Beyond the foundation teachings on the causes of suffering and its cessation, the Buddha taught his followers about things like how to live ethically, how to cultivate an awakened mind and heart, and how to achieve a favorable rebirth. Everything he taught is rooted in the path to freedom from suffering and the possibility that all beings could achieve unconditional happiness. 

Here are some more core teachings in Buddhist philosophy, including the ten paramis, the seven factors of enlightenment, dependent origination, and more.

Discover Level 2, Deck 9: 

What are the five hindrances? These negative states of mind, including ill will and doubt, are seen as a hindrance to Buddhist practice. 

What is impermanence? One of the most fundamental truths of Buddhism is this: Everything changes. 

What is dependent origination? Nothing exists independently. The links in the chain of dependent origination, or conditioned co-arising, are what drive the never-ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth. 

What is bodhicitta? Born of compassion and a desire that all beings be free of suffering, bodhicitta (“awakening mind”) is the enlightened heart-mind.  

What are the seven factors of enlightenment? These seven qualities of the awakened mind deepen our meditation practice and support us along the spiritual path. 

What are the paramitas (paramis)? The 10 “perfections”—which include patience, generosity, and wisdom—are a set of virtues that Buddhists strive to cultivate. 

What is the doctrine of two truths (absolute and relative)? There are two ways of viewing the world: as things appear to be, and as they truly are. 

What is skillful means (upaya)? Skillful means is how teachers deliver the right teaching to a student in the most effective manner—and it’s one of the reasons there are so many different types of Buddhism. 

What are the six realms? Represented in the Wheel of Life (bhavachakra), the six realms of rebirth are a framework for where beings are reborn according to the way they lived. 

Do Buddhists believe in God? Buddhism is generally considered a nontheistic religion that doesn’t require a belief in a supreme being. But there are supernatural beings in Buddhist cosmology. 

What do Buddhists believe? While there’s no simple answer to this question, Buddhists generally abide by the Buddha’s teachings on the nature of suffering and the path to liberation. 

What do Buddhists mean when they talk about emptiness? An often-misunderstood term, emptiness (shunyata) refers not to “nothingness” but to interdependence and the emptiness of a separate, fixed existence. 

What is a bodhisattva? A bodhisattva (“awakened being”) is one who has vowed to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. 

Recommended Reading: 

• The Five Hindrances with Sharon Salzberg 
• The Seven Factors of Awakening Explained, by Christina Feldman and Jaya Rudgard 
• The Six Realms, Reincarnation and Confusing Your Friends, by Monty McKeever 
• The Ten Perfections with Thanissaro Bhikkhu
• Buddhism’s Higher Power, by Hannah Tennant-Moore

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The five hindrances are sensual desire, ill will, sloth, restlessness, and doubt.

Sensual desire means the appetites of the body for food, sex, possessions, experiences. All these wants can cloud the mind and make practice difficult, if not impossible. The Buddha, in one of his many metaphors for the hindrances, refers to sense desire as a dye that discolors a clear pool of water. The clear water that truly reflects the observer’s face represents the mind at ease.

Ill will refers to all the aversive and rejecting states of mind—anger, hostility, resentment, bitterness. The Buddha described the mind captured by ill will as water that is frothing, bubbling, and boiling.

Sloth, or indolence characterizes the mind that is slow and drowsy. A dull and sleepy mind cannot see things as they are. The Buddha likens it to a pool of water overgrown with moss and algae. 

Restlessness captures many feelings common to life today: worry, fear, anxiety. The restless mind is disturbed and preoccupied, not ready to learn or grow. The Buddha compares the restless mind to a pool stirred by the wind into ripples and waves.

Doubt means the mind is crowded with questions and uncertainty: Am I doing the right thing? Am I wasting my time? The Buddha describes the doubt-filled mind as a pool of water that is murky, cloudy, or shadowed.

The five hindrances are traditionally viewed as obstacles or fetters that prevent us from seeing things as they are and from practicing with a clear mind. But we also must learn to live with them. They may not be the best roommates, but in this light we can view negative thoughts and feelings as incentives to practice.

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This is one of the most fundamental teachings of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that the source of human suffering and discontent is that we crave and cling to the things of this world under the mistaken view that they will last forever. But nothing does.

Impermanence, anitya, or anicca in Pali, is one of the Buddha’s three marks of existence, three conditions that characterize all of life, and are always present. (The other two marks of existence are anatman (Pali: anatta), or not-self, and duhkha (Pali: dukkha), suffering, or dissatisfaction.)

