Buddhism: beliefs and teachings · GCSE Religious Studies

The Buddha

Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince in what is now Nepal. After seeing the Four Sights (old age, sickness, death and a holy man), he left his palace to find an end to suffering.
He tried extreme self-denial, then chose the Middle Way between luxury and hardship. He gained enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi tree, becoming the Buddha, 'the awakened one'. He gave his first sermon in the Deer Park at Sarnath.

The Three Marks of Existence: dukkha (suffering, or unsatisfactoriness), anicca (impermanence: everything changes) and anatta (there is no fixed, unchanging self).
The Four Noble Truths: life involves suffering (dukkha); suffering is caused by craving (tanha); suffering can end (nibbana); and the way to end it is the Eightfold Path (magga).
The Eightfold Path: right understanding, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. These are grouped into wisdom, ethics and meditation.

Dependent arising: everything depends on conditions. The Three Poisons (greed, hatred and ignorance) keep beings trapped in samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
The Five Aggregates (skandhas) make up a person: form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness.

In Theravada Buddhism, the ideal is the arhat, a perfected person who reaches nibbana through their own effort.
In Mahayana Buddhism, the ideal is the bodhisattva, who delays their own nibbana to help all beings. Mahayana ideas include sunyata (emptiness) and Buddha-nature. Pure Land Buddhists trust in Amitabha Buddha.