own them.

The Buddhist understanding of emptiness is that all things are devoid of meaning until we assign meaning to them. Reality is like a blank canvas, bare until the painter comes along and creates something on that emptiness.

This is emptiness. It’s the understanding that as life unfolds, it doesn’t mean anything. It is neither positive nor negative. All things simply are as

they are.

So rather than focusing on life after death, we can instead choose to focus on life before death—the life we’re living now. Rather than speculating about what happens when we die, we can anchor ourselves in the present moment.

I like to use the following technique to keep death as an ever-present topic in my mind: Ask yourself, “What if I knew today was going to be my last day to live? How would that change my interactions with everyone I talk to today?” Then flip the question: “What if I knew that the person I’m talking to had only one more day to live? Would that change how I’m interacting with that person?”

Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes. THE BUDDHA, THE BHADDEKARATTA SUTTA

There is no justice, intelligence, or moral system behind it, no punishment or reward.

It’s less “If I do something good, I will get something good” and more “If I do something, something will happen.”

Karma is not mysterious or hidden. It’s the action that’s tak...

When you begin to understand the nature of reality, that all things are interdependent and connected, you can start to see karma working all around you. For example, let’s say someone gets into an argument with her coworker. Later, she drives home and, still upset, aggressively tailgates another car. The person...

spilled something on the floor, he yells at them. You can see how one act affects another act; this is karma in action. At any given moment, we’re all acting upon the karma that has been set in motion by others. The central teaching of karma is that we can pause and break the cycle of reactivity. In that mindful pause, we have the freedom to choose a more skil...

The question of theism—whether a god or gods exist—is, quite frankly, irrelevant in Buddhism.

Perhaps a better approach to this question is to ask yourself, “Are my beliefs (or nonbeliefs) preventing me

from seeing and experiencing reali...

Buddhism holds that good and evil are found within and that the mind is the source of it all.

If Buddhism were to be summarized in one key teaching, what would it be? The essence of the Buddha’s teaching is the nature of suffering and the cessation of suffering. In an early Buddhist text, the Buddha is reported to have said, “Both formerly and now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering” (Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.86).

When I interviewed him on my podcast, Buddhist scholar and author Stephen Batchelor discussed the Four Noble Truths as tasks with an easy-to-remember acronym: ELSA. E - Embrace the instance of suffering. L - Let go of the reactive pattern. S - See the stopping of the reactivity. A - Act skillfully.

The purpose of Buddhist teachings is to try to help us better understand the nature of reality and gain a clearer understanding of how things really are. Acceptance, from the Buddhist perspective, is not about giving up or ignoring bad things, like injustice or suffering. Acceptance in the Buddhist sense is about not resisting or fighting

against reality. For example, if you’re feeling a certain emotion—let’s say, loneliness—you have to accept what it is you’re feeling before you can do something about it. If you shy away from acknowledging that you’re lonely and instead ignore the uncomfortable feeling, anything you do to alleviate that discomfort will be unsuccessful, because you’re aiming at the wrong target.

From the Buddhist perspective, it’s not that we’re accepting the bad things that happen; we’re just accepting that bad things happen. Once I accept the reality of a situation, I can ask, “Now what am I going to do about it?” Acceptance is about working with reality, not against it.

As mentioned before, we suffer when we crave for life to be other than it is. The third noble truth, nirodha, helps us understand that in the cessation of suffering, it’s not suffering that ceases, but rather our craving not to suffer.

Buddhist practice doesn’t end suffering; suffering is a lifelong reality. But we can let go of our attachment to avoiding suffering, which paradoxically causes us so much avoidable suffering. This is a tricky concept to grasp, because we can’t do away with our craving to not suffer by simple force of will. In fact, when we try to no longer cling to it, we’re clinging to the idea of not clinging. If we desire to not desire, we’re still caught by desire. We can’t just say, “Okay, from now on, I won’t cling to anything,” because the causes and conditions that give rise to clinging will still be present.

The eight parts of the path can be grouped into three essential categories of Buddhist practice: wisdom (paññā), ethical conduct (sīla), and mental discipline (samādhi). The Eightfold Path isn’t meant to be followed in sequential order; all eight areas are developed simultaneously in an ongoing way. They’re all linked in the sense that each one helps with the cultivation of others. The eight parts of the path, grouped by their three categories, are: WISDOM 1. Right understanding (sammā ditthi) 2. Right intent (sammā sankappa)

ETHICAL CONDUCT 3. Right speech (sammā vācā) 4. Right action (sammā kammanta) 5. Right livelihood (sammā ājīva) MENTAL DISCIPLINE 6. Right effort (sammā vāyāma) 7. Right mindfulness (sammā sati) 8. Right concentration (sammā samādhi) The Eightfold Path is not a path we walk only once or in a particular order. You’ll notice how various segments of the path overlap and rely on each other and how some of them flow into or relate back to each other, as well. It’s also not a moral code to be followed. The components have the word right

in them, but don’t think of these in terms of right versus wrong. Instead, think of them as wise or skillful ways of living. The Eightfold Path is meant to be a guide for specific areas of life in which we can experience and discover the true nature of reality. “Walking the path” is an ongoing pract...