Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction

Chapter 1

Buddhism and Elephants: Understanding a Complex Tradition

The book opens with a brilliant parable that sets the tone for understanding Buddhism. The Buddha tells the story of blind men encountering an elephant—each touches a different part and insists their partial understanding represents the whole truth. One feels the trunk and thinks it's a snake, another touches the leg and declares it's a tree. Sound familiar? This is precisely what happened with Buddhist studies in the West for over a century (1).

The chapter warns us straight up: be skeptical of sweeping statements that begin "Buddhists believe..." or "Buddhism teaches..." Because which Buddhists? Which tradition? Which historical period? The diversity is staggering (2).

The Seven Dimensions: Buddhism as a Living Religion

The author tackles a fundamental question: Is Buddhism even a religion? If you define religion by belief in a creator God, then Buddhism fails the test—it's explicitly non-theistic (3-4). But that's using a pretty narrow, Western-centric definition, right?

Ninian Smart's framework of seven dimensions gives us a much more sophisticated way to understand religious phenomena:

1. Practical and Ritual Dimension

Buddhism is less ritualistic than, say, Orthodox Christianity, but rituals definitely exist. Monks shave their heads during ordination. Communities gather for full moon ceremonies. The kathina festival involves laity offering robes to monks. Interestingly though? Buddhist monks don't perform marriages or baptisms—these are family matters, not religious sacraments. Monks have "no priestly role" and aren't "intermediaries between God and mankind" (5-6).

2. Experiential and Emotional Dimension

This is huge in Buddhism. The Buddha's personal enlightenment experience is literally "the bedrock of the entire Buddhist tradition" (p. 6). Everything flows from that moment of awakening. Meditation—Buddhism's equivalent to Christian prayer, though with different objectives—generates "altered states of consciousness that can accelerate spiritual development" (p. 7). We're talking about cultivating wisdom and compassion through interior transformation, not petitioning a deity for favors.

3. Narrative and Mythic Dimension

Buddhism has its share of fantastic stories—the Buddha battling Mara (the Evil One), gods and spirits making appearances, and the Jātaka tales about the Buddha's previous lives as various animals. Important point: "myth" here doesn't mean "false"—myths work on multiple levels simultaneously, like parables (7-8). These stories become "more exaggerated and elaborate as the centuries pass" (8), which tells us something about how religious traditions evolve.

4. Doctrinal and Philosophical Dimension: 

Buddhism is intensely intellectual. The core teachings—the Four Noble Truths—represent "the systematic formulation of religious teachings in an intellectually coherent form" (8-9). Universities like Nālandā had 10,000 students studying logic, medicine, epistemology, and Buddhist philosophy (71). There's tension here though: some Buddhists prioritize meditation over textual study, but overall, "Buddhism down the centuries has invested enormous intellectual energy in scholarship" (9).

5. Ethical and Legal Dimension

Buddhism is "widely respected as one of the world's most ethical religions" (p. 9). The principle of ahiṃsā (non-harming) creates that famous Buddhist respect for all life. This has led many Buddhists toward vegetarianism and pacifism, though—keeping it real here—"by no means all" (9). The commitment to non-violence is so strong that crusades and religious wars seem "incomprehensible" to most Buddhists. The contrast with medieval European religious conflicts is stark (9-10).

6. Social and Institutional Dimension

The monastic community (Saṅgha) forms Buddhism's social nucleus, but it's not just a monks' club. Early sources describe the "Fourfold Order" of monks, nuns, and male and female lay followers—emphasizing "inclusivity and interdependence" (10-11). Here's something fascinating: the Buddha explicitly refused to appoint a successor, telling his followers to be "lamps unto yourselves" (p. 12). No Pope in Buddhism, which partly explains why it "tended to fissure readily when disagreements arose" (12).

7. Material Dimension

This covers the physical manifestations: temples, statues, stupas (those dome-shaped monuments that evolved into pagodas), pilgrimage sites where the Buddha was born or enlightened. Religious texts themselves are treated as sacred objects—copying, reciting, or memorizing them is "regarded as a pious activity" (13).

So What Does This All Mean?

