What Is Buddhism ?

2500 years ago an Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama began to ask himself about the nature of life. Although he led a very fortunate life in a palace, surrounded by all the delights the world could offer, he nevertheless became aware that all of us must grow old, become sick and eventually die. He felt that life immersed in pleasures can be meaningless, and set out to try to understand the meaning of life.

He started out practicing asceticism, and studied with all manners of meditaton masters who were teaching at that time. While he learnt something very important from each of them, he discovered the asceticism and merely conforming to a set of religious beliefs did not really help. Finally, he sat down alone under a tree, determined to meditate until he finally attained ultimate realization.

Discovering Awakened State of Mind

The Buddha taught that our experience of life is marked by confusion and frequently painful states of mind, brought about by our clinging to a sense of self, or ego. Underneath this confusion is our awakened state of mind, which is always there, and is merely covered up. This is known as Enlightenment. In the Buddhist, view spirituality is not about attaining some heavenly realm, but about working thoroughly with the basis of our existence, our minds, and our confusion, to begin to cut through the confusion and to uncover the wisdom that is always there. This is done through meditation. Thus, the entire Buddhist path is based on the discovery of egolessness and the maturing of insight and knowledge that comes from egolessness.

Three Vehicles of Buddhism

In the Shambhala community, we practice the teachings of Buddhism according to the Tibetan tradition. These describe the path of Buddhism in three vehicles, or paths: the Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana.

The new student starts with the Hinayana. Hinayana literally means the "small", or "lesser" vehicle, but it would be more accurate to call it the "narrow vehicle". The Hinayana is small or narrow vehicle in the sense that, at the beginning of our path, we need a strict discipline of meditation to narrow down, or tame, the speed and confusion of our mind, allowing the mind to rest in its own place. In the Hinayana, we work directly with our lives and our minds in a very simple way, and we begin to realise that whatever we experience - whether good or bad, positive or negative - is workable, tamable. The ideal of Hinayana is individual liberation, which is known as Nirvana. It is a common western misconception to think of Buddhism as containing only the Hinayana, and thus to believe that Buddhism focuses solely on escaping the misery of samsara and attaining Nirvana.

The Mahayana, or "great vehicle", however, goes beyond the Hinayana ideal of individual salvation alone. Its aim is the liberation of all sentient beings, which means that everyone, and everything is included in the vast vision of Mahayana. The primary discipline of the Mahayana is helping others, putting others before ourselves. This attitude and exertion do not spring however from self-denial and martyrdom, but rather from genuine warmth and compassion for others.

The third vehicle, the Vajrayana, literally means the "diamond or indestructible vehicle". The idea of indestructibility here is the discovery of indestructible wakefulness, the discovery of our own innate awakened state of mind, or vajra nature, which permeates and empowers all of our existence. The Vajrayana is a continuation of the previous two vehicles, and without the proper trainijng in the Hinayana and the Mahayana disciplines, it is impossible to step into the Vajrayana or tantric path. 

Click here for text on the life of the Buddha by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Click here for text on "How to Meditate" by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

To continue reading about Buddhist study and practice in the Shambhala context, click here.