Lausanne World Pulse – Interfaith Interface with Buddhists

By Chandler H. Im
January / February 2010

The Buddha painfully experienced that life itself is suffering. He desperately searched for means to stop suffering. He became a wandering ascetic in a forest for six years. One day he realized that extreme asceticism does not liberate one from life’s pains and sorrows, but extreme hunger actually distracted his mind. Thus, he abandoned ascetic practices and advocated that one should avoid extremes in life, for the true way to liberation lies in the middle way—between hedonism and asceticism. Even today, the middle way (moderation) is a key virtue in Buddhism. 

Under a Bodhi tree, the truth-seeker had an enlightenment experience. Many people came to hear the awakened one’s teachings and became his disciples, forming a community (sangha) of faith. According to Buddhist legend, the Buddha went back to his hometown before his death, and his son also became a Buddhist monk. Pensive and down-to-earth, he cherished silence and solitude as his favorite virtues. He died around 483 B.C.

The Buddha’s Basic Teachings
Suffering was clearly the Buddha’s departure point both for his truth-seeking and his teaching, and relief from suffering was its climax.6 The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths as the Way to nirvana: self-liberation from the cycle of rebirth, suffering, and ignorance. The Four Noble Truths, the essence of his teachings, concern “the nature and extent of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation.”7

First Noble Truth: Recognize that life is duhkha, generally translated as “suffering.” To the Buddha, being or life in and of itself is always impermanent or incomplete because everything is transitory or constantly changing. Nothing stays the same. The impermanence or incompleteness of existence is duhkha itself. To all creatures, suffering is plentiful and unavoidable.

Second Noble Truth: Perceive that craving for or clinging to things causes present sufferings. This dislocation of one’s intention is called tanha, commonly translated as “desire,” “thirst,” “attachment,” “craving,” or “yearning.” So the aim of religious life for Buddhists is freedom or liberation from all tanha, which causes duhkha.

Third Noble Truth: Know and believe that this suffering ends when one “extinguishes” the flames of wanting or burning desires. Thus, nirvana, which literally means “blowing out,” is sometimes described as the ceasing of craving or extinction of desire. For this stage, the Buddha confidently declares, “…whoever in this world overcomes his selfish cravings, his sorrows fall away from him, like drops of water from a lotus flower.”8

Fourth Noble Truth: Know that desires and sufferings end when one practices the Noble Eightfold Path. The Noble Eightfold Path is a methodological system of therapy and liberation. It introduces the necessary elements of the spiritual yet practical path to self-liberation when one diligently practices the following on a daily basis:

  1. correct view
  2. correct motive
  3. correct speech
  4. correct conduct
  5. correct occupation
  6. correct effort
  7. correct mindfulness
  8. correct contemplation

After the death of the Buddha, the highly philosophical religion flourished in India for about five centuries. Emperor Ashoka of India in the third century B.C. sent out Buddhist missionaries to many countries to spread the teachings of the Buddha. Buddhism gradually began to decline in popularity, for it mainly appealed to a certain group of people in society rather than the masses, who could not follow strict precepts of the Buddha (e.g., do not drink, do not eat meat, etc.). Before it became a minor voice in India, the religion spread to its neighboring countries, and has been expanding around the globe for the past two thousand years.

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Dr. Chandler H. Im is director of Ethnic Ministries at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. He also serves as director of the Ethnic America Network and is adjunct professor of missions at Faith Evangelical Seminary (Tacoma, Washington, USA).