Buddhism Summary

The book starts with the introduction of the unique characteristics of Buddhism. The Buddha credited all his realization and achievements to human endeavor and intelligence. Unlike other teachers or religions, in Buddhism, every man has his potential to become a Buddha. Man is his own master. Thus, the realization of truth is also depends on his own. The freedom of thought of an individual allowed by the Buddha is unheard in other religions. Even though there is a big difference between Buddhism and other religious, the Buddha showed his embracement and peaceful mind. He thinks that one should not condemn other religions but should help all the others to grow.

Then, the book addresses that Buddhism encourages people realizing the truth by seeing, knowing, understanding but not on faith or belief. You should always ask and question about the seemingly true beliefs. Through learning and experiment, you will find the truth of the belief. And now, this is your own knowledge and you really gained something instead of just believing a vague idea.

The book continues by introducing the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth is Dukkha. It is usually translated as suffering, but it does not mean that Buddhism is pessimistic about life or anything. There is neither pessimistic nor optimistic view towards anything in Buddhism. It takes a realistic view towards life and the world. It is telling everything objectively and understanding the cause and effect of nature.

There are three forms of Dukkha. One is the ordinary suffering. This includes all kind of physical and mental suffering such as getting old, sickness and separation from loved ones. Another is that whatever is impermanent is Dukkha. Even happiness can be dukkha. It is becaus...

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...on what we are doing since we always think of other choices. We suspect that we may have a better result if we have chosen another option. But now, the Buddha reminds us of the essence of selfless. The concept can be very broad. But at least we can be reminded that focusing on dealing with the present job is actually bringing us the greatest happiness. This kind of concentration is not coming from nothing. We can practice it from all tiny matters in our daily life.

After all, I do not see Buddhism as a religion or philosophy. I see it as an attitude of living. It teaches how to see things objectively, how focus on our work, how people should treat each other, how to interact with the external world. Although there is still much to learn about Buddhism, I am happy to have read this book. This is inspiring and arouses my interest in further studying about Buddhism.