Basic Tenets

Basic Buddhist Tenets

The Four Noble Truths:

  1. The truth of suffering or dis-ease (the unsatisfactory nature of our experience.)
  2. The truth of the origin of this dis-ease (craving for continued existence, permanence.)
  3. The truth of the cessation of dis-ease (freedom from craving.)
  4. The eightfold noble path (leading to the cessation of dis-ease or suffering:
    1. Right view or understanding (seeing things as they are);
    2. Right thought or aspiration (goodwill, compassion, renunciation);
    3. Right speech (no lying, harsh words or gossip);
    4. Right action (no killing, stealing nor sexual misconduct etc);
    5. Right livelihood (not dealing in killing nor other harmful livelihoods);
    6. Right effort (mental energy or effort to abandon unwholesome thoughts that have arisen; to prevent those that may arise and to cultivate wholesome thoughts; to maintain meditative mind);
    7. Right mindfulness (bare awareness and clear comprehension of the body, feelings, mind and mind objects); and
    8. Right meditation (various forms of Buddhist meditation.)

The Three Marks of Existence: suffering (or dis-ease), Impermanence and No Self

The Three Refuges: Buddha (Truth), Dharma (How it works/the teachings) and Sangha (folks who practice)
The Three Poisons: Greed, hate and Delusion

Conditioned Co-Arising: Ignorance conditions Volitional Action which conditions Consciousness which conditions Name and Form conditions the Six Senses conditions Contact conditions Feelings or Sensations conditions Thirst conditions Grasping conditions Becoming conditions Birth conditions Old Age and Death which conditions Ignorance and so on around and around.

Emptiness: The notion that everything is in flux and is interconnected.

Bodhisattvas: Beings who are enlightening and who have vowed to put others first.

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