As Buddhism and mindfulness have become more popular in mainstream Western culture, many people are more familiar with Buddhism than ever before. At the same time, many myths and misconceptions have proliferated along with rising interest in the Buddhist teachings. 

What did the Buddha really teach? Do you have to meditate to be a Buddhist? Is the Dalai Lama the leader of Buddhism? These questions point toward just a few common sources of confusion that people have when they first come to the Buddhist path. 

Buddhist wisdom is nuanced and complex, and it doesn’t always fit neatly into simple one-line explanations. You may also encounter different information from different sources. Conflicting information about Buddhism is common. Read on to learn more about the most popular misconceptions. 

Discover Deck 5:

Do all Buddhists meditate? Meditation is an important component of the Buddha’s teachings on how to achieve awakening, but it’s not a necessity. 

Is it true that Buddhists believe there’s no such thing as “self”? The doctrine of not-self doesn’t mean that there is no self, period—it points to the absence of a fixed, separate self. 

Is the Dalai Lama the leader of Buddhism? The Dalai Lama is the world’s most famous Buddhist, but he’s not the leader of Buddhism. 

Do I have to be religious to be a Buddhist? The short answer is no, but it depends on what “being religious” means to you. 

Is the purpose of meditation to stop thinking? Many people start meditating with the belief that they need to silence their minds—but that’s not how the Buddha described the goal of the practice. 

Are all Buddhists vegetarians? While the first precept says to refrain from taking life, it doesn’t mean that you have to be a vegetarian to be Buddhist. 

Do Buddhists believe we are all one? Some of the confusion around this question is a misunderstanding of the key teaching of dependent arising. 

Is relaxation the purpose of Buddhist practice? Meditation is a great way to relax, but there’s a greater purpose to our practice. 

Recommended Reading: 

• Why Meditate? – Interview with Matthieu Ricard 
• How to Understand Selflessness—and Why It’s So Important, by Joseph Goldstein
• The Myth of Separation – Interview with Tara Brach and Konda Mason 
• Meditation Alone Is Not Enough, by Judy Leif 
• We Are Not One, by Thannissaro Bikkhu 

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Today, many of the traditions of Buddhism present in the West place a lot of emphasis on meditation as a basic practice that is routinely taught to beginners. Yet until the 20th century, when meditation practice was popularized for laypeople, most Buddhists did not meditate. Traditionally meditation was taught only to monastics, and certain ones at that. And as put by the scholar Erik Braun, even the relatively few Buddhists in history who found meditation to be essential “have not doubted that one can live a worthwhile and authentic Buddhist life without meditating.”

Some schools of Buddhism stress forms of practice other than sitting meditation. Chanting, walking, visualizing the Buddha and other figures, and creating ritual works of art can all help people to awaken. In Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, sitting meditation is an important element of the path, but other forms of practice are considered equally important, including prostrations, visualizations, and prayers.

And some of the most popular contemporary schools do not practice sitting meditation at all. Nichiren Buddhism, for instance, which first developed in Japan in the 13th century and is based on a text known as the Lotus Sutra, is generally practiced by chanting the text’s title in Japanese, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, over and over again.

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The Buddha himself refused to answer the question whether or not there is a self, saying that getting caught up in such existential quagmires leads us into endless confusion (“a thicket of views,” as he put it) and distracts us from the path that leads to release from suffering.

Many Buddhists interpret the doctrine of not-self to mean that we have no fixed, inherent, unchanging self. (In Mahayana scriptures, the concept is extended to include all phenomena in the universe.) We construct our conception of self from physical and mental sensations, impressions, and reactions that are actually processes, ever forming and changing. Our attachment to the idea of a fixed self causes great suffering and dissatisfaction. For example, we may fear and resist the fact of aging because it feels like a violation of our sense of self, of who and what we ought to be—young or healthy or immortal—rather than a natural, inevitable outcome of human birth.

For the Buddha, apprehending not-self was a critical strategy in investigating how we cause ourselves suffering and, by extension, how to find release from it. When we find ourselves clinging to certain things—say, the beauty of youth—we remind ourselves that it too is “not-self,” and learn to let go.

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But Buddhism is a family of religions with countless doctrinal variations, and there is no such thing as a single leader, just as there is no one leader of Christianity as a whole. For monastics and lay students in other traditions—Thai or Zen Buddhism, for instance—the Dalai Lama may be a respected figure, but he is not necessarily a leader in the context of their practice.

