Most textbooks would say that Buddhism began about 2,500 years ago in India with the teaching of a man who became known as ‘the Buddha’ (‘the enlightened one’), in other words, the person who woke up to the truth about life. His name was Siddhartha Gautama (Sanskrit) Siddhattha Gotama (Pali). Although he is often called ‘the’ Buddha, he is also called Shakyamuni Buddha (‘wise man of the Shakya people’) to distinguish him from other Buddhas, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, where there are many. That he was a real historical person is rarely disputed nowadays given the evidence, but his exact dates are a matter of some debate. Various Buddhist traditions have differing dates for his life such as 624-544 BCE, 566-486 BCE, or 448-368 BCE. Western scholars used to favour the middle date, but more recent evidence tends to favour the later one.

However, to call this historical person the ‘founder of Buddhism’ would be not quite right on two counts. For a start, as we have argued above, ‘Buddh-ism’ is a Western concept. In Buddhist thought, he did not ‘start’ but ‘discovered’ the Dharma/Dhamma or truth about life, which is eternal. In addition, there have been other Buddhas in previous eras before him, who discovered the same truth, and there will be future Buddhas in times to come. A text in the Pali Canon states that ‘our’ Buddha took his first steps towards enlightenment when listening to the teaching of a Buddha called Dipankara, twenty-four Buddhas (and zillions of lifetimes) ago. In Mahayana Buddhism, there are many other Buddhas even now, in other dimensions.

The headings in this essay are derived from the six ‘Big Ideas’ (Wintersgill ed. 2017, Wintersgill et al, 2019) and the Commission on RE’s National Entitlement (CoRE 2018). This introductory section for example links to NE2 – key concepts such as religion and the complexity of worldviews, NE4  – the ways in which worldviews develop in interaction with each other and have some shared beliefs and practices, and that people may draw upon more than one tradition, and Big Idea 1 – continuity, change and diversity and what we mean by religion(s)/worldview(s).

The Dalai Lama tends to start by talking about the importance of kindness. Another starting point would be the quest for happiness. Peggy Morgan also suggested starting with rainbows and impermanence with young children (1986). Buddhist families and supplementary schools might start with a focus on good behaviour, meditation or ritual practice. Many school textbooks start with the life of ‘the’ Buddha, and then the Four Noble Truths, which might be the Buddha’s first sermon according to the Pali Canon, but was notably addressed to religious ascetics experienced in various meditation techniques and so not necessarily where to start for beginners, whether children or adults. The tendency is to start with an outline of what is viewed as ‘basic’ Buddhist teaching, which in the UK tends towards a Theravada perspective, and then later deal with ‘diverse’ interpretations which are then seen as later developments, either declining from or improving on the basics. The Big Ideas project decided to start instead with diversity as the current reality and avoid setting up a ‘basic’ version which tends to get stuck. This essay will attempt this starting point, before looking at ‘matters of central importance’ which is where the National Entitlement starts (but the main thing is to start).

As argued in the Introduction, there is no fixed monolithic entity called Buddhism. Rather, like other traditions, it is diverse, particularly so having had such a long history and wide geographical spread through many countries, cultures and languages. According to Guy Claxton ‘Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Buddhism in Tibet and Buddhism in Japan are as different on the surface as Christianity, Judaism and Islam’ (1989). Scholars and syllabuses tend to divide Buddhism into Theravada ( ‘way of the elders’) and Mahayana (‘the great vehicle’) but this is really just for convenience as these are not even the same kind of term (Theravada is a line of ordination and/or a school of philosophy, and Mahayana a sort of different vision of Buddhism (see Willams 2008), including many different lines of ordination, schools of philosophy and traditions of practice). The two strands have different scriptural texts, somewhat different concepts of what is meant by ‘Buddha’, and differing ideas of the eventual goal of the Buddhist path. Theravada is the only surviving non-Mahayana tradition, but there were many others in earlier Buddhist centuries. In medieval India, monks in the same monastery might be following non-Mahayana and Mahayana paths. The label ‘Mahayana’ covers many different types of Buddhism, so that some scholars divide Buddhism into three instead: Southern (Theravada in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos), Northern (Tibetan Buddhism, in Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia as well as Tibet) and Eastern (the many different forms in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, noting that China is such a huge area that there are also Theravada and Tibetan-style Buddhist minorities as well as ‘Eastern’ traditions). There are several different strands of Tibetan/Northern Buddhism, and the far-Eastern traditions include (using the Japanese names) Zen, Jodo (Pure Land), Shingon, Tendai, Sanron, Kegon Nichiren Buddhism and others, as well as each having subgroups. There are also groups started in the 20^th century such as the Triratna movement (formerly Friends of the Western Buddhist Order) which started in the UK, and Soka Gakkai, a development of Nichiren Buddhism, which started in Japan.

