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

by Noah Rasheta

It became clear that trying to eliminate suffering was actually causing me more suffering.

But there is great freedom in releasing ourselves from the stories that cloud our perceptions and starting to feel okay with not always understanding the situation we’re in.

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?

We see an inaccurate version of reality—a version, not coincidentally, that causes us unnecessary suffering.

It’s an internal change, not an external one, that will bring about the joy and contentment we seek.

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 are impermanent, we can begin to find meaning and joy in every moment as it passes.

We’re always making adjustments as we go, so there’s no fixed, permanent version of us, only the continually changing combination of causes and conditions.

When we’re nonattached to our ideas, they no longer own us—we own 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.

There really is no beginning or end; there is only change.

We can begin here and now to make life meaningful by understanding that meaning isn’t out there waiting to be found—it’s in you, waiting to be created.