Still, the Dalai Lama is certainly the world’s most famous Buddhist, in large part because of his status as the leader of the Tibetan community in exile. In the 1950s, the Chinese invaded Tibet and began a systematic destruction of the region’s religion and culture, which included laying waste to monastic cities and universities, murdering and jailing monks and nuns, and punishing ordinary Tibetans for practicing Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959 and established the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, in northern India. Renowned as a spiritual adept, he is also a charismatic and intelligent international spokesman for the plight of Tibet and for Tibetans and their religion, and in 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

While other Buddhist teachers have gained some celebrity for their accomplishments, spiritual and political, none have received the same level of attention and international sympathy as the Dalai Lama.

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The Buddha encouraged his disciples to test out his teachings for themselves. In a famous teaching known as the Kalama Sutta, he advised a group of people that believing in traditions or dogmas for their own sake doesn’t fly. As he explained, the value of a teaching can be authentically apprehended only when we put its lessons into practice and see how they play out in our own lives. In addition, we should measure our own findings against the experience of people we consider wise and honorable.

Through this process, a genuine, self-tested realization of the Buddhist teachings develops. You can call it what you want: religion, spirituality, philosophy. The labels are not what matters; as the Buddha would tell you, it’s your actions, and the fruits of your actions, that count.

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Humans can’t deliberately stop thinking any more than they can will themselves to stop digesting. But this doesn’t have to be a problem. Thinking is simply what minds do; the only problem is when we get caught up in the thoughts and react to them automatically, without consideration. Accepting that is easier said than done, of course. Usually one of the first things we notice when we begin to meditate is how busy our heads are. We discover the “monkey mind” and how hard it is to maintain focus even for a few seconds, as thoughts swing about uncontrollably in our heads like wild monkeys. Even though we can’t stop thoughts, however, we can strengthen our focus and stabilize the mind so we don’t indulge every thought that arises.

In all contemplative schools of Buddhism, beginners are advised to watch thoughts as they arise and pass away. In the early scriptures, the Buddha advised his disciples to be especially vigilant about thoughts that gave rise to the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion. Recognize such thoughts as unskillful and don’t dwell on them, he said. In time, such thoughts lose their grip and fade away. Conversely, the Buddha advised disciples to cultivate skillful thoughts that give rise to generosity, compassion, wisdom, and the like when they arise.

Zen and Tibetan Buddhist teachers have compared the mind to a mirror. Just as reflections leave no trace on a mirror, our thoughts and emotions are reflections leaving no permanent trace on the mind. Another metaphor compares the mind to the vast, open sky, and thoughts and emotions to the clouds that pass by. What’s important is to let thoughts and emotions arise and fade without identifying them as “self.” In time, we experience thoughts as passing sensations, just as we might feel the warmth of the sun or a cool breeze.

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The earliest scriptures we know tell us that the Buddha’s monastic disciples were not strict vegetarians. This was, no doubt, a matter of practicality. The early monks and nuns were allowed one meal a day, before noon, and this was of whatever food they were given as alms. In other words, they ate only what people could spare, and if what people could spare was meat, the disciples were required to eat it. However, the Buddha instructed monks and nuns not to eat animals slaughtered specifically for them and certain kinds of meat―bear, dog, elephant, horse, leopard, snake, and tiger. These rules only applied to monastics; laypeople likely ate meat out of practicality.

As Buddhism spread into China, Japan, and elsewhere, monks and nuns became less dependent on begging for food. Monasteries grew or purchased food, and since purchasing meat for many people required the slaughtering of animals, vegetarian meals became the norm. Laypeople were not required to eat a vegetarian diet, but many chose to do so. Several Mahayana sutras written early in the 1st millennium CE emphasize vegetarianism. The Lankavatara Sutra, for example, calls eating meat “the root of great suffering.”

In Tibet, with its limited arable land and challenging climate, a year-round vegetarian diet was not always possible, and Tibetan medicine suggested that eating meat had a beneficial and life-prolonging effect on the body. Even so, over the centuries a small number of Tibetan lamas avoided meat and encouraged their students to avoid it also.

Today, it’s generally the case that vegetarianism is considered a personal choice in Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism: most eat meat, and others are vegetarian, pescatarian, or vegan. Vegetarianism is more common in Mahayana schools, and particularly in the Chinese, Koreaean, and Vietnamese traditions, and in the West.

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Sometimes Buddhism is referred to as a form of monism, a philosophical term meaning the doctrine that everything derives from a single principle or source. Several monistic philosophies exist that differ in how it is that all is one, and sometimes in what the “all” is. Although it is possible to find Buddhist texts and commentaries that seem to describe a kind of “oneness” behind ordinary reality, a closer look at Buddhist teachings will show that “all is one” is not a Buddhist view.