The point to grasp is that there are many different Buddhist groups, that Buddhist tradition has changed and developed over time and in different contexts, and that even individuals in the same group may have different ideas, values, emotions and experience. No one source, whether a scholar, textbook or person calling themselves a Buddhist can speak for all. Having said that, there are still some basics that most Buddhists would share, and without which it would be hard to count them as Buddhists, though this list should not be seen as hard-and-fast. These might include: acceptance of impermanence, the working of karma, rebirth and the cycle of lives (samsara), the possibility of enlightenment or liberation, respect for ‘the’ or ‘a’ or several Buddhas and their teachings, a commitment to a moral and compassionate lifestyle, and practise of some form of traditional ritual or meditation. One factor making for continuity amidst the change is the care Buddhists have taken over the centuries to ensure the authenticity of their teachings. This may be through passing on texts, or by tracing lineages of teachers. Buddhist texts were passed on through memorisation to start with, until first written down several centuries after the time of the Buddha. Contrary to popular opinion, Richard Gombrich has argued that the regular oral recitation of texts in a group, as was the case in the early monastic community, makes it less likely that errors or deliberate changes are introduced than when texts are written down. Several individuals in Buddhist history went to great efforts, such as travelling from China to India or over the Himalayas between India and Tibet, to collect authentic scriptures. Ordained Buddhists have records of the lineage of their teachers, in theory at least stretching back to the Buddha himself, and identifying your teacher is important to lay Buddhists too, especially in Tibetan Buddhism.

Matters of central importance, human nature and destiny, reality, the natural world and ultimate questions (Big Idea 6; NE 1 and 6)

This section looks at the Buddhist worldview(s) in a narrower sense of the word, referring to the ideas or fundamental teachings on the meaning and purpose of life in a cognitive or intellectual sense as systematised by scholars within and outside the tradition – views about human nature and destiny, reality, the natural world and ultimate questions. However, as a rich and varied tradition, there is no set creed or list of beliefs to which all Buddhists subscribe or centralised authority to enforce them.

What is really of central importance?

Given the diversity of Buddhism, different Buddhists might have different views about what is a matter of central importance in Buddhism, and many might prioritise ethical behaviour, meditation or ritual practice, personal experience or even political action over the ideas discussed in this section. But all would be focused in one way or another on what it is to be human.

a) Human nature

As Buddhism is not centred on God, it seems best to start with the human condition and potential. Human nature is viewed in both negative and positive ways, and as not fixed but capable of change. Humans are prone to greed, hatred and delusion (symbolised on the ‘Tibetan Wheel of Life’ as a cockerel, snake and pig). That one of our biggest problems is delusion about the way things are is a teaching shared with other traditions of Indian origin.

However, humans are also capable of change for the better, by starting to live lives that are ethical and compassionate, taking control of our thoughts and emotions by means of meditation and self-discipline and learning to see things more clearly and wisely.

In common with other Dharmic traditions, most Buddhists assume that we live many lives rather than just one – this is known as samsara (‘wandering on’), the cycle of life, death and rebirth, a constant process of ‘rebecoming’ (punabhava) which occurs during this life and on into the next. The process of rebecoming is fuelled by karma/kamma (‘action’), all our morally significant actions which have consequences in this life or the next. Human life is characterised by the ‘three marks’, in Pali these are known as dukkha, anicca and anatta.

Dukkha is translated as ‘suffering’, ‘ill’, ‘unsatisfactoriness’ or ‘dissatisfaction’. Basically, our lives are not as good as we wish they were. There is plain suffering itself, pain and illness, whether physical or mental, poverty and hunger, war and violence, unjust and unequal treatment, negative discrimination, natural disasters. Even if our own lives are comfortable, we know that those of others are not. Then there is the fact that the good things in life that bring us happiness do not last forever, they come to an end at some point, or we lose interest, and eventually we ourselves also come to an end in death. Third is the unsatisfactory nature of our limitations – our abilities are limited, we cannot be in more than one place at a time, each of our choices rules out other possibilities. The translation ‘dissatisfaction’ suggests that much of the problem is in our attitudes, whereas ‘unsatisfactoriness’ suggests that the problems are with life in the world in itself rather than with us as individuals.

The second mark of life, Anicca or impermanence, focuses on the fact that nothing lasts forever. Everything in life is impermanent, which is part of the sadness of life when applied to good things, but can be comforting or energising if applied to bad circumstances.

The third mark of life is Anatta (or in Sanskrit, anatman), which means ‘no self, soul or inner essence’. Other religious traditions may find refuge from impermanence in an eternal God, in the case of Abrahamic traditions, or in the idea that behind the impermanent, changing material body and mind there is an eternal, inner essence, soul or self, but not Buddhism. This teaching distinguishes Buddhism from other Indian traditions. Peter Harvey expresses ‘no-self’ well: ‘no permanent, substantial, independent, metaphysical self can be found’ and ‘a “person” is a collection of rapidly changing and interacting mental and physical processes’(1994:23-4). It is not saying that you don’t exist, but that you exist in a constantly changing way, and dependent on other things, people and events.

Analysis in reflection and meditation is claimed to reveal that a human being is made up of five skandhas/khandhas, which can be translated as ‘heaps’, ‘aggregates’ or ‘collections of components.’ These are: the physical body (rupa), feelings (vedana), perceptions/cognitions (sanna), impulses/constructing activities (sanskaras), and consciousness (vinnana). The names in brackets are in Pali. All of these are changing and impermanent and there is nothing else. A famous analogy in a text known as The Questions of King Milinda compares the ‘self’ to a chariot. A chariot is made of components such as wheels, axles etc put together in a certain way for a certain purpose – ‘chariot’ is not another component, but simply a label to express the collection of components and their current use. If the ‘chariot’ was broken up, the bits would still be there but no chariot, yet nothing has actually disappeared. The same with the ‘self’ – it is just a label not an entity, and the word used just for convenience, as it is easier to say ‘I’ than ‘this collection of atoms, feelings, thoughts/perceptions, willed impulses and consciousness in its current state’.

‘No self’ is considered one of the difficult concepts in Buddhism to grasp. Part of this is because of the difficulties of translation (‘self’ in Indian philosophies tends to imply something separate from the body, eternal and unchanging, whereas it need not in English). A second reason is that many other religions do have the concept of an eternal self or soul which is the true ‘you’. A third reason in Buddhist thought is our own psychological attachment to the idea of ourselves as being permanent and unitary. In Buddhist thought, everything changes, including people, including you. From death to rebirth is just a more extreme change in the ongoing process.

Some Mahayana texts and thinkers add further perspectives on human nature. One philosophy, called Madhyamaka, teaches that all things including people are characterised by shunyata or ‘emptiness’. Nothing, not even the components or ‘dharmas/dhammas’ into which Theravada thought analysed people and chariots, has ‘self-existence’. The simplest way of explaining this is to say that nothing is anything in or by itself, but only in relation to other things. A teacher is only a teacher if she has students and vice versa. Once retired she is not a teacher any more but no-one has disappeared from the universe. Another school of philosophy teaches that the ultimate truth about human nature is that at the deepest level it is Buddha-nature, and that all are, or will be, Buddha(s). More on this can be found in the section on Buddhist philosophies.

b) Human destiny

Given the presumption of many lives, there are both interim and ultimate destinies for human life-processes. Most Buddhists expect rebirth into another form after death. Many Buddhists prefer the term ‘rebirth’ to ‘reincarnation’ as the latter suggests a soul moving to a new physical body, which is not what Buddhism teaches. However, others do use the term reincarnation. As the idea of an immortal soul getting a new body (whether in reincarnation or resurrection) is more familiar, people often wonder how rebirth can work without a soul/self. The idea to grasp is that of process – the new life starts as a result of the old life. One analogy is to think of the energy of one snooker ball causing another to move – there is no ‘inner ball’ that jumps from one ball to the other.

Traditionally there are said to be six realms into which rebirth can occur – as a human or an animal, but also into the temporary paradise realm of the gods (with a small g), or the less happy world of another category of beings with god-like powers, called angry or jealous gods or demons, or the two miserable realms of the hungry/unsatisfied ghosts, or temporary hells. These are pictured in the well-known Tibetan ‘wheel of life’, and Buddhists may understand these on a spectrum of literal to metaphorical truth (some human lives are ‘hell’). There are also other levels, more refined and hard to imagine (but possibly experienced in advanced meditation), above and beyond these six.

However, rebirth even as a fortunate human or a deity who has everything is not the ultimate goal in Buddhism, as these are also part of the world of suffering, impermanence and no-self, and the heavenly or hellish lives will come to an end when the karma fuelling them runs out. Though not the happiest, human birth is considered to be the most conducive to spiritual progress, as animals, ghosts and beings in hell are too focused on basic survival or utter misery and gods and jealous gods are too focused on their pleasures or their plots to reflect deeply on the meaning of life and make the efforts to do something about it.

Theravada perspective

The ultimate goal for Theravada Buddhists is for the whole process of karma and rebirth and going around in circles to cease. This cessation is known as nirvana/nibbana which literally means ‘blown out’ – the end of all that suffering, birth and death. Nirvana is mostly described in negative terms like cessation, extinction, stopping, the unborn, the deathless. It is not made, it is uncaused and unconditioned (whereas everything we know has causes and conditions), invisible, without shape or size. It can sound like total annihilation, that suffering is escaped by no longer existing in any sense, death as understood by ‘non-religious’ materialists (who did exist at the time of the Buddha and are not only a ‘modern’ phenomenon). That might seem a desirable goal if repeating the sufferings and deaths of millions of lives is contemplated, and some have interpreted nirvana in this way. However, the Buddha criticised both annihilationists and eternalists, and asserted that nirvana ‘is’. There are positive words used like peace, calm, joy, bliss, and poetic imagery like water to a person overwhelmed by heat and thirst, or the magic wishing jewel of Indian stories. That nirvana ‘is’ can be known (it is claimed) from the testimony of those who have experienced it, such as the Buddha himself and many of his early followers. It is experienced while still in a human body as well as after death (presumably, given the Buddha’s refusal to answer the question about whether an enlightened Buddha exists after death). But it is so removed from normal experience that there are no words to describe it even for the best of teachers like the Buddha, and not even worth those without the experience trying to imagine it. It has been suggested that it is a form of consciousness, but not as we know it, not only while the enlightened person is still alive, but also after death (parinirvana/parinibbana).

The name given by Theravada Buddhism to someone who achieves nirvana/nibbana is an arhat/arahant, a ‘worthy one’. In the Buddha’s lifetime, hundreds of his followers, women as well as men, are said to have achieved this goal. The Pali Canon includes 107 poems by senior monks and 73 poems by senior nuns celebrating the joy of their liberation (in the case of the women, including freedom from the oppressions suffered by the female gender). Such people are enlightened, like the Buddha, but not called ‘Buddhas’ because that term is reserved for the very rare individuals who discovered the truth and the way themselves – only one such person in our era according to Theravada.
The teaching on human nature and destiny has been summarised in two well-known and memorable formulations, the Four Noble Truths and 12 links of paticcasamupada ‘dependent origination’. The Four Noble Truths are recorded as the first teaching of the Buddha after his enlightenment, the ‘Deer Park Sermon’ given to a group of fellow shramanas.

1. The truth of dukkha (see ‘three marks of life’ above) – life is characterised by suffering/unsatisfactoriness, in birth, sickness, getting old, death, sorrow, physical and mental pain, having to put up with things and people we don’t like, not having the things and people we love, not getting what we want. This does not deny the happiness, beauty and joys of life, but these also cause suffering because they do not last.

2. The truth of the origin of suffering. This teaches that the fundamental cause of suffering is tanha or craving, our own selfish desire. Not just in the obvious sense that we don’t always get what we want, but in a deeper sense that this is the motor behind continuous rebirth into samsara, and thus more suffering. Craving includes both wanting to live forever and wanting to die in the sense of complete annihilation, as well as wanting all the good things in life. It is as if we are samsara addicts, wanting more even though it will only bring more suffering.

How this works is explained in another formula, the 12 links of paticcasamupada ‘dependent origination’ which traces everything back to ignorance as well as craving. Ignorance causes karma formations, causes consciousness, causes ‘name and form’ i.e. existence in samsara, which means we have six senses (Western five plus mind), which means we come into contact with things, which means we develop feelings, causing cravings, then grasping at what we crave, so we become involved in the process of becoming, so we are reborn into samsara again, so we have to endure more suffering, decay and death. It is perhaps easier to follow in reverse order, asking: why do we have to suffer and die? Because we are born into samsara. Why are we born into samsara? Because we are caught up in the process of becoming…

The 12 links have been interpreted in many ways (whole PhDs have been written on the topic) but the thing to grasp is that our human condition is brought about by a collection of interrelated causal conditions over which we potentially have some control ourselves. It’s not down to fate or God or completely random.

3. The truth of the cessation of dukkha. If you know what causes something, you can start to do something about it. The chain of causation can be broken. The Third Truth focuses on the craving highlighted in the Second Truth, but other links can be broken too, especially ignorance, or attempting to stop feelings turning into cravings. That we can be set free from the craving that causes suffering is the ‘good news’ of the Buddha’s teaching.

4. The truth of the way to stop dukkha. This is what you have to do. The Fourth Truth is basically that you must live a Buddhist life, the whole point of which is to tackle the problem of the first Truth. In the formula of the Four Noble Truths, it is summarised as the ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ (though there are other summaries to be found in the Pali Canon, including a tenfold path, and many other lists of factors that lead to enlightenment, so perhaps this particular formula has become seen as too fixed). There are eight things that have got to be put right – right views, intentions, speech, conduct, livelihood, mindfulness and concentration. It has often been commented that the first two are about becoming wiser – sorting out ideas and attitudes, the next three are basically about ethical behaviour, including in the way one earns a living, and the final three about disciplining the mind through working on one’s mental bad habits, cultivating calm and awareness, and practising more formal techniques of meditation. All together work on the basic problems of ignorance and craving, or greed, hatred and delusion.

The Four Noble Truths have been compared to a doctor’s diagnosis – this is what’s wrong with you, this is what has caused it, you can do something about it, and this is what you have to do/take. Most textbooks on Buddhism highlight the Four Noble Truths as ‘the’ teaching of the Buddha but there are a number of things to remember about them. The Buddha taught many other things. This particular sermon was aimed at his ascetic shramana audience, people who were probably already expert meditators and could be expected to have a realistic possibility of following the path to nirvana in their current lifetime. Although generally accepted as ‘basic Buddhism’ and ‘what the Buddha taught’, this formulation is as found in the Pali Canon, from the Theravada tradition, and although many Mahayana texts also refer to this teaching, and accept it as the Buddha’s foundational teaching, they do so in a somewhat different overall context. Bearing these comments in mind, the Four Noble Truths would not be the first thing taught to Buddhist children, nor would the vast majority of Buddhists, even ordained ones, expect to be able to follow the eightfold path to its conclusion in their current life.

Mahayana perspectives

A differing view of the ultimate human destiny is one of the main distinguishing features of the Mahayana vision. The goal of becoming an enlightened arhat /arahant is seen as insufficient. The ultimate aim for all beings, not just the rare extraordinary one in an aeon, is to become a Buddha, someone whose goal is liberation for all beings. This means choosing the path of the bodhisattva/bodhisatta ‘being of enlightenment’ or ‘Buddha-to-be’. In non-Mahayana Buddhism this name is used of ‘the’ Buddha before he became enlightened, and as in stories about previous lives of ‘the’ Buddha, the Mahayana bodhisattva starts with a vow to work endlessly throughout countless lives towards gaining enlightenment in order, as ‘the’ Buddha did, to save others. In a way which makes sense if no-self and emptiness are understood, a bodhisattva rather gloriously vows to gain enlightenment and save all beings while simultaneously realising that no beings as such exist. The bodhisattva path involves many lifetimes attaining the perfections of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, wisdom, skilful means, power and knowledge until supreme Buddhahood is achieved. Thus in Mahayana we hear of many other Buddhas in addition to Shakyamuni, who are however not historical in the sense that he was. One very popular in China and Japan is Amitabha (Sanskrit) or Amida (Japanese) Buddha who is said to have made a vow to become a Buddha and then create a wonderful universe (a ‘pure land’) where life is much easier and it is much easier to become enlightened, which he then did. Devotees of Amida hope that when they die, he will appear and take them to his ‘pure land’ if they have had faith in and devotion to him in this life. Whether this destiny is an interim step to nirvana or a more poetic way of talking about the ultimate human destiny is debated. As well as such Buddhas, Mahayana has many bodhisattvas who are far advanced on their path, and thus have almost the same powers as a Buddha, such as Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, or Tara.

