What is Buddhism?
A family of traditions concerned with suffering, awakening and how to live. An introduction to its shared foundations and diverse traditions.
A path toward freedom from suffering.
Buddhism begins with the Buddha’s teaching in ancient South Asia. Its central concern is practical and far-reaching: understanding suffering and bringing its causes to an end.
The Four Noble Truths
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Suffering
“… separation from the liked is suffering; not getting what you wish for is suffering.”
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Its cause
“… craving for sensual pleasures, craving for continued existence, and craving for nonexistence.”
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Freedom
“It’s the fading away and cessation of that very same craving …”
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The path
“It is simply this noble eightfold path …”
Excerpts from SN 56.11 · translated by Bhikkhu Sujato
A whole way of living and learning.
AN 3.88 names three trainings: ethical conduct, mind and wisdom. In MN 44, the nun Dhammadinnā explains how the eight path factors belong to these three groups.
Ethical conduct
Dhammadinnā places right speech, right action and right livelihood in the group of ethical conduct. AN 3.90 describes a monastic practitioner undertaking the training rules, guarding conduct and taking even small faults seriously.
Meditative cultivation
Right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration belong to the concentration group. AN 3.90 describes this training through the four jhānas: seclusion from unskillful states, the calming of thought, equanimity, and the purification of mindfulness.
Wisdom
Right view and right intention belong to the wisdom group. AN 3.90 defines this training as understanding suffering, its origin, its cessation and the path that leads to its cessation.
How the trainings connect
In MN 44, Dhammadinnā says that the Noble Eightfold Path is included within these three groups. She describes concentration as singleness of mind, the four establishments of mindfulness as its themes, and the four right efforts as its requisites. Developing these qualities is the development of concentration.
AN 3.88 describes different degrees of accomplishment in the three trainings and connects them with stages of liberation. Its account culminates in a practitioner fully accomplished in conduct, concentration and wisdom, realizing release directly. The training is therefore presented as a path toward liberation, with ethical, meditative and discerning dimensions.
Sources & notes
- AN 3.88 · Three trainings and stages of liberation
- AN 3.90 · Definitions of the trainings
- MN 44 · Dhammadinnā on the path factors
Summaries of the linked translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. AN 3.88 and AN 3.90 address monastics; MN 44 is a conversation with a lay follower.
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Shared roots, living traditions.
Buddhist traditions share common roots while preserving different texts, lineages and ways of practice.
Theravāda
A broad family with a Pāli textual inheritance and diverse monastic and lay communities. Ethics, meditation and wisdom shape its paths of practice.
Its communities include forest monasteries and modern insight meditation groups.
Mahāyāna
Centered on the bodhisattva path: awakening for the benefit of all beings.
It includes East Asian traditions such as Zen and Pure Land, as well as Tibetan and Newar Buddhism.
Vajrayāna developed within the wider Mahāyāna world. Its practices include mantra, visualization and ritual, passed on through teachers and lineages. It is preserved in Tibetan and Newar Buddhism, and in Japanese Shingon and Tendai.
These traditions have communities around the world. Their teachings and practices often overlap.
Buddhist texts and their sources.
Buddhist traditions draw on different collections of scriptures and teaching works. Some texts are shared across traditions; others belong to a particular lineage or collection.
- A sutta or sūtra
- A discourse or scripture. Sutta is the Pāli term; sūtra is Sanskrit.
- A canon
- A collection of texts recognized as scripture. The Pāli, Chinese and Tibetan canons overlap but contain different works.
- A śāstra or other teaching work
- Śāstra is Sanskrit for an explanatory treatise: a work by a teacher or scholar that interprets or organizes the teachings. Buddhist traditions also have commentaries, practice manuals and modern teaching books.