Buddhism

Core values & worldview

If you ask a Buddhist friend what Buddhism is “about”, you may get a surprising answer: not God, not even the Buddha exactly, but the mind. The Buddha’s starting point was a very human problem. We get old, we get sick, we lose people we love, and even good things never quite satisfy for long. The Pali word for this is dukkha, often translated “suffering” but closer to “unsatisfactoriness” or “stress”.^•

The Four Noble Truths. In his first sermon, the Buddha set out four truths: there is dukkha; it arises from craving (tanha), the thirst for pleasure, for existence and for things to be otherwise; it can cease, and that cessation is nirvana (Pali nibbana), literally a “blowing out” of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion; and there is a path leading there.^•

The Eightfold Path. The path has eight strands, traditionally grouped in three: wisdom (right view, right intention), ethics (right speech, right action, right livelihood) and meditation (right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration). “Right” here means skilful or wholesome, not obedient to a rule. It is called the Middle Way, between indulgence and harsh self-punishment, both of which the Buddha had tried.^•

Impermanence, no-self and karma. Everything conditioned changes (anicca), and there is no unchanging soul at our core (anatta); what we call “me” is a shifting process of body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. Actions (karma) have consequences, shaping this life and future ones, and most Buddhists in Asia understand rebirth quite literally, including as animals, ghosts or gods.^•

Western “secular Buddhists” often set rebirth aside; many Asian Buddhists find that odd.^•

The Three Jewels and the Five Precepts. Becoming a Buddhist means taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Laypeople commit to five precepts: not killing, not stealing, no sexual misconduct, no false speech, and no intoxicants that cloud the mind.^•

Mahayana and Vajrayana additions. Mahayana Buddhists add the ideal of the bodhisattva, who vows to become a Buddha for the sake of all beings, and the teaching that all things are “empty” (shunyata) of fixed, independent existence. They revere many Buddhas and bodhisattvas, such as Amitabha (Amida) and Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, known as Guanyin in China and Kannon in Japan. Vajrayana, the form found in Tibet, adds esoteric ritual, mantra and visualisation under a guru’s guidance.^•

Daily life & customs

Meditation, but not always. Westerners often assume all Buddhists meditate. Historically, serious meditation was mostly the work of some monks and nuns, and for most laypeople in Asia, Buddhism has meant devotion, generosity and ritual: bowing, offering flowers, incense and candles, chanting, and keeping the precepts.^•

Lay meditation movements, especially in Burma from the early twentieth century, changed this, and today many Asian lay Buddhists meditate too.^•

Making merit. In Theravada countries, the day often begins with the morning alms round. Monks walk barefoot in silence, and laypeople kneel to place rice and food in their bowls. Giving (dana) “makes merit” (puñña), good karma that can be shared with dead relatives. Building a pagoda, sponsoring an ordination or feeding monks are among the most meritorious acts.^•

Monastic life. Fully ordained monks (bhikkhus) follow a code of over 200 rules (227 in the Theravada version), owning little, eating nothing after noon and remaining celibate. In Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, many young men traditionally ordain for a few weeks or a rainy season, a coming-of-age that brings merit to their parents. Full ordination for women died out in the Theravada world centuries ago and its revival is debated; in China, Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam the nuns’ lineage survives and is strong.^•

In Japan, most temple priests marry and pass temples to their children, a practice that grew out of Shinran’s tradition and became general after 1872.^•

Festivals. Vesak (Wesak), on the full moon of May, marks the Buddha’s birth, awakening and death in Theravada countries; homes glow with lanterns and people set up free food stalls. East Asians celebrate the Buddha’s birthday by bathing a small statue of the baby Buddha. The Ghost Festival or Obon, in the seventh lunar month, honours ancestors.^•

Life and death. Buddhism is above all the religion of death in much of East Asia: funerals, memorial rites and ancestor tablets are typically Buddhist, even in families that are otherwise not religious, as in Japan.^•

Wounds & sensitivities

Losing India. Buddhism was born in India but had almost disappeared there by around 1300, after centuries of decline and the ruin of great monasteries such as Nalanda during the Turkic conquests. For many Buddhists, reclaiming Bodh Gaya, the place of the Buddha’s awakening, has been a deeply emotional cause.^•

See The Decline of Buddhism in India.

Persecution under communism. In the twentieth century, Buddhist institutions were devastated in Mongolia during the purges of the late 1930s, in China and Tibet, especially during the Cultural Revolution, and in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, who killed or defrocked most monks. Survivors’ memories remain raw.^•

See The Cultural Revolution.

Disrespect for the Buddha’s image. Using the Buddha as a decoration, tattoo, bar ornament or toilet-roll holder offends many Asian Buddhists, who see the image as sacred, not decorative.^•

Touching a monk’s head, pointing your feet at a shrine or a woman touching a Theravada monk are also breaches of etiquette.

Violence in Buddhism’s name. Buddhists often say, with reason, that their faith is peaceful. But militant nationalist monks in Sri Lanka and Myanmar have stirred hatred of Muslims, and the expulsion of the Rohingya from Myanmar in 2017 was carried out by a military that claimed to defend Buddhism. This is painful and contested ground; many Buddhists reject these movements outright.^•

See Buddhist Nationalism.

Tibet. For many Buddhists worldwide, Tibet’s fate under Chinese rule and the question of the Dalai Lama’s succession are matters of deep feeling. See the Tibetans profile.

