Thinker · TH-0400
The Buddha
The Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, was a teacher from the Shakya clan of the northern Indian plain whose teaching became the foundation of Buddhism. His…
On the Coordinates: 1.3.2 Personal Identity · 3.5 Value Theory · 6.20 Philosophy of Death +1 more
सिद्धार्थ गौतम
Also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Siddhattha Gotama, Shakyamuni, Gautama Buddha
c. 480 – 400 BCE (disputed) · Lumbini (in modern Nepal), Magadha and Kosala (northern India), Kushinagar
Traditions: Buddhist
The Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, was a teacher from the Shakya clan of the northern Indian plain whose teaching became the foundation of Buddhism. His dates are disputed; many scholars now place his death around 400 BCE. He wrote nothing, and his teaching is known through texts transmitted orally and later written down. At their centre are the four noble truths, which trace dissatisfaction (duḥkha) to craving, and the teaching of not-self, which denies a permanent self behind the changing components of a person.
Key ideas
- Life as ordinarily lived is marked by dissatisfaction (duḥkha), whose source is craving.
- Craving can cease, and the eightfold path leads to its cessation (nirvāṇa).
- No permanent self is found among the five aggregates that make up a person (anattā).
- All conditioned things arise dependently and are impermanent.
Major works
- No writings of his own; teachings recorded in the Pali Sutta Piṭaka, including the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta
- The Dhammapada (record of verses attributed to him)
- The Āgamas preserved in Chinese translation (parallel record of his discourses)
In the Book corner
- The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Dīgha Nikāya)
The first collection of the Sutta Piṭaka in the Pali Canon of Theravāda Buddhism, gathering thirty-four of the longest discourses traditionally attributed…
In the conversation
- Question Follow-up from my daughter: if every choice depends on conditions, is anyone free?
- Discussion Lashon hara forbids true gossip. Does that make sense in the age of the screenshot?
- Question What does dependent origination actually claim? My daughter asked and I had no answer
- Debate Outcomes rightly change how much we blame someone, even when luck decided them
- Discussion Advaita says the Self is not the doer. Is that an answer to the free will problem, or a way of leaving it?
- Question If Buddhism says there is no self, what exactly gets reborn?
- Debate Parfit was right: identity is not what matters in survival
- Discussion Camus and the Buddhists: two ways of refusing the question of life’s meaning
- Discussion One night at the delivery bed, tested against five traditions’ answers to what makes an act right
- Question Why do scholars keep saying “duty” is a bad translation of dharma?
- Debate The “false friend” warning about Hume and anattā is overstated
- Discussion Does contemplating death dissolve the fear, or does it just stop us arguing about it?
- Discussion Cārvāka and Epicurus, two ancient materialists at a deathbed
- Question Hume’s bundle and the Buddha’s no-self sound identical to me. What is the real difference?
- Discussion My grandmother’s Jōdo Shinshū, and why “grace” is not quite the word for other-power
- Question If there is no self, who has free will? Is there a Buddhist position at all?
- Debate Ageing is a disease, and medicine should treat it as one
- Question Is negative utilitarianism the most compassionate moral theory, or the most dangerous one?
- Discussion Rebirth without anyone reborn: the lamp that lights another lamp
- Question At three in the morning, does a first cause comfort anyone?
In the Journal
In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where The Buddha takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 1.3.2 Personal Identity Are you the same person you were at five?
- 3.5 Value Theory What would make your life go well, apart from being moral?
- 6.20 Philosophy of Death Can something be bad for you if you are not there for it?
- 6.21 Meaning in Life Does a life need a point, and where would it come from?