More · a beginner’s guide

Buddhism: a plain introduction

The Buddha (Siddhattha Gotama, called the Buddha, “the awakened one”) taught in northern India around the 5th century BCE; his exact dates are debated. He grew up in the same world as the Upanishads, used many of the same words (karma, rebirth, dhyāna, nirvāṇa, brahman) and gave several of them new meanings. That is why Buddhism feels close to Hindu thought, and also why it differs in some important ways. This page explains the main ideas simply, in the Buddha’s words where possible, then compares them with Vedanta and with the New Testament.

Pali Canon passages are Bhikkhu Sujato’s translations on SuttaCentral, which are dedicated to the public domain (CC0). The Dhammapada is Max Müller’s 1881 translation, the Diamond Sutra William Gemmell’s 1912 version, and the Heart Sutra and Pure Land sutras Müller’s 1894 versions. Each quote links to its source.

1. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path

The first sermon, at the deer park near Varanasi, begins with a “middle way” between indulgence and self-punishment. It then gives four truths, like a doctor’s diagnosis: the illness, its cause, the cure, and the treatment.

“Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One understood the middle way of practice, which gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening, and extinguishment.”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 56.11, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

The Eightfold Path is usually taught in three groups: wisdom (right view, right purpose), ethics (right speech, action, livelihood) and meditation (right effort, mindfulness, immersion or samādhi). It is a set of practices developed together, not a ladder of steps.

Dukkha is wider than “suffering”: it includes unease, stress and the unsatisfactoriness of anything that changes.

2. Three marks of existence

Everything conditioned is impermanent (anicca), cannot finally satisfy (dukkha), and is not-self (anattā). The Dhammapada gives the three in a row (verses 277–279):

“‘All created things perish,’ he who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain; this is the way to purity.”— Dhammapada 277–279, tr. F. Max Müller (1881) · Project Gutenberg #2017

Verse 278 continues “All created things are grief and pain” and 279 “All forms are unreal” (Müller’s wording; most modern translators render 279 “all things are not-self”).

“So you should truly see any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.59 (the discourse on not-self), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“Everything that is liable to arise is liable to cease.”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 56.11 (Koṇḍañña’s insight at the first sermon), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

3. Dependent origination

Nothing arises on its own: each thing depends on conditions. The Buddha states the principle in one line and then applies it to the chain that keeps suffering going (ignorance → choices → consciousness → … → craving → grasping → rebirth → ageing and death).

“So, when this exists, this comes to be; due to the arising of this, this arises. When this doesn’t exist, this doesn’t come to be; due to the cessation of this, this ceases.”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 12.21, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“Ignorance is a requirement for choices. Choices are a requirement for consciousness. Consciousness is a requirement for name and form.”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 12.1 (opening links of the chain), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

4. Nirvana

Nibbāna (Sanskrit nirvāṇa) means “blowing out” or “extinguishment”: of greed, hate and delusion, not of a person. The texts describe it in two ways: in this life, while the body remains, and at death.

“It’s when a mendicant is a perfected one, with defilements ended, who has completed the spiritual journey, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, achieved their heart’s goal, utterly ended the fetter of continued existence, and is rightly freed through enlightenment. Their five sense faculties still remain. So long as their senses have not gone they continue to experience the agreeable and disagreeable, to feel pleasure and pain. The ending of greed, hate, and delusion in them is called the element of extinguishment with residue.”— Itivuttaka 44, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“There is, mendicants, freedom from rebirth, freedom from what has been produced, made, and conditioned.”— Udāna 8.3, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

5. Meditation: jhāna and mindfulness

Jhāna (Sanskrit dhyāna; Chinese chan, Japanese zen) is deep absorption. The suttas describe four stages, from joy born of seclusion to “pure equanimity and mindfulness”.

“Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, they enter and remain in the first absorption, which has the rapture and bliss born of seclusion, while placing the mind and keeping it connected.”— Dīgha Nikāya 2, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“Furthermore, with the giving up of pleasure and pain and the disappearance of former happiness and sadness, a mendicant enters and remains in the fourth absorption, without pleasure or pain, with pure equanimity and mindfulness.”— Dīgha Nikāya 2, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

Mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna) means watching four areas of experience: body, feelings, mind and “principles” (the teachings as seen in experience). Breathing is the usual starting point (ānāpānasati).

“It’s when a mendicant meditates by observing an aspect of the body—keen, aware, and mindful, rid of covetousness and displeasure for the world.”— Majjhima Nikāya 10, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“It’s when a mendicant—gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut—sits down cross-legged, sets their body straight, and brings mindfulness to the present. Just mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out.”— Majjhima Nikāya 10 (Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

6. Love and the four divine abidings

The four brahmavihāra (“divine abidings”) are love (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), rejoicing in others’ good (muditā) and equanimity (upekkhā). They are spread in all directions without limit. When brahmins asked the Buddha the way to Brahmā, this was his answer.

