Buddhism simplified — Is Buddhism what you think it is?
Recently, Buddhism has been seen in the spotlight as a religion that fits the 21st century. As the God-centric religion gets contradicted by every new scientific discovery, alternative religions like Buddhism see a renewed interest. You probably have seen some Hollywood elites posting pictures of themselves performing Buddist yogas and meditation on Instagram. At the same time, there are tons of videos on Youtube in which ripped monks from Tibet perform martial arts. So you might be wondering what is Buddhism? Is it about perfecting control of your body or is it about coming to peace with your mind? I’ve been there. What I’ve discovered is that Buddhism is not the beautiful rainbow that it seems to be.
If I have to describe Buddhism in a sentence, I would say Buddhism is a theory that describes how the world works, just like the theory of relativity. The Lord Buddha, the Einstein of Buddhism, saw life as a series of suffering. From the moment of our birth, we come across a lot of suffering. Getting sick, not getting what we want, losing loved ones, losing jobs, doing things we hate, studying for exams, and finally death. Sure, we have some good times once in a while. But, don’t we have to do things we don’t like and spend time with people we don’t like most of the time? So his point was our lives were overwhelmingly full of suffering. And the even most frightening thing he discovered was this does not end once we die. It restarts. Reincarnation is a core belief in Buddhism. Once we die, we are simply born again. So the suffering becomes a never-ending cycle. Life after life, we suffer. So is it hopeless?
Luckily, Lord Buddha also discovered a way out of this. It is called attaining “Nirvana”. Nirvana is the state where you end this cycle. Once you attain Nirvana, you will never be born again. So how can you obtain Nirvana? To attain Nirvana, you need to eliminate the root cause of the suffering. The root of all the suffering is desire or attraction. Desire to obtain things, desire for recognition and fame, and desire to be with people that we like. Not getting what we want or losing relationships, people, and jobs we like bring suffering only as long as we desire them. Eliminating desire or attraction is the key to attain nirvana and it is the reason why it is so hard to attain Nirvana. The desire is a survival tactic built into all the animals.
Another key concept in Buddhism is Karma which can easily baffle a novice due to its complexity. Let me simplify it. According to Buddhism, analogous to Newton’s 3rd law, every action has a reaction. Each action results in a good or bad Karma. Good karma affects our lives in a positive manner. For example, giving money/food/clothes to less fortunate people will generate good karma, and it will help you become even more prosperous. Abusing or hurting animals or people will expand your bad karma list which can lead to bad health or disabilities. Whatever the things that God-centric religions explain as God’s will, Buddhism explains with Karma. A catholic priest might say some people are wealthier because God bless them with good fortune whereas a Buddhist monk will say those people must have donated a lot in their previous lives.
To summarize, Buddhism is about bringing an end to suffering in life by eliminating life. Our journey until the end of this cycle is shaped by our own actions through karma. So if you like me, the first question you will be asking is, why was life created in the first place only for us to eliminate to? To this day, I have not heard a convincing answer.
