Overwhelm

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If you feel curious about Buddhism and go looking for information about the different schools, with their core beliefs and practices, you will quickly encounter lots and lots of numbered lists. No one loves a list like a Buddhist teacher. Just on a first pass (never mind a closer look), you’ll encounter:

  • Four Noble Truths
    • Suffering is bound to existence
    • The causes of suffering
    • Suffering can be ended
    • The path to the cessation of suffering
  • Noble Eightfold Path
    • Right view or understanding
    • Right intent or resolve
    • Right speech
    • Right action or conduct
    • Right livelihood
    • Right effort
    • Right mindfulness
    • Right concentration
Click here for the rest of the lists.
  • Three Jewels
    • The Buddha (the historical founder and first teacher of Buddhism)
    • The Dharma (the teachings)
    • The Sangha (the community)
  • Three Marks of Existence
    • Impermanence
    • Suffering
    • No-Self
  • Three Poisons
    • Ignorance or delusion
    • Greed or attachment
    • Hatred or aversion
  • Four Immeasurables
    • Loving-kindness
    • Compassion
    • Sympathetic joy
    • Equanimity
  • Five Precepts
    • Refraining from taking life
    • Refraining from taking that which is not given
    • Refraining from sexual misconduct
    • Refraining from false speech
    • Refraining from intoxicants
  • Five Hindrances
    • Sensual desire
    • Ill will
    • Sloth and torpor
    • Restlessness and remorse
    • Skeptical doubt
  • Five Aggregates (the composition of a person)
    • Form
    • Sensation or Feeling
    • Perception
    • Mental Formations
    • Consciousness
  • Five Remembrances
    • Aging
    • Sickness
    • Death
    • Separation from all things and loved ones
    • Karma: The inescapable consequences of actions
  • Six Perfections
    • Generosity
    • Ethical conduct
    • Patience or fortitude
    • Joyful effort or diligence
    • Meditation or concentration
    • Wisdom
  • Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
    • The detailed explanation of how suffering arises and perpetuates through the cycle of life (and rebirth)

Most of these lists originated at a time when the teachings of Buddhism existed only in an oral tradition. Numbered lists allowed monastics and laypeople to memorise vast amounts of information without the aid of books.

I don’t mean to be flippant, but it’s all a bit much for a beginning, and none of them make particularly easy reading. There are at least two lists with thirty-seven items. One is really a list of lists (from very early), and the other is a much later collection of poetic verses on the subjects of mind training and daily conduct.

Anyone could be excused for feeling overwhelmed by this daunting material and for moving on, never to look back. In truth, much of this somewhat indigestible diet is aimed at monastics and teachers, anyway. Their job is to show how the scaffolding (for such it is) holds up the house until it is steady enough to be at no risk of being destroyed by the great storms of life.

Ironically, mainstream Buddhism does not actively seek out new recruits or proselytise in the same way some other religions do. So, many enquirers look directly to the different schools to expound their take on the fundamental principles in a sort of faith-based beauty parade. If you don’t like the look of what is presented, you move on. Not everyone, by any means, is looking for a religion.

More than a few would dispute that Buddhism is a religion at all. Becoming a Buddhist is a free choice, an individual journey of mind-training and practice rather than a declaration of belief. The journey might be easier in the company of others of a like mind, but it’s still a personal journey. The Kālāma Sutta (an early scripture) encourages individuals to investigate and examine the teachings for themselves before accepting them (a valuable get-out-of-jail-free card that every student should make themselves familiar with). Above all else, Buddhism is experiential; a way of being and acting and not a set of beliefs to subscribe to. The tradition that I feel closest to, Sōtō Zen, holds that idea centrally in its practice and teaching.

But what need is there for belief when you can experience and know for yourself? And you can. Anyone can.

One – Beginning Meditation

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