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

by Noah Rasheta

The Buddha taught a method of living intended to be practiced, rather than a set of ideas he asked his followers to believe.

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.

Our stories sometimes seem to comfort us because they give us a sense of certainty, even when they’re not true. 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.

Buddhism teaches that there’s reality as it is, and then there’s reality as we humans perceive or understand it. Our perception of reality is influenced by how our minds are conditioned; in other words, our ideas, cultural beliefs, concepts, and opinions all directly affect how we see reality.

One such person was a Chinese Buddhist monk called Budai, also known as the Laughing Buddha or the Fat Buddha. When you see a statue of a fat, bald man with a smile, you’re seeing Budai, not Siddhartha Gautama, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.

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?

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

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.

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.

In a way, you become awakened the moment you realize you don’t need to become awakened—everything you need to know is already present within you.

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.”

It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with the feeling of desire; it’s that we can become blinded by it, especially when we don’t have a thorough understanding of the intent or causes behind why we feel what we feel. Simply following our desires without taking time to understand them can lead to destructive behavior and mental confusion, which is why greed is considered a poison.

As a mental state, hatred affects the emotional well-being of the person doing the hating more than the person being hated.

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.

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

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.

What Buddhism does teach is a concept called nonattachment, which is different from detachment.

Yet when we observe nature, we see constant rebirth. After all, the law of conservation of energy in physics states that energy can’t be created or destroyed; it can just be transformed from one form into another. A cloud changes form and becomes rain. The rain becomes part of a river, flows into the ocean, and then gets heated up and evaporates into the air, where it may become a cloud and start the process all over again. What was, for a time, a cloud is transformed into something new. We don’t say the cloud dies when it changes form into raindrops. Are we really any different from the cloud? When we die, our bodies change form as they decompose and become part of nature, but they never cease to exist. Buddhists believe that humans, like everything else in nature, are part of a continual cycle of change.

Karma is simply the law of cause and effect. 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 taken, not the result.

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 skillful action to contribute to the never-ending web of causes and effects going on all around us.

Agnosticism, the stance that whether or not there’s a God is ultimately unknowable, can play an important role on the path of awakening. In Buddhism, not knowing is an ideal mental state, because that’s when we’re open to learning and experiencing. Many Buddhists are agnostic not only about God but also about many of life’s existential questions. This is what the Zen tradition calls a beginner’s, or open, mind.

In the book Buddhist Wisdom: The Path to Enlightenment, the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “Do not try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-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.

The Buddha taught that “when touched with a feeling of pain, the ordinary uninstructed person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental.