BUDDHISM 101 :
A general introduction to Buddhism suitable for everyone.
Table of Contents
- What is Buddhism?
- Course Results
- Prerequisites
What is Buddhism?
Buddhism is the religion founded by the Buddha in approximately the 5th century BCE in the Ganges River Valley of India.
The Buddha taught that everything has a cause. He then used this idea to tackle the problems at the heart of the human condition: death, anxiety, suffering and evil.
He discovered that the cause of our spiritual disease is our erroneous perception that we are at the center of things. The Buddha called this self-centered perspective “ignorance,” and he taught that it is what causes us to suffer when the things which we think of as “me” (my body, my career, my relationships, etc) change in ways which we don’t like or fail to change in the ways we would.
The religion the Buddha founded is the set of contemplations, practices and beliefs which he and his disciples discovered help us to overcome our “selfish” tendencies and to attain liberation from the tyranny of “me.”