The seven dimensions framework shows us that Buddhism is definitely a religion—just not the kind that fits neatly into boxes designed from Western Christian experience. You can't reduce it to just philosophy (though it includes sophisticated philosophy) or just meditation practice (though meditation is central) or just ethics (though the ethics are profound).

The chapter ends with a crucial warning: people in the West have often cherry-picked Buddhism to fit their own agendas—focusing on the "rational philosophy" aspect to create a Buddhism "free of religious superstition," or emphasizing the mystical experience angle, or extracting just the moral teachings (13-14).

All these interpretations capture something real about Buddhism. But they're incomplete. They're touching one part of the elephant and missing the whole magnificent beast.

The takeaway? Buddhism is complex, multidimensional, and can't be reduced to any single feature. Understanding it requires engaging with all these dimensions—not just the ones that happen to appeal to our cultural moment or personal preferences.

Chapter 3

Karma and Rebirth (32)

The chapter opens with a striking claim: on the night of his enlightenment, the Buddha remembered his previous lives. Not just one or two, but "a vast number," going back "as far as ninety-one eons"—and an eon roughly equals "the lifespan of a galaxy." Let that sink in. We're talking about a conception of personal history that makes geological time look brief.

This process of continuous rebirth is called saṃsāra or "endless wandering," suggesting "continuous movement like the flow of a river." And all living creatures are caught in this flow until they attain nirvana (32).

Now, reincarnation wasn't a Buddhist invention—it had existed in India for centuries. But Buddhism's distinctive contribution? Linking rebirth systematically to karma, the idea that "the circumstances of future rebirths are determined by the moral deeds a person performs in this life" (33).

The Buddhist Universe (33)

The Buddhist universe is radically different from the Genesis narrative. No single creation event, no Day of Judgment, no linear timeline marching toward redemption.

Instead, the universe divides into two categories: the physical container (bhājana) made of five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space—yes, space is an element), and the beings (sattva) living in it. World-systems evolve, exist, decay, and get destroyed in cataclysms, then evolve again in cycles lasting billions of years.

And here's a mind-bending idea: "it is the moral status of the inhabitants that determines the fate of the world-system." A world full of ignorant, selfish people declines faster than one with wise, virtuous inhabitants. Beings don't just inhabit their environment—"in some sense create it." The ecological implications are fascinating.

The contrast with Genesis is stark. Western religion sees history as linear—Creation → Fall → Redemption—with humans always center stage. "Pre-Copernican cosmology, which locates the earth at the very centre of the universe," perfectly expresses this anthropocentrism. But from the Indian perspective, "this [Western] world-picture is anthropocentric and parochial" (34). From an eastern perspective, Time is cyclical, not linear. History has no ultimate direction. And humans? Just one species among many, cycling through existence.

The Six Realms of Rebirth (36)

The author gives us a helpful metaphor: think of the universe as "an office block with thirty-one floors." Let's tour this building:

Basement levels (the unfortunate realms):

1. Hell(s) - Multiple hells, both hot and cold, where beings suffer karmic consequences. But—and this is crucial—hell is temporary. It's "more like the Christian purgatory" than eternal damnation. You eventually get released when your bad karma runs out.
   
   

2. Animal Realm - Rebirth as an animal sucks for obvious reasons: "governed by brute instinct" without the intellectual capacity to understand or improve your situation.
   
   

3. Ghost Realm - These are unhappy spirits "consumed by desires they can never satisfy," depicted with huge stomachs and tiny mouths, symbolizing insatiable hunger.
   
   

4. Titans - Demonic, warlike beings "at the mercy of violent impulses," constantly seeking conquests that bring no fulfillment.
   
   

The middle level:

5. Human World - Here's the sweet spot. Human rebirth is "both highly desirable and difficult to attain." Why desirable? Because being reborn in higher, blissful realms can make you complacent. But human existence offers "constant reminders of the vagaries of life" (the four signs the Buddha saw: old age, sickness, death) while providing reason and free will to actually do something about it. Human life is "the 'middle way' in offering an appropriate balance between pleasure and suffering."

Upper floors (the god realms):

6-31. The Heavenly Mansions - Twenty-six different levels where gods (deva) live in increasingly sublime states. Their lifespans extend to "billions of years measured in human time," though time is relative—"a human lifetime...seems like a day to the gods at the lower levels." 