The other main Mahayana teaching is that when Buddhas come to the end of their final life, they do not pass away into a nirvana that has no connection with the samsaric world, but are still present in a heavenly or spiritual form, so that Buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas are available to help struggling humans. That the twin ideas that all can be Buddhas and that Buddhas are still around were seen as new developments in Buddhist thought is recognised by the scriptural texts that teach this, for example the Lotus Sutra claims that these were taught by the historical Buddha, but only to a select audience, and kept secret until the time came to reveal them.

A further Mahayana development teaches the idea of the Tathagata-garbha ‘embryo/womb of the Buddha’, that not only are all beings potential Buddhas, but from an eternal perspective, already are, as all have Buddha nature, it is just that we do not realise it. So the goal of life is not so much to become something new, but that all the efforts are needed to see what we always have been.

If you aim is to have a good rebirth, you would focus on being generous, moral, detached from materialistic possessions, supporting the monastics and engaging in Buddhist practices. If your aim was to become an arhat, you would follow the eightfold path, and probably take monastic vows. If your aim is to reach Amida’s Pure Land when you die, you would have faith in and pray to Amida (plus being a good person, depending on which group you belong to). If you want to become a Buddha, you follow the bodhisattva path, if (as in forms of Japanese Zen) you wish to realise your already existing Buddha-nature, you would practice the forms of meditation conducive to this.

Compared with the crucial teaching on human nature and destiny and the need to get on with it, other big ontological and metaphysical questions are secondary in Buddhism and even get in the way. There are many traditions of Buddhist philosophy, in both Theravada and Mahayana, but none are speculation for its own sake but all geared to the matter of central importance which is getting everyone out of suffering. The historical Buddha was said to have refused to discuss a number of questions including: is the world eternal, not eternal, both or neither? Is the world finite, not finite, both or neither? Does the Tathagata (Buddha) exist after death, or not, both, or neither? Is the ‘self’ identical with the body, or is it different from the body? These questions are similar to the ‘ultimate’ questions of other religions, so it is clearly of importance that the Buddha refused to answer them. He described them as ‘a net’ and refused to be drawn into such a net of theories, speculations and dogmas which waste the time that should be spent on taking action. It is said that it was because the Buddha was free of bondage to all theories, philosophies, dogmas and ideologies that he achieved enlightenment. He told a well-known story of a person shot by an arrow who refused to have the arrow removed until he knew all about it – type of wood, family background of the person who shot it – and so died. Likewise we can waste time discussing fascinating philosophical and metaphysical questions instead of getting on with freeing ourselves from greed, hatred and delusion.

The ‘ultimate’ is not something often discussed in Buddhism. This is because the Buddha, after much meditation, concluded that everything is changing and impermanent so that there is nothing permanent and unchanging like the ultimate ‘God’ in monotheistic religions, or the soul/self in other Indian religions or Christianity.  Theravadins consider nirvana /nibbana to be the opposite of the three marks, so it could perhaps be described as ‘ultimate’ but Mahayanists who follow the philosophy of Madhyamaka view even nirvana as being empty of ‘svabhava’ or ‘own being’, independent, ultimate reality. So not even nirvana or Buddha or Buddha nature is ultimate in the sense of being separable from everything else, so perhaps to talk of ultimate reality in Madhyamaka Buddhism is not quite right, except perhaps to describe the ultimate truth that nothing is ultimate.

The word Buddha ‘enlightened one’ can have different meanings. In Theravada Buddhism it refers predominantly to the historical person who lived roughly 2,500 years ago, but also to the rare enlightened beings who lived in previous aeons and the one who will come next (Maitreya/Metteya). Once passed into parinibbana a Buddha has no contact with those still stuck in samsara. In Mahayana Buddhism, the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, is one of many Buddhas past, present and future. These can and do have contact with those still in samsara. Advanced level bodhisattvas are similarly available to help struggling beings. Thus, functionally, Buddhas and bodhisattvas resemble deities, gods/goddesses or saints in other religions as they can be pictured and prayed to. The difference is that they are not ultimately real or separate from the devotee. Even Theravada Buddhists may in practice pray to the Buddha, whom they know (see Gombrich, 1971:5), ‘cognitively’ to be ‘human’ but feel ‘affectively’ as ‘divine’.

