| One of the common criticisms of Buddhism is that it is | | | | I think that the fundamental teaching of Buddhism, the |
| a pessimistic way of life. The fundamental teaching of | | | | one from which all the others where elaborated is this: |
| the Buddha says that all in life is suffering. Sounds quite | | | | Nothing has a permanent identity. The Buddha said that |
| pessimistic? But that is only the starting point of his | | | | nothing has a self. What does this mean? It means |
| teaching. From that claim, he starts to elaborate and he | | | | that nothing has an identity that endures from one |
| says he has the solution for that. If you know a | | | | moment to the next. In less than a second you change |
| Buddhist person, you know that they don't have a | | | | and you aren't the same person. Everything changes |
| negative way of looking their lives. Buddhists live with | | | | and passes away. If everything is going to end |
| certain kind of lightness and buoyancy. I'll tell you why | | | | anyway, why worry about it? |
| they are like that. | | | | The claim that all is suffering is based in this. We are |
| Real Buddhists, the ones that have understood the | | | | deluded to think that things have a self or identity, and |
| core principles, show a way of life that is admirable for | | | | we attach to them. We attach to ourselves and we |
| Westerners. They look like they don't worry about | | | | have desires. This is what causes suffering. What is |
| anything. Take the Dalai Lama for example. He is the | | | | the final solution according to the Buddha's teaching? |
| very picture of peace, with his great smile. They are | | | | Nirvana, which is achieved by understanding the true |
| like that because they take into practice what the | | | | nature of reality, including the doctrine that nothing has |
| Buddha said about the nature of the self, or the | | | | a self. |
| absence of nature of it. | | | | |