Modern attitudes

Numbers. Pew estimates there were about 324 million Buddhists in 2020, about 4% of the world’s population, and that Buddhism was the only major religious group to shrink between 2010 and 2020, as many people raised Buddhist, especially in East Asia, ceased to identify with any religion. About 98% of Buddhists live in the Asia-Pacific region.^•

Counting is hard: in China and Japan many people take part in Buddhist rites without calling themselves Buddhist.^•

Buddhism and science. Since the colonial era, Buddhist reformers have presented their faith as rational and compatible with science, and the Dalai Lama’s long dialogue with neuroscientists helped make meditation a research topic. Scholars call this “Buddhist modernism”, and point out that it reshaped how Buddhism is understood both in Asia and in the West.^•

Mindfulness. Secular mindfulness, popularised by programmes such as Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (1979), is now taught in hospitals, schools and companies. Some Buddhists welcome it as a gift; others worry it strips meditation of the ethics and wisdom it was meant to serve.^•

See Buddhism Comes West.

Engaged Buddhism. Movements across Asia apply Buddhist ethics to war, poverty and the environment, from Thich Nhat Hanh’s peace work to Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya village movement and Taiwan’s Tzu Chi relief foundation.^•

Politics and the sangha. In Theravada countries, monks carry great moral authority, and how far they should engage in politics is hotly debated, from the monks who marched against Myanmar’s junta in 2007 to those who backed nationalist causes.^•

Not all Buddhists are the same

Three great traditions. Theravada Buddhists (Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia) use the Pali canon, revere the Buddha and the arahant, the fully liberated saint, and give monks central place. Mahayana Buddhists (China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam) use vast scriptures in Chinese such as the Lotus Sutra and honour many Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Vajrayana Buddhists (Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, the Himalayas, Kalmykia and Buryatia in Russia) are Mahayana in teaching, with tantric practice and reincarnate lamas.^•

Schools within schools. Within East Asian Mahayana, Zen (Chan in China, Seon in Korea, Thiền in Vietnam) stresses meditation and direct insight, while Pure Land stresses faith in Amitabha Buddha and reciting his name. Japan alone has Pure Land, True Pure Land, Zen (Rinzai and Sōtō), Nichiren, Shingon and Tendai schools, plus modern lay movements such as Sōka Gakkai.^•

Heritage and convert Buddhists. In the West, there is a real divide between “heritage” Buddhists, often Asian immigrants and their children whose temples are also community centres, and converts, many of them white and middle class, who tend to focus on meditation. Asian American Buddhists sometimes feel their traditions are overlooked in Western conversations about “Buddhism”.^•

Navayana in India. India’s Buddhists, about 8.4 million in the 2011 census, are mostly Ambedkarites, Dalits who followed B. R. Ambedkar out of Hinduism in protest against caste. Their Buddhism is strongly focused on equality, education and social justice.^•

See Ambedkar and the fight against untouchability.

Devout to cultural. A Burmese grandmother who keeps eight precepts on full-moon days, a Japanese salaryman who only meets Buddhism at funerals, and a London software engineer who meditates every morning but doesn’t believe in rebirth may all call themselves Buddhist, or not.^•

Meeting someone

Conversation starters

• Their temple and their teacher. Many Buddhists have a temple, monastery or teacher they feel close to. Asking about them is warm and welcome.
• Festivals. Vesak, Lunar New Year visits to the temple, Obon, or the Kathina robe-offering ceremony after the rains retreat are good openings.
• Food. Temple vegetarian cooking, from Korean temple food to Chinese Buddhist “mock meat” restaurants, is a treat to talk about.
• Pilgrimage. Someone who has been to Bodh Gaya, Lumbini or Kandy will usually love to tell you about it.

Topics to approach carefully

• Myanmar, the Rohingya and Sri Lanka. Many Buddhists feel ashamed or defensive about violence linked to Buddhist nationalism, or see their community as under threat. Listen first.^•
  • Contesting Buddhist Narratives: Democratization, Nationalism, and Communal Violence in Myanmar — Matthew J. Walton and Susan Hayward, East-West Center (2014)
• Tibet and China. Chinese Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhists and Western Buddhists may hold very different views of the Dalai Lama and Chinese rule.
• “Is it a religion or a philosophy?” Western converts often insist it is “not a religion”; many Asian Buddhists, who pray, make offerings and believe in rebirth, find this dismissive.^•
  • The Making of Buddhist Modernism — David L. McMahan, Oxford University Press (2008)
  • The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings — Donald S. Lopez Jr., HarperSanFrancisco (2001)
• Buddha statues as décor. Don’t place them on the floor or in a bathroom, and think twice about Buddha tattoos.

Common misconceptions

• “The Buddha is the fat, laughing guy.” The jolly round figure is Budai (Hotei in Japan), a Chinese monk said to have lived around the tenth century, later seen as a form of the future Buddha Maitreya. The historical Buddha is usually shown slender and serene.^•
  • The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism — Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press (2014)
• “Buddhists don’t believe in gods.” Buddhism does not teach a creator God, but traditional Buddhist cosmology is full of gods, spirits and heavens; they are simply also trapped in the cycle of rebirth.^•
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
  • An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.) — Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press (2013)
• “Karma is cosmic punishment.” Karma means “action” and its natural fruits, not judgement by a deity, and it is not fate: what you do now matters.^•
  • Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (2nd ed.) — Damien Keown, Oxford University Press (2013)
• “Nirvana means heaven, or nothingness.” Nirvana is the ending of greed, hatred and delusion, and of rebirth. The Buddha refused to describe it in ordinary terms of existence or non-existence.^•
  • What the Buddha Taught — Walpola Rahula, Grove Press (1959)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
• “All Buddhists are vegetarian pacifists.” Many Theravada monks eat whatever they are given, including meat; Chinese and Korean monastics are usually vegetarian; Tibetans, in a harsh climate, have traditionally eaten meat. And Buddhist societies have fought wars like everyone else.^•
  • An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.) — Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press (2013)
  • Socially Engaged Buddhism — Sallie B. King, University of Hawai'i Press (2009)