A further meaning of the term ‘Buddha’ is to refer to the underlying Buddha-nature within all, rather than to an individual being. Some forms of Mahayana Buddhism use the concept of the trikaya or ‘three bodies’ of Buddha. Buddha can appear in earthly form, as for example in Gautama, or in heavenly form, as the glorious beings called Buddhas (like Amitabha) or bodhisattvas (like Avalokiteshvara) who may appear in visions and can be prayed to, or the Dharmakaya or true form, the reality within or behind everything.
Many gods and goddesses and other categories of ‘supernatural’ beings appear in Buddhist texts, temples and practices, including Indian deities. However, these are best understood as another lifeform, inhabitants of the complex multidimensional universe in which we live. They may have limited powers to help (or hinder) humans with worldly things so can be prayed to. One can be reborn as a goddess or spirit being, but this is still rebirth into samsara and impermanent.

The Mahayana understanding of Buddha, especially ideas of the Dharmakaya, or the Buddha-nature within, can begin to sound a little like the concept of God in Christianity, if God is thought of as ‘being’ rather than ‘a being’, or like Brahman in some forms of Hinduism. However, there is no concept of a personal monotheistic God, transcendent and separate from the material world and humanity, which is his creation. A passage in the Pali Canon gently mocks the idea of a creator God, in a story about the god Brahma, who woke up just as a particular world cycle was beginning and imagined he was the cause of it. Even in Mahayana, the Dharmakaya form of Buddha is not a separate, transcendent being.

Prescientific Indian cosmology was much more complex than prescientific ideas in the West. As well as many lives, there are many worlds. Theravada cosmology describes 31 levels to the universe in three categories, the lower realm of desire (shared by the six states of human, gods, jealous gods, animals, ghosts and beings in hell), then more rarified forms of existence in the realm of form and the formless realm. All are impermanent, and although the historical Buddha refused to answer questions about eternity or infinity, the impression is given of beginningless change without need for a starting point, whether creation or big bang. Mahayana cosmology is even more complex. There are many universes, some are ‘Buddhafields’, universes in which a Buddha dwells, such as the Pure Land of Amida. As to whether any of this is even real, whereas Theravada tends to give the impression of relatively real but ever changing, Mahayana concepts such as ‘mind-only’ or ‘emptiness’ query the reality of the perceived cosmos more strongly, so that it might be more accurate to say it is unreal, or neither real nor unreal, or only relatively real.

The historical Buddha refused to answer many traditional ontological questions, or enter into many of the philosophical debates current at the time as they were distractions from the urgent task of saving beings from unnecessary further suffering. Soon after his time, Buddhists did begin to create more systematic philosophical treatments of Buddhist thought, but still always geared to liberation rather than philosophy for its own sake (somewhat similar to Marx’s opinion of previous philosophy, though Buddhist philosophy focuses more on changing ourselves rather than, or as a means to, changing the world). Traditional Indian philosophy does not show the same separation between ‘rational’ and ‘religious’ thinking that was made in postEnlightenment Western philosophy. They can only be mentioned briefly here, but Theravada philosophy starts with the Abhidhamma (further teaching) section of the Pali Canon, and its method of breaking everything down into components (dhammas). There were several other non-Mahayana, non-Theravada philosophies taught by types of Buddhism that no longer exist (18? 30?), one of the most interesting being the ‘Personalist’ who taught that although there is no ‘self’, the notion of a ‘person’ is required to explain continuity and karma/kamma from one life to the next. One important Mahayana philosophy is Madhyamaka, originating with Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita ‘Perfect Wisdom’ texts. Its central teaching is that all things, even dharmas/dhammas, the skandhas making up a human being, Buddhas, or central Buddhist teachings like the Four Noble Truths are sunya ‘empty’. What they are empty of is ‘svabhava’ or ‘own being’, separate, independent, necessary existence. Another is Yogachara ‘teaching of yoga’ also known as Cittamatra ‘mind-only’ which teaches that what we think of as reality is a mental construct. It analysed human consciousness into several levels including one called the ‘store consciousness’ in which the seeds of karmic actions are stored from one life to the next. An Indian-origin philosophy, known better by its Chinese name Hua-yen or ‘flower garland’ teaches the ‘total interpenetration of all things’. What all Mahayana philosophies have in common is that whereas Theravada philosophy implies that we have to escape from samsara into nibbana, in Mahayana, nirvana is seeing samsara for what it really is.