The top five heavens (levels 23-27) are the "Pure Abodes," accessible only to "non-returners"—beings on the cusp of enlightenment who won't be reborn as humans again.

Three Spheres of Existence (39)

Overlaying this 31-level scheme is another division:

• Sphere of sense-desires (kāmāvacara): Includes humans and lower heavens—beings still caught up in sensory experience

• Sphere of pure form (rūpāvacara): Gods perceive and communicate telepathically 

• Sphere of formlessness (arūpāvacara): "Almost indescribably sublime," beings exist "as pure mental energy" beyond all shape and form 

The chapter includes a helpful diagram showing how these spheres map onto the 31 levels and the eight meditation states (jhāna).

Karma (40-42)

So how do you move between these levels? Karma functions as "the elevator that takes people from one floor of the building to another." Good deeds go up, bad deeds go down. Simple, right? Not quite. Karma isn't God's reward-and-punishment system—it's "a kind of natural law akin to the law of gravity." You're the sole author of your fortune.

The Buddha's definition is precise: "It is choice (cetanā), O monks, that I call karma; having chosen one acts through body, speech, or mind." Karma is specifically about moral actions, moral choices.

Here's the key insight: moral actions have both transitive effects (impact on others—you kill someone, they're dead) and intransitive effects (impact on yourself). "In a very real sense individuals create themselves through their moral choices." The proverb captures it: "Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny."

Buddhism explains this through saṅkhāras ("mental formations")—basically, character traits and dispositions formed through moral choices. "When we make moral choices we hold ourselves in our hands and shape our natures for good or ill," like a potter molding clay.

Karma that hasn't yet "matured" gets carried forward to future lives—"like charging up a battery with karmic energy, which is then stored until a future time." This determines key aspects of your next rebirth: family, social status, physical appearance, personality.

What makes actions good or bad? Intention and choice. Actions motivated by greed, hatred, and delusion are bad (akusala). Actions motivated by non-attachment, benevolence, and understanding are good (kusala).

Merit (43-44)

Good karma is called "merit" (puñña), and Buddhists actively work to accumulate it—it's like money in a bank account—ensuring a good rebirth. You earn merit by supporting monks, giving food, providing robes, attending services, and donating to temples. Some Buddhists even keep notebooks to track their "karmic balance."

But there's a trap: doing good deeds just for merit would be selfish motivation, which wouldn't earn much merit. The irony! Merit should be a by-product of doing what's right, not the goal itself.

Many Buddhist cultures believe in "merit transference"—the sharing of good karma with others. And here's the beautiful paradox: unlike money, when you give away merit, "your own karmic balance" increases as a result of the generous motivation in sharing. The more one gives, the more one receives!

Western Skepticism and Buddhist Responses (44-47)

The chapter tackles Western objections head-on:

"If people are reborn, why don't they remember?" Cultural frameworks matter. In cultures without belief in reincarnation, "memories of previous lives may go unrecognized or unacknowledged." Kids who report such memories get told they have overactive imaginations. Plus, "the experience of death and rebirth tends to erase such recollections from the upper levels of the mind," recoverable only through meditation or hypnosis.

"If rebirth is real, why doesn't population explode?" Because humans are only one of six realms! "Beings can be reborn in one of any of the six realms," so there's continuous movement between realms.

When does individual life begin? From "the earliest times, Buddhist sources have been quite clear that individual human life begins at conception." Though ancient Buddhists had "imperfect knowledge of embryology," their understanding of fetal development was not significantly different from that of modern science. Most modern Buddhists conclude that "individual life begins at fertilization."

Must you believe in the six realms to be Buddhist? Not necessarily. "Most Buddhists do accept the traditional teachings." Still, you could "reinterpret these in various ways as, perhaps, referring to other dimensions of existence, parallel universes, or simply states of mind."

"Buddhist modernism" tends to reject the "medieval" cosmology and replace it with notions more palatable to the modern mindset. You could even "reject the idea of rebirth altogether, although this would be at the price of reducing Buddhism to something like scientific humanism." At minimum, "belief in a continued personal existence in some form or other after death would seem to be a minimal requirement."

The Final Twist (47)

So is the goal just to be reborn somewhere better? No. Even the gods die and are reborn eventually. "Karmic energy is finite and eventually expires, not unlike that of a spacecraft in a decaying orbit."

