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Buddhism, the religion probably most associated with peace, tranquility, and bald guys. One
of the oldest surviving religions Buddhism started 2500 years ago in India and is now
the world's fourth-largest religion. With over 520 million followers, or 7% of humanity.
Almost all located within this circle. And if you live outside of this circle you might
not know a lot about Buddhist beliefs.
So what is Buddhism? Who is The Buddha? And Is life an endless cycle of pain, misery,
disappointment and death!!! WELL, LET'S FIND OUT.
INTRO MUSIC, which slaps
So who was The Buddha, well, let's travel 2500 years into the past.
Around 480BCE the Buddha was born as Prince Siddhartha Gautama in modern day Nepal, right
here.
Siddhartha's dad was a powerful ruler of a Hindu republic. But due to a prophecy he was
terrified that Prince Siddartha would become a religious leader instead of taking his place
on the throne. To avoid the prophecy he hid human suffering from Siddartha. Siddartha
lived in fancy palaces, had the finest clothes and jewelry, ate and drank what he pleased,
and married a beautiful bride. His dad fired sick, ugly, aging servants and no one could
speak to Siddartha about any of life's miseries, like death. This could obviously never backfire.
Siddartha felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction with this luxurious life. At 29 years old
after finally being allowed to go on a trip outside the palace, Siddartha saw an old man,
a sick man, and finally a corpse. He spiralled into an existential crisis. He thought why
do anything in life when old age, sickness, and death would eventually get everyone.
ANYWAAAAY! On another visit outside Siddhartha came across a homeless monk that had given
up all possessions. This guy seemed pretty wise and happy. So Siddhartha decided he would
abandon his princely life and become a wandering monk in search of an answer to life's suffering.
Siddartha spent the next six years learning from India's greatest yoga and meditation
masters. He joined a group of hermits in the forest that practice extreme fasting and intense
meditation. But after six years of eating nothing but seeds that had blown into his
lap Siddhartha was little more than a living skeleton. He realised he wasn't any closer
to an answer to suffering. In fact the starvation had clouded his thinking. HE WAS EVEN FURTHER
AWAY FROM AN ANSWER THAN WHEN HE STARTED.
Something clicked. The path to Enlightenment lay between the extremes of a Prince's life
of luxury and a hermit's life of starvation. So Siddartha would have to follow a Middle-Way.
And so he began eating again. Reenergised, Siddartha sat beneath a tree and vowed to
meditate until he found an answer to human suffering.
In a deep state of meditation Siddartha sat there for days. He realised that by ending
desire, he could end suffering. We only suffer because we want things to be a certain way.
His fear of aging, sickness and death slipped away. He realised all things are always changing
and that the only thing he could do was accept and love those changes. Freed from desire,
his mind and senses purified. He was filled with a sense of compassion and joy for everything
on Earth. Under that tree, now called the Bodhi Tree, Siddartha achieved Enlightenment
or Nirvana. He was now an Awakened One, a Buddha.
So how exactly did the Buddha become Enlightened. Well, luckily he laid out a handy dandy guide
for everyone to follow.
The four noble truths are the basis of Buddhism.
The First Noble Truth Is...
Life is suffering
Wait wait. I know this sounds dark but it's actually not.
The actual first truth is Life is Dukkha. Which is an ancient Sanskrit word that is
normally translated as “suffering,” in English. But it's more like dissatisfaction.
Life will always be disatifying because humans cling to temporary things. Old Age, Sickness,
and Death are Dukkha. Things changing when you don't want them to is dukkha. Not getting
what you want is dukkha. Things never measuring up to our expectations is Dukkha.
Dukkha suggests that even when life is not physically painful it can be disappointing
and unfulfilling.
The Second Noble Truth is that Dukkha is caused by desire.
Humans desire and cling to possessions, people, power, and life itself. So they end up constantly
disappointed. Because all of those things end. People want things they don't have and
want things they have to never change. But everything is always changing. Everything
we think we own is really borrowed. We want to live forever and want our loved ones to
stay the same forever. But you can’t catch a running stream. You can't have a permanent
relationship with an impermanent world. It always ends in disappointment. Eventually
you discover that the bottomless breadsticks are in fact bottom’d. Desire fuels suffering
in the way that wood fuels a fire. Fire consumes everything you feed it and will always demand
more fuel. The only way to kill the fire is to stop feeding it breadsticks.
