In this selection from Buddhist Teachings in India, Johannes Bronkhorst offers a detailed account and analysis of the Buddha’s fundamental teachings on the four noble truths.

Mark explores in some detail those core teachings of the Buddha that set the stage for all subsequent development: the four noble truths, the twelvefold chain of dependent origination and the eightfold path to liberation. What reason is there to believe that any of these doctrines are correct, or that they might help us overcome suffering? Central to the Buddha’s teachings is the claim that there is no self, and that it is ignorance of this fact that lies at the root of suffering. But how do we come to think there is such a thing as a self, and what role might that play in a happiness-seeking project if that turns out to be a kind of Ponzi scheme?

In this selection from Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron, we learn important facts about the history and spread of Buddhism in Asia.