The Buddha was dissatisfied with the temporary bliss in meditation states. Heaven is just a prolonged version of that same temporary experience. "Sooner or later, the good karma that results in a heavenly birth will run its course."

Only nirvana offers a final solution. The goal isn't a better seat on the Ferris wheel of saṃsāra—it's getting off the ride entirely.

Chapter 4

The Four Noble Truths

This chapter tackles what Buddhists in Asia actually call their religion—not "Buddhism" but either the Dharma ("Law") or the Buddha-sāsana ("teachings of the Buddha"). And at the heart of this Dharma lies the systematic formulation of the Buddha's core insight: the Four Noble Truths (8).

Before diving into the Truths themselves, the chapter establishes a crucial point: the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to end suffering and rebirth entirely (44). The Buddha himself put it bluntly: "Both in the past and now, I set forth only this: suffering and the end of suffering" (44).

This is not about getting a better rebirth, even in some blissful heaven. Nirvana is "the summum bonum of Buddhism—the final and highest good. It is both a concept and an experience" (44). As a concept, it shows us what human fulfillment looks like. As an experience, it becomes incarnate in the person who seeks it.

But here's where things get interesting—and potentially confusing. How do you attain nirvana? Some scholars have argued that since good deeds produce karma, and karma binds you to rebirth, then morality must actually be an obstacle to liberation. According to this logic, you'd need to transcend ethics entirely (44).

That's nonsense, the author argues. If that were true, why do the texts constantly urge good deeds? Why did the Buddha himself continue living morally after enlightenment? The solution: virtue (sīla) is essential but incomplete. It needs to be paired with wisdom (paññā), which means "a profound philosophical understanding of the human condition" (45). It's not just book knowledge—it's "a kind of gnosis, or direct apprehension of truth, which deepens over time and eventually reaches full maturity in the complete awakening experienced by the Buddha" (45).

An early text makes this beautifully clear: virtue and wisdom are "like two hands which wash and purify each other" (45). Each is necessary but not sufficient. You need both. "A person who lacks one or the other is incomplete and unfulfilled" (45).

The Medical Metaphor

The Four Noble Truths are sometimes compared to a medical diagnosis: (1) the disease is identified, (2) its cause is explained, (3) the prognosis declares a cure exists, and (4) the treatment is prescribed. The Buddha as physician—it's an apt metaphor for what follows:

First Noble Truth: Life is Suffering (Dukkha) (50-53)

The psychiatrist M. Scott Peck opens his bestseller The Road Less Travelled with "Life is difficult," then adds: "This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths." He's channeling the First Noble Truth, which "diagnoses the human condition as fundamentally one of 'disease.'"

But dukkha operates on multiple levels:

1. Physical/Biological Suffering: Birth, sickness, old age, death. The obvious stuff. But the "deeper problem" isn't just that these things hurt—it's "the inevitability of repeated birth, sickness, ageing, and death in lifetime after lifetime, both for oneself and loved ones." You're not just dealing with mortality once. You're dealing with it endlessly.

2. Emotional/Psychological Suffering: "Grief, sorrow, lamentation, and despair." Depression, anxiety, heartbreak. "Few lives are free of grief and sorrow," and some psychological conditions never fully heal.

3. Existential Suffering: This is subtler. "Not to get what one wants is suffering"—the frustration, disappointment, and disillusionment when life fails to meet expectations. The Buddha wasn't a "morbid pessimist" and knew life has pleasant moments. The problem? "The good times do not last; sooner or later they fade away, or one becomes bored with what once seemed novel and full of promise."

Here's where the translation matters: "dukkha has a more abstract and pervasive sense: it suggests that even when life is not painful it can be unsatisfactory and unfulfilling. In this and many other contexts 'unsatisfactoriness' captures the meaning of dukkha" better than "suffering."

Why can life never be ultimately satisfying? Because of the five factors of individuality—the teaching from the Buddha's second sermon that analyzes human nature into: physical body (rūpa), sensations and feelings (vedanā), cognitions (saññā), character traits and dispositions (saṅkhāra), and consciousness (viññāna).

