Buddhism’s long history has allowed it to adopt unique forms in various cultures, mostly throughout Asia, but more recently in the West. A number of unifying Buddhist principles are shared by most Buddhist establishments, and these commonalities serve to connect the major traditions. Most conclusively, Buddhism, in all of its forms, aims to: (1) provide human beings with a practical and achievable path that leads to the alleviation of suffering or unsatisfactoriness through the recognition of dependent origination and its conclusions (the interdependence and interconnectivity of all things), and (2) cultivate human actions that stem from this understanding.
Buddhism originated in northern India over 2400 years ago. While many Buddhist traditions converge on aspects of the birth, life, enlightenment and death of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, modern scholarship recognizes that these stories are not verifiable. The Buddhisms of today are the result of centuries of revision and refinement.
Unlike most Western religions, where the central prophet’s significance stems from historical existence and physical acts, the historical reality of Siddhartha is not important in Buddhism. Instead, the vital element is the efficacy of Buddhist methodology — an actual path that leads to the alleviation of unsatisfactoriness in this world.
Buddhism posits an interconnected and interdependent reality where humans are not separate, but connected in an inherently meaningful way. We are important precisely because we are here, and we function as a necessary aspect of our experiences.
The Life of Siddhartha Gautama
Most Buddhist traditions agree that Siddhartha Gautama was born to a wealthy king in Northern India. A seer is said to have predicted that Siddhartha would become a great king, or a great spiritual leader. In an attempt to cultivate the former, his father ensured that all forms of unsatisfactoriness stayed out of his son’s life. In his early adulthood, Siddhartha’s curiosity compelled him to climb his palace walls and discover the condition of average human beings. His encounter with four human conditions — a dead person, a dying person, a decrepit person, and an impoverished person — challenged his understanding of the world. He renounced his nobility and wealth, and set out on a course that would lead to answers.
Siddhartha studied the major schools of Indian thought, including the strict materialism of the radical empiricists and the metaphysical theories of the Upanishadic tradition. Though he mastered them, he rejected their extreme and narrow orientations as insufficient. He found solace by sitting in contemplation under a Bodhi tree, where he realized the source of human unsatisfactoriness as perpetual craving and unnatural attachment, and the alleviation of unsatisfactoriness as awareness of dependent origination — the process by which all things arise and pass away.
As Buddhist scholar David E. Shaner has pointed out, realization in the Buddhist tradition is necessarily a personal and social question, which involves not only oneself, but one’s entire community of sentient beings.
Buddhist Principles: Dependent Origination, Nonduality, Karma, Rebirth
Buddhist principles stem from an awareness of the binding conditions of humanity, especially as made known through unsatisfactoriness, and the realization of dependent origination. The Buddha’s pragmatic approach acknowledged that each person would require different degrees of teachings to arrive at realization — a notion known as “skillful means” (upaya).
Because every event has a cause, the Universe is seen as interdependent and interconnected. This central concept is one of the major reasons for the mutual interest and agreement between Buddhism and modern science.
Buddhism is well known for its emphasis on nonduality. Instead of viewing the world in terms of “good” vs. “evil,” or “us” vs. “them,” Buddhism recognizes that the orientations and views humans take stem from particular perspectives. Comparative philosopher Thomas P. Kasulis says it well:
The better we can adjust the way we analyze and communicate, the more successful we will be in establishing fruitful, pragmatic, and effective relations with a diversity of others. There is something we will have to give up, however — namely, the idea that there is only one legitimate take on reality... I cannot argue orientations; I can only argue within them.
From a moral standpoint, dependent origination implies that nothing in the universe occurs at random. Though most events are beyond our personal control, the insight of dependent origination allows us to better understand the types of actions that will elicit harmonious or disruptive consequences. This is what Buddhists call karma.
Unlike reincarnation, which assumes the existence of an existentially discrete “self,” rebirth implies that character dispositions or personality carry over in some form after death. A modern interpretation: rebirth simply implies that one is not annihilated upon death, and necessarily remains interconnected with the rest of existence.
