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

by Noah Rasheta

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.

moments of awareness evoke a tremendous sense of gratitude and awe, and they can be experienced anywhere at any time. You can try this yourself by asking, “Where am I? What am I doing? What did it take for this moment to arise?”

or constructed by collective agreement. The Buddha taught that there are three universal characteristics of life, also known as the three marks of existence: dukkha (suffering), anicca (impermanence), and anattā (nonself). These three concepts form the core of what could be considered the truth in Buddhism.

the cells in your body die and regenerate. You are not the same exact person from moment to moment. Instead of seeing ourselves as fixed, semipermanent entities, we can start to see ourselves as we truly are: collections of impermanent, momentary experiences.

When we start to understand the nature of impermanence, our tendency to cling to outcomes and expectations will begin to diminish.

That doesn’t mean it’s suddenly easy to lose a job or a loved one. It just means that the suffering of loss will go more smoothly when we learn to see things as they really are: that loss is a natural part of the course of life, rather than something we need to fight against. When we understand that all things a...

Buddhism teaches that there are three different types of suffering. The first is called “the suffering of suffering.” This is a natural form of suffering that we experience on a regular basis. Pain might be a good word to summarize it.

The second type of suffering is called “the suffering of loss.” This is what we experience when, for example, we lose a job, a loved one, or our youth and vitality.

The third type of suffering is called “the all-pervasive suffering,” and it’s the type Buddhism is most concerned with. Unlike the first two types, all-pervasive suffering is self-inflicted, and it generally arises out of an ignorant or delusional understanding of reality. It tends to have very little to do with our actual circumstances and a lot to do with how we perceive and interpret those circumstances.

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.

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.

The Buddhist understanding of emptiness is that all things are devoid of meaning until we assign meaning to them.

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.

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)