Buddhist Basics

Buddhism’s four immeasurables aren’t just states of mind we can achieve, says Venerable Hui Cheng. They’re gifts we can give to others.

How can Buddhists know if their life is an ethical one? By keeping the five precepts, a set of guidelines for those who wish to do no harm.

These four truths are called noble because they liberate us from suffering. They are the Buddha’s basic teaching, encapsulating the entire Buddhist path.

What is the relationship between absolute reality and the relative world we inhabit? Mahayana Buddhism’s answer is called the two truths.

The six realms are different forms of existence in which we can take rebirth, or psychological states we experience in the human realm.

Suffering is the central problem that Buddhism addresses, and recognizing our suffering is the first step to its solution.

Buddhists take refuge in three different expressions of awakened mind. What are they?

Take any pair of opposites. Madhyamaka logic looks at four possibilities and refutes them in turn, creating four negations.

Mahayana Buddhism breaks the mind into eight separate consciousnesses. What are they?

In Mahayana Buddhism, the bodhisattva practices the six paramitas, or transcendent perfections.