Our bodies decline and decay. Hair and teeth fall out. Mental attitudes also change. Excitement and anger arise, then fade away. Our health and happiness are only temporary; we will eventually sicken, age, and die, as will our friends, enemies, relatives, and strangers. Human life is brief. In the Diamond Sutra, one of the Mahayana tradition’s central scriptures, life is compared to a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, or a bubble floating in a stream.

The world around us may appear solid and unchanging, but even rivers change course, mountains crumble, seas dry up, and stars burn out. The entire universe is in a process of constant flux, arising and falling away. Our brief lives give us the privilege of witnessing this grand procession for just a moment.

Understanding impermanence is key to understanding the chain of dependent origination, the idea of emptiness, and many other important Buddhist concepts. Because all of existence is conditioned by the three marks, Buddhist practices aim to loosen our attachment to the world as it is and help us comprehend impermanence and the way it touches all aspects of our lives. Meditations on death are plentiful: In one of the Buddha’s discourses, the Buddha urged his followers to consider before they go to sleep at night that they may not live until morning, and Tibetan practitioners are instructed to meditate at charnel grounds, where bodies are cremated or left to decompose. Other meditations on impermanence investigate the ever-changing nature of the breath and other bodily sensations, our shifting thoughts, or the passing of the seasons and other transformations in the natural world.

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Dependent origination (Skt: pratityasamutpada, Pali: paticca-samuppada) is also known as conditioned co-arising and several other terms. Buddhism teaches that everything that exists is conditioned—dependent on something else. This applies to thoughts as well as objects, to the individual as well as the entire universe. Nothing exists independently. Everything is conditioned.

This concept is illustrated in the Buddhist teachings of the chain of dependent origination, which describes the factors that perpetuate the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The twelve links in the chain are sequential, each factor causing the following one: Because of this, that arises. When this ceases, that also ceases. 

The links form a never-ending cycle that binds us to suffering, and the goal of Buddhist practice is to escape from this vicious cycle. Though there is more than one version of the sequence of links, they commonly run this way:

1.   Ignorance 
2.   Mental formations 
3.   Consciousness 
4.   Name and form 
5.   The senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind 
6.   Contact 
7.   Feeling 
8.   Craving 
9.   Clinging 
10.   Becoming 
11.   Birth
12.   Aging and death.

Many of these terms are familiar (though their precise meaning in a Buddhist context may differ slightly from their use in Western philosophy), but a few require some explanation. The second link of the chain, mental formations (also called fabrications, volitions, or compounds), refers to impulses and actions—any activity that leads to the accumulation of karma. The fourth link, name and form, refers to the labeling of objects, including the mental and physical parts of an individual. Contact, the sixth link, occurs when the six senses (Buddhists consider the mind the sixth sense) meet a sense object, such as a sight or sound.

The tenth link, becoming, means the formation of an identity or self. This stage gives its name to the Wheel of Life (bhavachakra), a visual depiction of samsara, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Birth, link eleven, and aging and death, link twelve, speak to the unsatisfactory condition (dukkha) of living beings.

Dependent origination developed into the concepts of interdependence and the interconnectedness of all things in later Buddhist thought. The idea that every action has a “butterfly effect” on every other being, is influential in many streams of Buddhist thought, including Engaged Buddhism, which applies Buddhist teachings to social and ecological issues.

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Bodhicitta is central to the bodhisattva vow, a commitment common to many Mahayana Buddhist traditions. If you visit different dharma centers, in the liturgy you will find many variations of the following four lines:

Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
The Buddha Way is unattainable; I vow to embody it.

Practitioners take this vow because they identify with all beings—recognizing that they are interconnected—and wish to attain enlightenment in order to free them. Bodhisattvas vow to defer their own enlightenment until all beings are freed from samsara (the cycle of life and death). The bodhisattva path is available not just to ordained monastics but to anyone willing to undertake its considerable challenges. 

Bodhicitta can also be viewed in both relative and absolute terms. Relative bodhicitta refers to the compassion that makes one want to embark on the bodhisattva path and treat all beings with kindness. Absolute bodhicitta is the realization that all phenomena are essentially empty—without essence. Bodhicitta practices in contemporary Buddhism often weave together practices for cultivating compassion and generosity with those that deepen one’s understanding of emptiness. 

The text that is perhaps most closely associated with bodhicitta is Shantideva’s 8th-century work The Way of the Bodhisattva [Skt., Bodhicaryavatara]. It is also described in such Mahayana texts as Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation, the Avatamsaka, or Flower Ornament Sutra, and the Diamond Sutra.

