* Four Noble Truths
* Noble Eightfold Path
* Law of Depending Origination
* Three Marks of Existence
* Rejection of infallibility of accepted scripture: teachings should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our experiences (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha )
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The core of the teachings seem to be the 4 noble truths and the 8-fold path (which is part of the 4 noble truths)... if you want to focus on the practice, or "path" then you can think of the 8-fold path as 3 groups:
Morality, Concentration, and Wisdom. These are important.
Morality means living a good life. This is the foundation for developing concentration. If someone only teaches morality, people will hear it in one ear and go out the other ear.
Concentration will also help you be moral. And it will help you with the next step of gaining insight. It helps in your mundane and supramundane endeavors.
Wisdom is really what's important. Developing wisdom will also help morality and concentration.
There's 3 kinds:
- Scriptural
- Intellectual
- Experiential
1) If you only believe what you read or what someone told you, that's good (if it's true). Good because others may not have been so lucky and might not know. It can point you in the right direction. But if you stop there you limit yourself.
2) Humans are rational beings, so they should think about it... but like a good lawyer you might convince "yourself" that "you" are right... this can be good but also can be limiting if you stop here.
3) The most important wisdom is experiential wisdom that you experience yourself - NOT the wisdom you hear about or read about or think about. The wisdom of an enlightened person or saint or sage is not your own wisdom. No one else can taste for you, only you can know what it tastes like.
I think these 3 are what's important, like 3 legs of a tripod, they help support each other, as you gain strength they work together.
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Four Noble Truths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths ):
1) Life involves Dukkha (roughly unsatisfactory)
2) The Cause of Dukkha (craving)
3) The End of Dukkha (it can be removed)
4) There is a Path out of Dukkha a.k.a. The Noble 8-Fold Path.
The 8-Fold Path could be grouped into (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path ):
1) Morality
2) Concentration
3) Wisdom/Insight
Wisdom (Panna):
1) Right View
2) Right Intention
Morality (Sila):
3) Right Speech
4) Right Action
5) Right Livelihood
Concentration (Samadhi):
6) Right Effort
7) Right Mindfulness
8) Right Concentration
Depending Origination
It's like 12 links in a chain, with one causing the next:
(1) Ignorance
(2) Mental dispositions
(3) Consciousness
(4) Mind and Matter
(5) Sense doors
(6) Contact
(7) Feeling
(8) Desire
(9) Attachment
(10) Becoming
(11) Birth
(12) Old age and death
Because of ignorance, mental dispositions arise, and thus does consciousness which in turn causes mind and matter. This mind/matter phenomenon (your body) has sense doors, and inevitably they will come in contact with something. The contact causes a feeling to arise to which you tend to have a craving, clinging, then happens becoming, birth, then age & death.
Three Marks of existence
1) Dukkha - Suffering - Nothing in the physical/mental world can bring lasting satisfaction.
2) Anicca - Impermanence - all conditioned things are in a constant state of flux... "everything changes"
3) Anatta - No Self - There's no central unchanging core or essence (soul) that lasts forever in the physical/mental world... everything changes, remember?