DR. VICTOR A. GUNASEKARA

Preface to the Third Edition The first edition of this booklet appeared in November 1982 under the title Basic Buddhism: an

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO BASIC BUDDHISM The term Buddhism is now used to denote the teaching of the Buddha, a historical person who

CHAPTER 2: THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA The founder of Buddhism was an historical person, Siddhatta Gtama who lived in

CHAPTER 3: THE BASIC TEACHING OF THE BUDDHA Buddhism recognises no creeds whose uncritical acceptance is expected of its followers.

CHAPTER 4: THE BUDDHIST PATH The Buddha’s path of practice is called the Noble Eightfold path. The eight components of

CHAPTER 5: The Role of Meditation We have seen that the Buddhist path consists of wisdom/knowledge, ethical conduct, and mental

CHAPTER 6: THE BUDDHIST ATTITUDE TO GOD It is first of all necessary to establish what is meant by the

CHAPTER 7: THE BUDDHIST ATTITUDE TO MAN In considering the Buddhist view of man we are essentially looking at the

CHAPTER 8: KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND ENLIGHTENMENT The Buddha traced the root cause of suffering to ignorance; so the search for

CHAPTER 9: THE DOCTRINES OF KARMA AND REBIRTH The Buddhist doctrine of kamma [karma] (“deeds”, “actions”), and the closely related

CHAPTER 10: BUDDHIST COSMOLOGY AND NIBBANA The Buddhist scriptures contain a cosmology of the Universe which provide an interesting contrast

CHAPTER 11: BUDDHISM AND THE MODERN WORLD The Buddha delivered the fundamental principles of Dhamma some 2500 years ago. Initially