Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, who lived in India around the fifth century BCE. It teaches that suffering is part of life, that it arises from craving and attachment, and that following the Eightfold Path leads to freedom from it. Its practices include ethical living, meditation, and the cultivation of wisdom and compassion.

There is no single Buddhist scripture. The earliest collection is the Pali Canon, also called the Tripitaka, meaning three baskets, preserved in the Theravada tradition. The Mahayana traditions add a large body of sutras, such as the Heart Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, and Zen Buddhism is known for its koans, short teaching stories used in meditation. Many of these can be read in the U-God library.

Buddhism does not center on belief in a creator God, and the Buddha is honored as a teacher rather than worshipped as a deity. Beyond that, beliefs vary widely. Some traditions include devotion to buddhas and bodhisattvas and a rich cosmology of celestial beings, while others focus almost entirely on meditation and ethical practice. The shared emphasis is on the path to awakening rather than on a supreme being.

The Four Noble Truths are the foundation of the Buddha's teaching: that life involves suffering or dissatisfaction, that this suffering arises from craving and attachment, that suffering can cease, and that the Eightfold Path is the way to bring it to an end. They are often described as a diagnosis of the human condition and its cure.

Nirvana is the goal of the Buddhist path, a state of liberation in which craving, aversion, and the suffering they cause are extinguished, along with release from the cycle of rebirth known as samsara. It is described less as a place and more as a profound freedom and peace. The exact understanding of nirvana varies across Buddhist schools.