Some of the confusion arises from a misunderstanding of the Buddhist teaching of dependent origination, or dependent co-arising: the teaching that all phenomena, including all beings, are part of a vast web of dependencies―things come into and go out of existence because of conditions caused by other things. Yet, Buddhist teachers point out, however, that although our existence depends on and is conditioned by other things, we as individuals are still responsible for ourselves and our actions. “By oneself is evil done,” the Buddha said. “By oneself is one made pure.”

In teaching dependent origination, Mahayana Buddhism argued that since nothing exists independently of other things, all beings and phenomena inter-exist. Yet if nothing exists of itself, and everything inter-exists, can’t we conclude that all things are one? It’s not that simple.

Madhyamaka, the “middle way” school of Mahayana, posits a doctrine of the “two truths,” which tells us that existence is both relative (or conventional) and absolute. Phenomena are distinctive in a relative, everyday sense but undistinguishable in absolute reality. The important point is that both kinds of existence are true. It is incorrect to dismiss our individuality as a false reality; the relative is just as true as absolute reality.  

It’s certainly true that Buddhist practice encourages us to let go of self-centered views and open ourselves to empathy and compassion for others. As part of that practice we are sometimes encouraged to “be one with” this or that person or group. But we remain individuals inter-existing with other individuals.

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Not all of these publications specifically discussed Buddhist meditation. But it wasn’t much of a leap for Western popular culture to connect Buddhist meditation with serenity, and enlightenment was imagined to be an escape into blissful tranquility—the ultimate stress relief.

It’s true that tranquility, or serenity, is one of the seven factors of enlightenment—the seven qualities that the Buddha said were needed for awakening—but the other factors include energy, concentration, and investigation. Buddhist practices were never primarily about relieving stress but about developing wisdom and compassion; in particular, to help us change how we perceive ourselves and reality. 

Rather than offering a temporary escape from problems, Buddhist meditation is mind training; and part of that training involves seeing where stress is coming from and learning to let it go, and directing the mind to more skillful thoughts, which are very different from escaping stress. Training the mind to be clear and focused helps us develop insight into ourselves and our lives and the reality around us. This is why the Buddha taught his disciples to meditate.

In recent years, mindfulness meditation in particular has been promoted as a way to reduce stress and become more focused and productive. The health benefits of mindfulness have been well documented. However, some Buddhist teachers have expressed concern that mindfulness training techniques completely removed from the Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion may reinforce our selfish impulses rather than dispel them. The larger point is that meditation for relaxation and meditation to realize enlightenment are different things.

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Nearly always, pleasant and unpleasant emotions are a reaction to something. Vipassana meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg says that emotion is how our awareness relates to an object, tangible or intangible. Sometimes we want to cling to emotions and indulge them; at other times we want to suppress them and pretend they aren’t there. Both indulging and suppressing emotions are forms of craving that actually feed the emotion. The Buddha taught that people who have not awakened go through life being pulled this way and that by desire and aversion, and our emotions are the strings.

But even though we cannot switch off our emotions, we can work to loosen their grip and be free of their control. Through practice, we can reduce our reactivity and learn to accept our emotions. Buddhism teaches that one of the most basic ways to do this is through the practice of mindfulness. When an emotion arises, acknowledge it without judgment. You might even attach a label to it―Fear. Anger. Regret. Desire. Gradually you will start to notice how your emotions are tied to habitual reactions. Accepting emotions, rather than indulging or suppressing them, allows them to arise and pass away. With practice, we can break away from our old patterns and respond to circumstances more freely.

Sometimes emotions are described as impediments to enlightenment. But other teachings, particularly those from the Mahayana tradition, point out that working with them mindfully can be a skillful means (upaya, methods to attain awakening) to enlightenment, so we may need to pay attention to what they are telling us. For example, a Buddhist teacher might advise not to try to suppress a flush of anger because of the thought “It’s bad to be angry,” and not to cling to it or justify it, either. Instead, try asking where that anger is coming from. If you are angry because someone has jostled your ego, then the problem is ego, not the anger or the person who is the object of the anger. That’s an important lesson to learn.

A difficult emotion, such as deep grief, can stay with you for a long time, and our first reaction is often to try to distract or numb ourselves. Yet if we have the courage to accept a difficult emotion—or to ask others for help—healing can begin.

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