Notice what's missing? Any mention of a soul or eternal Self. This puts Buddhism at odds with Brahmanism, which claimed everyone possesses an eternal soul (ātman) that's part of or identical with the cosmic absolute (brahman). The Buddha "could find no evidence for the existence of either the personal soul (ātman) or its cosmic counterpart (brahman)."

Instead, his approach was "practical and empirical, more akin to psychology than theology" (48). Human nature is like a car made of wheels, transmission, engine, steering, and chassis. No permanent core. And just like a car, "sooner or later suffering will arise, just as an automobile will eventually wear out and break down. Suffering is thus engrained in the very fabric of our being."

This teaching connects directly to the Buddha's vision of the four signs—the old man, sick man, and corpse—"and his realization that life is shot through with suffering and unhappiness of all kinds."

Is this pessimistic? Many Westerners think so. Buddhists reply that it's "neither pessimistic nor optimistic, but realistic," simply presenting "the facts of life in an objective way." If it seems pessimistic, that's because of our "inveterate human tendency to shrink from unpleasant truths and 'look on the bright side.'" The Buddha observed that this Truth was brutal to grasp—like admitting you have a serious disease. Nobody wants to acknowledge it. "Yet until the condition is recognized, there can be no hope of a cure."

Second Noble Truth: The Origin of Suffering (Samudaya) (53-56)

Granted that life is suffering, what causes it? The answer: craving or "thirst" (taṇhā).

"Craving fuels suffering in the way that wood fuels a fire." In the Fire Sermon, "the Buddha spoke of all human experience as being 'ablaze' with desire. Fire is an appropriate metaphor for desire since it consumes what it feeds on without being satisfied. It spreads rapidly, becomes attached to new objects, and burns with the pain of unassuaged longing."

It's desire—"in the form of a strong addiction to life and the pleasant experiences it offers"—that causes rebirth. Think of the five factors of individuality as a car: desire is the fuel propelling it forward. And rebirth happens not just life-to-life but moment-to-moment: "A person is said to be reborn from second to second as the five factors of individuality change and interact, driven by the thirst for pleasurable experiences."

Craving manifests in three forms:

1. Thirst for sensual pleasure: Craving gratification through the senses—pleasant tastes, sensations, smells, sights, sounds.

2. Thirst for existence: "The deep instinctual will to be which drives us on to new lives and new experiences."

3. Thirst for non-existence/destruction: This is desire's shadow side—"the impulse to negate, deny, and reject that which is unpleasant or unwelcome." When directed inward, it produces low self-esteem, thoughts like "I'm no good" or "I'm a failure," even suicide. The physical austerities the Buddha rejected can be seen as this self-negating impulse.
   
   

Wait—does this mean ALL desire is wrong? Careful here. "Desire" in English has a broader meaning than taṇhā, which connotes "desire that has become perverted in some sense, usually by being excessive or wrongly directed. Its aim is usually sensory stimulation and pleasure."

Not all desires are taṇhā. Having positive goals (like attaining nirvana), wanting others to be happy, wishing to improve the world—these are "positive and wholesome desires which do not count as taṇhā." The smoking analogy nails it: a chain-smoker's craving for another cigarette is taṇhā—"compulsive, limiting and cyclic: it leads nowhere but to the next cigarette." But the desire to quit smoking is virtuous because "it would break the cyclic pattern of a compulsive negative habit and enhance health and well-being."

The Deeper Pattern: Origination-in-Dependence

The Truth of Arising connects to a fundamental Buddhist teaching called paṭicca-samuppāda ("origination-in-dependence"), which explains how craving and ignorance lead to rebirth through twelve stages. Rather than detail all twelve, the chapter focuses on the underlying principle: "every effect has a cause: in other words, everything which comes into being originates in dependence on something else (or on a number of other things)."

This shifts how we see reality entirely. The universe isn't "a collection of more or less static objects but a dynamic network of interrelated causes and effects." Nothing exists "independently in and for itself."

Everything that comes into being bears three marks: unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), impermanence (anicca), and absence of self-essence (anattā). The logic chains together: "Things are unsatisfactory because they are impermanent (hence unstable and unreliable), and they are impermanent because they lack a self-nature which is independent of the universal causal process."