The Buddha taught that the secret to a happy life is to enjoy what you have without attachment
and not want what you don’t have.
The third Noble Truth is there’s an end to suffering. Since we cause our suffering
we can also cure it. We cannot change the things that happen to us, but we can change
our responses.
The fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path that leads to the end of suffering.
The Noble Eightfold Path or the Middle Way, is an eight step guide to deprogramming the
desire addicted brain. It's called a Path but you should think of it more as a wheel
with 8 spokes that should be spun together at the same time.
The Eight parts are:
Right View: Right View is accepting the 4 Noble Truths. That suffering exists and that
by following the Buddha’s teaching there is a way out of it.
Right Thought: The Buddha said "Your worst enemy can not harm you as much as your own
thoughts". So don't let negative thoughts like greed, fear, and anxiety cloud your mind.
Fill your mind with positive ones coming from love, kindness, and compassion.
Right Speech: Focus on positive words and stay away from negative ones like gossip,
hurtful words, and lies. These only cause suffering to yourself and others.
Right Action: The Buddha taught the philosophy of ahimsa or non-violence. Instead of hurting
others you should try to have endless love for all life. Good actions include conquering
anger with love, evil with good, meanness with generosity, lies with truth, and smikty
smashing the likeity like button and clikity clake the scripity subscribe button. Bad Actions
include killing, stealing, drugs, and engaging in non-consensual sex.
Right Livelihood: Avoid jobs that involve death, weapons, slavery, the harm of animals,
drugs, and any kind of explotation. But livelihood is not just occupation. Be an honest and kind
parent, friend, and partner.
The next 3 are related to Meditation. You have:
Right Effort: Right Effort builds on Right Thought. It means putting effort into welcoming
and creating good thoughts and pushing out bad thoughts. Violence, hatred, greed, and
anxiety begin as negative thoughts. Using Right Effort in your little mind garden you
water your positive thought flowers so they grow. In a garden full of kind and compassionate
thoughts, greed weeds will find no space to grow.
Right Mindfulness: Mindfulness is paying attention. Paying bare attention in every moment. Remaining
in the present without judging or labelling your experiences and without letting distracting
thoughts bring you out of the present. If you're eating ice cream, eat ice cream. Don't
let that memory of that one time you pee'd your pants at school, and then slip on your
own pee, and afterwards everyone called you PeepeePants McSlippy Pee because they were
uncreative distract you from your ice cream moment.
Mindfulness helps you understand your mind and body so you can see what causes positive
and negative reactions from you in each moment.
Right concentration: While Mindfulness is like a giant net catching everything, Right
Concentration is like a laser. Right Concentration is what people would recognise as meditation.
Using Right concentration you focus your mind on a single thing while meditating. Whether
that be your breath or thoughts. The point is to focus on that one thing without distraction
so that you can gain insight into reality. Concentration gives you insight into your
thoughts and why they happen. So you can nip them in the bud, and stop yourself from desiring.
Each of these 8 parts has endlessly complex additions and extra steps that we don’t
have time to cover. The main takeaway is that the Buddha taught that the Eightfold path
would free people from suffering. Following this path does not mean you give up on life,
abandoning friends and family, and to stop feeling all emotions. The Truths and Path
are about realising that you won't find happiness by clinging to the world. Happiness comes
from clearing your mind of Desire and replacing it with joy and compassion for all things.
Instead of trying to control what happens, you accept what happens, and enjoy every moment
as it is.
Along with the Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path there are some other important Buddhist
Core Beliefs. Like:
Karma is an ancient Sanskrit word meaning action. But actions that have consequences.
When you commit bad or good actions it causes a chain reaction that will later come back
to you in this life or the next. Buddhists see Karma more like a natural law like gravity
rather than some sort of judgmental system of reward and punishments. It’s a system
of cause and effect. Think of Karma like seeds. As you sow, so shall you reap. If you plant
a mango seed you eventually get a mango tree. If you plant a murder seed, MURDER TREE. Or
the worst one of all if you plant corriander...straight to hell.
According to Buddhism "If you want to know about your past life, look at your present
body. If you want to know your future life, look at your present mind." Even though Karma
affects your life conditions it is not destiny. Buddhism teaches that at every moment each
person can change and make their lives better. When it comes to Karma intention matters.
