Core Teaching
The Buddha taught not a metaphysics but a diagnosis. Life as ordinarily lived is marked by dukkha — unsatisfactoriness — rooted in craving and in the mistaken sense of a fixed, separate self. Because all things arise in dependence on conditions (and so are impermanent and without self), clinging is bound to hurt. The Four Noble Truths name the illness and its cure; the Eightfold Path is the treatment — an integrated training of view, conduct, and meditation ending in nirvana, the cooling of the fires of grasping.
Key Concepts
Dukkha
The pervasive unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence — from gross pain to subtle unease.
Anicca
Impermanence — everything conditioned is in flux; nothing can be clung to.
Anatta
Not-self — there is no unchanging owner behind experience, only a process.
Pratityasamutpada
Dependent origination — this arises because that arises; the web of conditioned becoming.
Nirvana
The unconditioned peace that comes when craving is extinguished.
Practices
Shamatha
Calm-abiding — steadying attention, often on the breath, until the mind grows tranquil and pliant.
Vipassana
Insight — clear seeing of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self in direct experience.
Metta
The cultivation of boundless loving-kindness toward oneself and all beings.
The Path · Stages
01SilaEthical conduct — right speech, action, and livelihood as the ground of practice.
02SamadhiMeditative collectedness — right effort, mindfulness, and concentration.
03PrajnaWisdom — right view and intention ripened into liberating insight.
Key Texts
Dhammapada
Verses of the path — the most beloved distillation of the teaching.
The Pali Suttas
The Buddha's discourses preserved in the Theravada canon.
Heart & Diamond Sutras
Mahayana texts on emptiness and the perfection of wisdom.
Voices
Siddhartha Gautama
The historical Buddha — the 'awakened one'.
Nagarjuna
Founder of Madhyamaka; philosopher of emptiness (shunyata).
The Dalai Lama
Contemporary voice of Tibetan Mahayana and universal compassion.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
— The Buddha
Resonant Raags
Raags whose mood meets this path — sit with one as you contemplate.