A modern guide to the teachings of Buddhism Buddhism: An Introduction to the Buddha’s Life, Teachings, and Practices is an indispensable guide to a 2,600-year-old wisdom tradition that has transformed the lives of millions across centuries and around the world. Readers will learn how Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, one of the most influential spiritual leaders of all time, and discover how they too can follow his revolutionary methods to attain happiness and inner freedom. Along with accessible overviews of central teachings―the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, karma, core virtues like kindness and compassion, and more― Buddhism covers such basics as: - the three main Buddhist traditions―Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana―historically and their relevance today - the role of meditation and mindfulness in Buddhist practice - step-by-step instruction in key Buddhist practices Writing in an engaging, approachable style, author Joan Duncan Oliver outlines the fundamentals of Buddhism for every reader, revealing its timeless truths and their relevance for finding peace in uncertain times. A practitioner of Buddhist meditation for forty years, Oliver has written extensively on Buddhist wisdom and its application to daily life. Her practical approach makes Buddhism an essential modern guidebook to an ancient tradition. JOAN DUNCAN OLIVER is a contributing editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, O: the Oprah Magazine, Health, Shambhala Sun, and The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 . Her books include Happiness, Good Karma, Coffee with the Buddha, The Meaning of Nice, and Commit to Sit , an anthology of articles from Tricycle . A Buddhist practitioner for 40 years, she has studied with teachers from the Zen, Vipassana, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and from Bön, the indigenous religion of Tibet. Buddhism An Introduction to the Buddha's Life, Teachings, and Practices By Joan Duncan Oliver St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2019 Joan Duncan Oliver All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-250-31368-3 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, Map: The Ganges Valley, Map: The Spread of Buddhism Across Asia, Introduction, 1. The Buddha, 2. Buddhism After the Buddha, 3. The Teachings, 4. The Practices, Parting Thoughts, Acknowledgments, Notes, Glossary, Resources, Index, Also by Joan Duncan Oliver, About the Author, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 THE BUDDHA Forget the teacher; remember the teachings was the Buddha's message to his followers. He opposed any cult of personality, any deification of him. Once a man saw him on the road and, struck by his clear eyes and vibrant presence, asked, "What are you? Are you a god?" "No," the Buddha told him. "I am awake." The Buddha's great awakening is a model for spiritual seekers everywhere. He was a living example that it can be done — that the potential for enlightenment is within every human being and that we too can awaken to our true nature if we try. But who was the man behind the teachings? Before he became the Buddha, who was he? And what was the truth of existence that he found? Unfortunately, neither the Buddha nor his sangha , his community of followers, left a detailed biography. And he lived eons before social media and confessional memoirs made everyone's life an open book. In fact, aside from some Vedic texts — ancient Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit — there were no written documents of any kind in India while the Buddha was alive. His teachings were strictly word of mouth, transcribed by his followers only centuries later. The Buddha wasn't into personal revelations either. Enlightenment liberated him from self-concern, and he spoke about his past only when it was relevant to his teaching. Fortunately, however, for all he didn't say, the Buddha's life was sufficiently riveting for scholars and scribes in later times to embroider on myth, legend, and fragments of history to attempt to leave a biographical trail. Over the past millennia or two, creative minds have sought to make sense of the Buddha in poetry and prose, commenting on everything from his quotidian habits to his life-changing revelations. Given the embellishments through the years, aspects of his story are best appreciated for their symbolic rather than factual value. The biography that follows is drawn first from the Buddha's own words as recorded in the Pali Canon , the collection of texts that represent the earliest record of his discourses. But it also gives a nod to more colorful renditions of the Buddha's life set down later on, among them the Nidana-Katha , or Jataka Tales, stories of the Buddha's previous lives; The Buddhacarita , or Acts of the Buddha, an epic biography by a first-century CE Indian Buddhist philosopher named Asvaghosa; and The Lalitavistara or Play in Full, a third-century CE Mahayana Buddhist sutra, or text,