All the bodhisattva-mahasattvas, who undertake the practice of meditation, should cherish one thought only: “When I attain perfect wisdom, I will liberate all sentient beings in every realm of the universe.”

–Diamond Sutra, Mu Soeng, trans.

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Mindfulness is the first factor of enlightenment. Mindfulness is complex, but in its basic form it refers to staying aware of body and mind in the present moment. (Right mindfulness is also the seventh area of practice on the eightfold path.)

Once mindfulness is established, the practitioner can engage in investigation and clearly see the details of the present moment.

Energy means applying oneself to the task at hand, while being attentive to the details one has investigated.

Joy comes from the application of mindful energy. Finding joy in the practice is essential for maintaining a steady practice—who wants to persist in a joyless endeavor? (Joy is also one of  the four immeasurables, another list of virtues essential to awakening.

Tranquility comes with the confidence gained from the work put into earlier efforts.

Concentration is the ability to fully focus on the task at hand, blocking out distractions and overcoming fatigue.

Equanimity, the pinnacle or conclusion of the seven factors, is not the same as tranquility. Instead, it refers to a balanced mind, one that is not swayed this way and that by desire and aversion, one that can weigh feelings with reason and exercise sound judgment. A mind in this state is ready to practice more advanced meditation or face the many challenges that arise in life. (Equanimity is also one of the four immeasurables.)

Using the analogy of a roof, the Buddha said that just as all rafters slope toward the peak, so the seven factors of enlightenment lead toward awakening. The seven factors are progressive, constituting steps along the way to culmination in enlightenment. Practicing mindfulness, for example, leads to investigation and so on. 

Buddhist texts note that cultivating the seven factors weakens the five hindrances. This is another way they can aid us in our practice.

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Mahayana traditions, such as Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, typically list six perfections:
1. Generosity (dana)
2. Morality (sila)
3. Patience (ksanti)
4. Energy (virya)
5. Meditation (dhyana/samadhi)
6. Wisdom (prajna)

In The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines, the Buddha tells his disciple Ananda that the paramita of wisdom includes the other five perfections. The sixth paramita, prajnaparamita, or the perfection of wisdom, is sometimes considered the pinnacle of the bodhisattva path. 

The paramitas became linked to another path of development for bodhisattvas called bhumis (ground or land in Sanskrit). The ten bhumis, described in the Avatamsaka or Flower Garland Sutra, are lands through which a bodhisattva must travel to achieve awakening, which the Lankavatara Sutra calls the eleventh bhumi. Four perfections were added to the list to correspond with some of the ten bhumis:

7. Skillful means (upaya)
8. Resolve (pranidhana)
9. Power (bala)
10. Knowledge (jnana)

The paramitas’ importance to Mahayana Buddhism can hardly be overstated. Some Tibetan sources even divide the Mahayana into two paths or vehicles—the Mantrayana, which emphasizes the recitation of mantras, and the Paramitayana, which focuses on the perfections.

The bodhisattva ideal was also popular in non-Mahayana Buddhist traditions, such as the Theravada. The Jataka tales, which describe past lives of the bodhisattva as he prepared to become the Buddha, remain among the most popular pieces of Buddhist literature to this day. The Vessantara Jataka, depicting the bodhisattva’s final birth before he became the Buddha, is especially popular and important in Southeast Asia. 

Another set of perfections emerged in the Theravada along with the celebration of the Buddha’s previous lifetimes as a bodhisattva. Known by the Pali name paramis, the ten perfections on this list are taught today in Theravada and Vipassana communities. 

1. Generosity (dana)
2. Morality (sila)
3. Renunciation (nekkhamma)
4. Wisdom (panna)
5. Energy (viriya)
6. Patience (khanti)
7. Truth (sacca)
8. Determination (adhithanna)
9. Lovingkindness (metta)
10. Equanimity (upekkha)

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The famous Buddhist monk and philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 2nd–3rd centuries CE) held that the Buddha’s teachings must be viewed in light of the two truths if they are to be properly understood. But it is not as simple as relative truth being incomplete and absolute truth being perfect and complete. Nagarjuna walks the middle path between them. Both are true, he said, and there is value in both because the conventional depends on the absolute and vice versa:

Without a foundation in the conventional truth
The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved.  

–Jay L. Garfield, trans.