Three Foundational Concepts
The Buddhist worldview rests on three concepts:
- Impermanence (anicca)
- Unsatisfactoriness (dukkha)
- Selflessness (anatman)
Impermanence does not mean the world is an illusion; it only means the world has no permanent, independent reality apart from everything else. The Buddhist view embraces a middle way: our world is one of transformation and change, governed by dependent origination.
Dukkha — often translated as suffering, but more accurately asunsatisfactoriness — is the obstacle dealt with through sincere practice. During meditation, the human mind enters a state of simple but profound awareness. The beneficial physiological changes are well documented in James H. Austin’s Zen and the Brain.
The concept of anatman as selflessness stems from impermanence. One of the sources of unsatisfactoriness for human beings is the belief in a permanent, independent self. Cultivating personal insight through Buddhist practice leads to the recognition that this notion has no permanent reality — and the elemental human fear of separation passes away.
Buddhist Morality: Four Ennobling Realities & the Eightfold Path
The Buddha’s realization experience empowered him with insight into four basic human truths about unsatisfactoriness, known as the Four Ennobling Realities (Four Noble Truths):
- Unsatisfactoriness exists for human beings.
- Its cause is craving, unnatural attachments, and dualistic thinking that neglect dependent origination.
- There is a path that leads to the cessation of craving, and a way to positively transform unsatisfactoriness.
- This path is Eightfold.
The Eightfold Path
- Right View
- Right Intention
- Right Speech
- Right Action
- Right Livelihood
- Right Effort
- Right Mindfulness
- Right Concentration
David Kalupahana groups (1)–(2) as Intellectual Understanding, (3)–(6) as Moral Understanding, and (7)–(8) as Meditative Understanding. All components aid the practitioner in living out the fruits of realization.
Circularity, Compassion & the Bodhisattva Ideal
Buddhism asserts a circular cosmology, where unique and contingent conditions arise from and pass back into a continuous, connected transformation. There is only the here and now — the locus where we can effect meaningful change. Authenticating themselves and freeing themselves from the cycle of unsatisfactoriness, average everyday persons share their positive and transformative approach with others through skillful means.
Meditation is our simplest tool, // Breathing in... // ...Breathing out, // Seeing the world anew.
Chan / Zen Buddhism
Buddhist practice is always both a critique of self and a critique of culture. Although our individual values, intentions, and desires are central to our karma and the kind of life we experience, so are the broader values and patterns of conduct that we inherit from our culture. — Peter D. Hershock, Chan Buddhism
Chan Buddhism focuses on sitting meditation as a primary way to understand the Four Ennobling Truths and the Eightfold Path. According to legend, the emphasis on sitting was brought to China by the Indian monk Bodhidharma. Chan emerged as a synthesis between Indian Buddhism and Chinese Daoism, and was later transferred to Japan most notably by Dogen in the form of Soto Zen.
Pragmatism
On the pragmatic view I am putting forward, what we call “increased knowledge” should not be thought of as increased access to the Real, but as increased ability to do things — to take part in social practices that make possible richer and fuller human lives. — Richard Rorty, Philosophy as Cultural Politics
American pragmatism is a system of philosophy that values practical application and function over theory. It stems from thinkers such as William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey, A. N. Whitehead, and George Herbert Mead. Neopragmatism, most associated with Richard Rorty, rests on the idea of antifoundationalism — the idea that there is no privileged vocabulary or way of speaking.
Pragmatic Buddhism
Remember that the historical Buddha himself rejected most of the central “traditions” of his day, not from a rebellious mind but because he saw they were hindering meaningful personal and social development. Tradition is simply a set of values and expectations that worked for a previous generation; it says little of its value to us today when not weighed against contemporary needs. We must take the heart of the message and put it into whatever form works. This is Pragmatic Buddhism: mindfulness made meaningful for today’s world.