The Buddhist universe is thus "characterized primarily by cyclic change: at the psychological level in the endless process of craving and gratification; at the personal level in the sequence of death and rebirth; and at the cosmic level in the creation and destruction of galaxies." All of it governed by origination-in-dependence—cause and effect all the way down.

Third Noble Truth: The Cessation of Suffering (Nirodha) (56-58)

"when craving is removed, suffering ceases and nirvana is attained."

Remember, nirvana takes two forms: "nirvana-in-this-life" (what the Buddha attained at age 35) and "final nirvana" (what happens at death).

"Nirvana" literally means "quenching" or "blowing out," in the way that the flame of a candle is blown out. But what's extinguished? Not your soul (Buddhism denies souls exist). Not your ego or identity, exactly. What gets blown out is "the triple fire of greed, hatred, and delusion which leads to rebirth." The simplest definition? "The end of greed, hatred, and delusion."

Nirvana-in-this-life is "a psychological and ethical reality, a transformed state of personality characterized by peace, deep spiritual joy, compassion, and a refined and subtle awareness." Negative states like "doubt, worry, anxiety, and fear are absent from the enlightened mind." Saints in many traditions show some of these qualities. "An enlightened person, however, such as a Buddha or an Arhat, possesses them all completely."

But what about final nirvana—what happens at death? "There is no clear answer to this question in the early sources." The Buddha compared it to asking where a flame goes when it's blown out. "The flame, of course, has not 'gone' anywhere: it is simply the process of combustion that has ceased." Remove craving and ignorance—the oxygen and fuel—and the fire stops.

Crucial point: "The image of the blowing out of the flame, however, should not be taken as suggesting that final nirvana is annihilation: the sources make quite clear that this would be a mistake, as would the conclusion that nirvana is the eternal existence of a personal soul."

The Buddha "discouraged speculation about the nature of nirvana and emphasized instead the need to strive for its attainment." He compared people asking speculative questions to a man wounded by a poisoned arrow who, instead of pulling it out, insists on learning irrelevant details about the archer—his name, clan, distance, etc.

Early sources describe nirvana mostly in negative terms: "the absence of desire," "extinction of thirst," "blowing out," "cessation." Fewer positive epithets exist: "the auspicious," "the good," "purity," "peace," "truth," "the further shore." Some passages suggest it's "a transcendent reality which is 'unborn, unoriginated, uncreated and unformed,'" but interpreting these is tricky.

Bottom line: "In the last analysis, the nature of final nirvana remains an enigma other than to those who experience it. What we can be sure of, however, is that it means the end of suffering and rebirth."

Fourth Noble Truth: The Path (Magga) (58-60)

How do you get from saṃsāra to nirvana? The Fourth Truth—"the Truth of the Path or Way (magga)—explains how the transition...is to be made."

Few people pause to consider "the most fulfilling way to live." The Greeks did. "The Buddha had his own contribution to make." He thought the highest life develops virtue and knowledge, and the Eightfold Path is designed to cultivate both.

It's called the "middle way" because it avoids both indulgence and harsh asceticism. The eight factors divide into three categories: Morality, Meditation, and Wisdom—"the parameters of human good...where the scope for human flourishing lies."

The Eight Factors:

1. Right View

2. Right Resolve

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Meditation

Morality perfects moral virtues. Wisdom develops intellectual virtues. Meditation supports both.

Important: these aren't stages you complete then leave behind. They're ways "Morality, Meditation, and Wisdom are to be cultivated on a continuing basis." It's like modeling: "The eight factors reveal how a Buddha would live, and by living like a Buddha one gradually becomes one."

The Path is "a path of self-transformation: an intellectual, emotional, and moral restructuring in which a person is reoriented from selfish, limited objectives towards a horizon of possibilities and opportunities for fulfillment." Through knowledge (paññā) and moral virtue (sīla), "ignorance and selfish desire are overcome, the cause of the arising of suffering is removed, and nirvana is attained."

The Four Noble Truths represent Buddhism's core diagnosis and prescription: life is fundamentally unsatisfactory, craving causes this condition, liberation is possible, and there's a concrete path to get there. It's medicine for the human condition—not promising easy cures or comfortable illusions, but offering a clear-eyed assessment and a rigorous treatment plan for those willing to do the work.

Work Cited: 

Keown, Damien, Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edition, Oxford UP, 2013.