Early classical Indian Buddhism, including the Theravada school, which still exists today, taught that samsara was the world of suffering and nirvana the escape from it. Nagarjuna argued that this was only relatively true. The absolute truth, he said, is that there is no difference between samsara and nirvana because both are mental constructs empty of a fixed essence. Viewed relatively, this world of suffering may be samsara, but viewed in the light of absolute truth, this world is nirvana.

There are many ways of interpreting this claim, but it appears to turn the Buddhist path on its head: What is the point of practice if there is no goal? We practice not to become a buddha but because, the two truths doctrine teaches, we already are buddhas, we just don’t realize it yet.

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The Buddha went to great pains to adapt his teaching to his students. His teachings were conveyed in the local language and used familiar imagery and metaphors. His dialogues are similar to those of Socrates, who accepted his questioners’ opening propositions and conducted the discussion on their terms.

The Buddha likened his teachings to a raft—once the river was crossed and the far shore of liberation reached, the raft should be abandoned. In other words, the words or forms used to reach the goal aren’t intrinsically valuable but are worthwhile to the extent that they help us attain awakening.

A famous parable from Buddhist literature, recounted in the Lotus Sutra, is that of the burning house. A fire breaks out in a many-roomed house. The father escapes, but his children are still inside, distracted by games and other pleasures. The father must lure the children out using what would attract each—one kind of gift for the youngest, another kind for another child, and yet another for the third. Once they escape the burning house each child receives an even better reward: liberation. In the same way, teachers will guide each student differently, in accordance with their unique needs and disposition, though for all the goal is the same: awakening, or liberation.

Skillful means is one reason why there are so many different kinds of Buddhism. The teachings of various traditions may look and feel different, but all have the same goal or “taste”: liberation. Similarly, in the vast ocean, the water, whether on the surface or in the deep, has only one taste: salt. 

Skillful means also explains why some teachings are unconventional or seem to contradict established doctrine. The gurus of Tibetan Buddhism and masters of Zen Buddhism who hit disciples or destroyed Buddha statues may have been using skillful means because that was the right teaching for that time, place, and student. But all teachings must be grounded in wisdom and compassion and have liberation as their ultimate goal. In recent years, issues with teachers abusing students and taking advantage of their devotion have emerged in multiple communities. Whether a teacher considered to be enlightened is using skillful means or simply behaving badly is a question Buddhist communities continue to grapple with to this day.

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The six realms of rebirth are a schema in which beings are reborn according to the kind of life they lived. The realms are depicted in the Wheel of Life (bhavachakra), a vivid representation of samsara—the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.

The animal realm, in which inhabitants are driven by basic needs, is one of the three “lower” realms. The other two are the hell realm, a place of constant suffering and torment, and the realm of the hungry ghosts, grasping beings who are never satisfied. The three “higher” realms are the human realm, where you and I find ourselves; the demigod realm, where godlike beings fight for power; and the god realm, where beings enjoy a life of pleasure. It’s important to note that some Buddhists view the realms as literally real, while others interpret them psychologically as metaphors for the emotional states of the human condition.

Karma plays a role in determining where we are born and reborn, which keeps happening until we reach nirvana and escape the cycle. Until then, we are stuck in the six realms. But for those who interpret them as metaphors rather than actual places, the six realms depict life as we are living it here and now.

Animals are driven by their need to eat, sleep, and procreate; people in this state live mechanically, controlled by basic needs. The hell realm describes people living with extreme suffering, heedless of others. Their own hurt is so great they may even harm those around them. Hungry ghosts (pretas) are those driven by unquenchable desire, chasing the next possession, the next meal, the next relationship, only to find themselves dissatisfied and craving the next thing.

Those in the god realm (devas) float high above the world, free of suffering, but this realm too is ultimately unsatisfying. Without adversity, the gods develop attachments and have no motivation to escape samsara. The realm of demigods (asuras) is marked by constant warfare, competition, and anger; it is the home of climbers on the corporate and social ladders—those who are driven to get ahead.

The human world is the realm of action, the only one in which practice can take place and buddhas can appear. Here we find the only exit from the six realms—the liberation of nirvana. The human realm, the scriptures explain, is neither so pleasurable that there’s no motivation to seek liberation, like the higher realms, nor too full of suffering to attempt to escape samsara, like the lower realms. A human birth is said to be so rare and precious that a turtle surfacing in a vast ocean is more likely to put his head through a small ring floating on the surface than we are to get a human birth. This is why the Buddha urges us to put our human life to good use!

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