If you squash an ant by accident then you don't generate any karma. If you stamp on
it with pure hatred and anger as if it was coriander then that will generate negative
karma. Karma also influences how you will be reborn after death.
Buddhists believe we live in a beginningless and endless cycle of birth, suffering, and
death called Samsara. When the Buddha reached Nirvana he escaped the cycle of rebirth. Desire
and Karma push the cycle on and on. When a life ends in one body, karma drags that life
into a new body, with no memory of the previous life. Karma even if it's good or bad karma
keeps people stuck in the cycle. The only way to break out of the cycle is to stop desire,
stop suffering, stop the creation of karma and reach Nirvana.
Nirvana or Enlightenment isn’t a place for you to go. It’s not Heaven. It's a state
of mind. The Buddha reached Nirvana and lived another 45 years. Although some Buddhist traditions
do have heavens and hells they're inside the cycle. Nirvana is an escape from the entire
Samsara cycle. Nirvana means ‘blowing out’. You blow out the Fire of Desire. When you
stop thinking of yourself as ME and I and instead fill yourself with compassion for
all things. Once you do this you stop generating Karma and you stop being reborn. Anyone that
wants to achieve Nirvana can with the right effort.
And that’s why, the Buddha spent the remaining 45 years of his life after Enlightenment wandering
the Indian subcontinent, teaching others how to escape suffering before he died at the
age of 80. After Siddhartha's death his community of monks known as the Sangha spread his teachings
or Dharma out of India and throughout Asia. Buddhism eventually declined in India but
took hold across East and South-East Asia.
His teachings of the Noble Truths, and Eightfold Path aren't strict rules and not following
them won't result in punishment from a God. There is no capital G God in Buddhism. There
are gods but they're stuck in the same Cycle as the rest of us, and you can be reborn as
one if you've got great karma. The Buddha's teachings are a guide to escape suffering,
leave the cycle, and achieve Nirvana like he did. The important part is using the teachings
that work for you in your unique life circumstances. As The Dalai Lama once said "If you find that
the teachings suit you, apply them to your life as much as you can. If they don’t suit
you, just leave them be.”
This is why there are dozens of different kinds of Buddhism, but they can be divided
into two major branches. Theravada and Mahayana.
Theravada means “School of the Elders'' and is the oldest surviving branch of Buddhism.
For Theravadans reading is fundamental. They use a series of texts called Suttas, which
are based on oral teachings of what the Buddha taught. They date back almost to the time
of the Buddha and are written in the ancient Pali language and so these texts are called
the Pali canon.
In general Theravada has less religious rituals than other forms of Buddhism and they believe
the Buddha to be a much more human figure. They see Siddhartha as the only Buddha of
the current era and that he left behind his Dharma and Sangha to help others achieve enlightenment.
Theravada Buddhist countries include Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.
Mahayana meaning Great Vehicle is younger than Theravada and is found mostly in East
Asia. Unlike Theravada which sticks with the Pali Canon, Mahayana has loads more texts
and teachings.
At the center of Mahayana is the bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings that instead
of leaving the cycle of rebirth have decided to stay in order to help other non-enlightened
beings achieve enlightenment. Mahāyāna Buddhism believes that you can ask Bodhisattvas, other
Buddhas, and holy beings for help in this world. So you will see people praying to different
Buddhas in the same way people would pray to Saints or Gods in other religions.
Mahayana is primarily practiced in Nepal, Mongolia, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.
Mahāyāna contains dozens of smaller traditions such as Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.
Another tradition under Mahayana is Vajrayana or Diamond Vehicle. This is what many people
call Tibetan Buddhism. Vajrayana uses mantras or repetitive chants, the drawing of mandalas,
and the use of secret rituals, incantations, and deep meditation while visualising different
supernatural beings to try and achieve Nirvana faster. This school has a huge emphasis on
using gurus or teachers known as lamas to assist you on your journey. The famous Dalai
Lama is the leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
If you’d like an even better explanation of the Buddha and his teachings I can highly
recommend Buddha episode of the series Genius of the Ancient World over on CuriosityStream.
It covers the Buddha’s entire life, his teachings, and includes interviews with Buddhist
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I hope you enjoyed this video. This is only about 1% of Buddhism and is only meant to
serve as an introduction. One video simply can’t capture an entire religion. But if
you’d like to know more you can find all the sources used in the description. If you
are interested in supporting the channel, there are links for Patreon and my merch store
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Thanks a lot for watching, bye.