What The Buddha Taught

If you are interested in the middle way teachings of the Buddha, you might be interested in this book: What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula Thero. This is a very basic text on Buddhism and on what is actually known to have been taught by the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. You might also want to read THE WORD OF THE BUDDHA by Nyanatiloka.

lt is called the middle way teachings because the Buddha found a path that is between worldly indulgence and rigid ascetic practice. In the years prior to awakening, the Buddha witnessed that neither of the extreme life paths yielded freedom from suffering.

When the Buddha experienced his awakening, his understanding revealed the path. He recognized that there are two types of suffering: 1) Inevitable suffering - an example of this is when you have something that you cherish, let’s say a cat. And you love your cat, then let’s say that you outlive your cat. When your cat departs from this plane of existence, you experience sorrow. That feeling of sorrow is a form of inevitable suffering. 2) Needless suffering - an example of this is caused by your mental and emotional reaction to an event. Let’s say that someone close to you starts harshly criticizing you, then in this sequence of events, you feel incensed and you react in rage. What you say while enraged consequently hurt their feelings and this circumstance goes from bad to worse.

The teachings of the Buddha help us to gain skills to alleviate the latter type which is needless suffering. These teachings involve mindfulness training and through this, we learn what we want to do and what we don’t want to do. We learn how to relate with our core sensitivities and how to not create the causes that generate needless suffering. By not creating these causes, needless suffering does not arise.

The Buddhist path is not a theology, it is a path that provides you an opportunity to gain freedom from needless suffering.

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With Loving-Kindness,

Mark