“Even as a mother would protect with her life her child, her only child, so too for all creatures unfold a boundless heart. With love for the whole world, unfold a boundless heart: above, below, all round, unconstricted, without enmity or foe.”— Sutta Nipāta 1.8 (the Metta Sutta, “The Discourse on Love”), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“They meditate spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of love to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.”— Dīgha Nikāya 13 (Tevijja Sutta), tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“This too is a path to company with Divinity.”— Dīgha Nikāya 13, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

7. Mahāyāna: the bodhisattva, emptiness, Buddha-nature

From around the start of the Common Era, “Great Vehicle” (Mahāyāna) sutras put the bodhisattva at the centre: someone who seeks awakening for the sake of all beings.

“In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, bodhi (meaning ‘awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or bodhi in order to compassionately help other individuals reach Buddhahood.”— Wikipedia, “Bodhisattva” (checked Oct 31, 2026) · source

Emptiness (śūnyatā) carries “not-self” further: nothing, not even the elements of experience, has a fixed essence of its own. Everything exists through its relations.

“form here is emptiness, and emptiness indeed is form. Emptiness is not different from form, form is not different from emptiness.”— Heart Sutra (smaller Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya), tr. F. Max Müller, Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts (SBE 49, 1894) · source

“the phenomena of life may be likened unto a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, the glistening dew, or lightning flash, and thus they ought to be contemplated.”— Diamond Sutra, ch. 32, tr. William Gemmell (1912) · Project Gutenberg #64623

Buddha-nature is the teaching that awakening is already present, as potential or in fact, in every being. It draws on the Pali verse about the “radiant” mind.

“Broadly speaking, it refers to the belief that the luminous mind, "the natural and true state of the mind", which is pure (visuddhi) mind undefiled by afflictions, is inherently present in every sentient being, and is eternal and unchanging.”— Wikipedia, “Buddha-nature” (checked Oct 31, 2026) · source

“This mind, mendicants, is radiant. But it’s corrupted by visiting corruptions.”— Aṅguttara Nikāya 1.49, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“This mind, mendicants, is radiant. And it is freed from visiting corruptions.”— Aṅguttara Nikāya 1.50, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

Pure Land devotion centres on the Buddha Amitābha, whose name means “infinite light”:

“There is not, O Ânanda, any case of likeness, by which the extent of the light of that Tathâgata Amitâbha could be understood. Hence, O Ânanda, for that reason that Tathâgata is called Amitâbha (possessed of infinite light)”— Larger Sukhāvatī-vyūha §12, tr. F. Max Müller, Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts (SBE 49, 1894) · source

8. The main schools, briefly

These are rough summaries. See also Wikipedia, “Schools of Buddhism”.

9. Buddhism and Hindu / Vedantic thought

The two grew up side by side and shaped each other for over a thousand years. Much is shared, and some differences go deep.

The big question: is there a Self?

“Worthy Gotama, does the self survive?” But when he said this, the Buddha kept silent. “Then does the self not survive?” But for a second time the Buddha kept silent.— Saṃyutta Nikāya 44.10, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“Ānanda, when Vacchagotta asked me whether the self survives, if I had answered that ‘the self survives’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are eternalists. When Vacchagotta asked me whether the self does not survive, if I had answered that ‘the self does not survive’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.”— Saṃyutta Nikāya 44.10, tr. Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0) · SuttaCentral

“While often interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatta is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence. In contrast, dominant schools of Hinduism assert the existence of Ātman as pure awareness or witness-consciousness”— Wikipedia, “Anattā” (checked Oct 31, 2026) · source

10. Buddhism and the New Testament

The ethical parallels are striking. The beliefs about God, grace and the resurrection are very different.

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”— Matthew 5:44, KJV · source

“For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.”— Dhammapada 5, tr. F. Max Müller (1881) · Project Gutenberg #2017

The “lost years” question

The popular claim that Jesus studied with Buddhists in India and Tibet rests on Nicolas Notovitch’s Life of Saint Issa (1894), said to be copied from a text at Hemis monastery in Ladakh. Investigators at the time could not confirm it. See the appendix, The “lost years” and India, for the text, the caveats and what historians found. Nothing on this page depends on that claim.

11. Cautions from scholars and teachers

• Marcus Borg (ed.), Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (Ulysses Press, 1997), sets sayings of Jesus and of the Buddha on facing pages. The book is described here, not quoted. Its wording and Borg’s own conclusions could not be checked against an open text.
• Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverhead, 1995), is a Vietnamese Zen teacher’s reflections on Jesus and the Buddha from inside both practices. Wikipedia notes that in it he “affirmed core Christian beliefs such as the trinity, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ” (source). The book is described, not quoted.
• The Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (Wisdom Publications, 1996), is his commentary on Gospel passages, given at the John Main Seminar in 1994. Wikipedia reports his view that belief in a Creator could be associated with the understanding of emptiness, but that at a certain point “a choice between the two paths will become necessary” (source). The book is described, not quoted.
• Parallels are not proof of contact. Similar teachings can arise independently wherever people practise stillness and compassion.