Buddhism Concepts for Beginners

So I had came across r/buddhism in reddit and there were lots of beginners and people whom interested and don’t know where to start so I would like to help break it down for you.

 

First, I have been self-studying Theravada Buddhism and some Mahayana for more than 10 years even though I was born as a Buddhist but I didn’t really look into it much but when I took time and bit by bit learn about it, I realized that it is quite useful and I think I can simplified it for you.

 

What is Buddhism anyway? (Theravada sects)

Simple answer is if you realized that there are really more suffer in life than happiness and you feel like you want to end it, Buddha (Gotama Shagayamuni) was a man whom share that kind of thought and when through extreamly difficult task of observing the mind and found a different nature which he completely guarantee for those who practice right on the path of his teaching they can archieve the result and see by themselve.

 

From Pali Text Buddha said if anyone ask you what Buddha taught it is

” To do good deeds, refrain from bad deeds and purify the mind”

 

These three points are basic ideas and shouldn’t be taken apart and I shall try to simplify them from my point of view. (This is the same as using the Eight Fold Paths. If you are interest in the details search term ‘Eight fold Paths’.)

 

He often said about if you do not want to suffer then it is better to keep doing good things and don’t do bad things. There are details about good and bad but I won’t go down into details here. There are precepts to observe as a guideline.

 

Even if you  do not believe that there is reincarnation you still feel content that you never cause any trouble for others and that already will be a happy life because everytime you look back you will have no regreat.

 

When you are clearly do good things and stop from bad deeds your mind would become free from the difficult to tackle bugging thoughts and emotion. You don’t have worry that police will follow you because you stole stuffs nor worry about that sexual misconduct you just did.

The mind can be at ease a bit and then purifing the mind would come in at this point. People actually didn’t realise about our “wandering mind” are often the cause of suffer. For example you can’t sleep because the thought about that people last week just poped up and you suffer internally or thoughts that pop up and kill your happy moment. These are basic suffers and we can deal with by practicing meditation and mindfulness.

 

Meditation is one of the cores in Buddhism as the means to purify the mind. There are also two kinds of practice. One is the calm meditation. The forest monks in Thailand often teach this for basic practitioners because it is believed that mind can’t be purify by normal mean of the mind. The mind has to be trained to accumulate enough potent and calmness. Otherwise true wisdom that can eradicate suffer won’t work at all.

 

Calm meditation has been widely practiced even before Buddhism. Brahm-Hindu chant the name of gods like “Om Shivaya namaha” to enter calm meditation, some use prayer like Tibet “Om mani padme hum” and other kind of word can be use for still meditation. I think “Namo amidabutsu”in Mahayana Buddhism was used in this same idea, as a method for the mind to focus and gain potent energy.

 

In Theravada tradition, purifying the mind would continue after calm medition reach certain point such as the mind concentrated and enter appana samathi . Mindfulness will be used from that point to fight causes of suffer. (Suffers and their causes are stated in the 4 noble truth, you can look them up online everywhere. They are in package with how to end the suffer as well; eight fold path )

Then it is all about 24-7 practice of precepts(sila), calm meditation(samathi) and wisdom(Panna) until you can reach certain check points and proceed to eradicate cause of your own suffer.

 

There are many monks said to be able to had reach that point. After that even we could never tell but suffer couldn’t dye their mind again and they would still have emotion and sense like people but the mind will not attach to emotional suffer or happiness. As worldly happiness is not as refined as the nirvana they has tasted.

 

Things would be normal except when they die the mind that has transformed will enter into nirvana.

Like a candle flame that is blown, no flame anymore.

 

Hope it helps.