Top 4 Ideas That Expose If a Buddhist Teaching is Legit!

I've been learning about Buddhism for a hot minute now. Many of the teachings are quite dense, for the scholarly or philosophical, drinking coffee at 2 in the afternoon and discussing the everyday semantics of Carl Jung. Dense types that like to discuss atomic particles and wave functions or Popehat's Law of Goats or the philosophical underpinnings of epistemology or bicycles. Just kidding about the Law of Goats. I thought that was funny, so I threw it in. If you didn't know what it was before, and you do now, you're welcome. I told a friend to ask Chat GPT about the turning of the wheels of Dharma and the gobbledygook that came out was... intense. Chat GPT regurgitates what it reads in the same tone and many of the same words. Since most Buddhist scriptures are quite heady, the default for a Chat GPT response will be heady as well.

I don't think this should be difficult stuff. I think it should be broken down for the Tik Tok generation. Why not? Problem is..., what if I say the wrong thing? What if I don't know what I'm talking about? Well, good news! There's an app for that! Okay, so I wouldn't use that app even if it existed, and it probably does in the form of AI chat bots. I like to use my own brain, because I'm stubborn and I'm used to it. So, I won't use this Chat GPT guy, or Claude, or whatever he/she/they are called, to evaluate my writing. But there is something I can use! Once upon a time, Buddhists made a list of what makes a teaching legit. This article is about that list.

THE TOP 4 IDEAS THAT EXPOSE IF A BUDDHIST TEACHING IS LEGIT

#1. All Compounded Things are Impermanent. See what I mean about the big words? Basically, if it has pieces, then its existence relies on its pieces, and it's going to change. Can't stay the same forever if it has little bits to it. As you know, everything has atoms. Entropy is a thing. Everything decays over time. Pieces break. Pieces break off. New pieces grow in the old pieces' places. Say that 5 times fast. Even time has pieces, so time isn't permanent either. Nothing in this world exists on its own. Everything in this world is dependent on its pieces, so everything in this world is impermanent.

#2. All Contaminated Things are Suffering. "Blech", you say, "I don't want my stuff contaminated. Who wants that? Little bits floating in my coffee? No thank you." --- Nope, not what that means. Contaminated with what? Emotions. And half of you said, "Gross, emotions. I want to be a robot. But not one of the boring ones that work at The Boring Company, making tunnels and whatnot. I want to be one of the shiny robots with a gleaming steel body and a brain the size of a planet that can save the world and rescue puppies and kittens out of the trees and have all the other robots envy them and tell them how cool they are and go on TV and get elected president of the world and also I'll appear on a cereal box and have a car named after me!" What was that? You didn't say any of that and you don't know anyone else who would? I think there are a lot of people who would want to be a robot if they didn't ever feel sad or angry or worried anymore. We know the "negative" emotions feel awful. We don't like those. Positive emotions also lead to pain. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer (sorry Debbie), but even if you get what you're looking for, either it's not what you thought and you're disappointed, or it is and you lose it which makes you sad, or you get it and you keep it but you're scared you're going to lose it. You won the lottery, but you ended up in the newspaper and you're being harassed by people on the street, and your ex is stalking you. Turns out you miss your job and your normal life. You won the lottery, and you blew it all in a year. You won the lottery, now how many hours do you stay up at night worrying that you're not good enough to make the right decisions with your money? Even the good stuff has its issues. All emotions are suffering. Yes, even love and joy, if contaminated with the goal or craving to possess it for oneself.

#3. All Phenomena Are Empty/All Phenomena Are Empty of Self. Because everything will change, and everything passes, life is like a dream. The suffering is real, but the things that are happening both are and are not. I think of this like a video game that gets played over and over again with infinite lives and character changes. That's my theory. There seem to be several theories about what this specifically means, but the general idea is that everything is dependent, and everything is always changing. Nothing has an intrinsic existence, not even ourselves. Note: This doesn't mean that our lives are meaningless and we should be filled with a devil-may-care attitude. Rather, it means that we will keep suffering through our many lives, making the wrong decisions over and over again, feeling the same pains over and over again, unless we change. It's like having Thanksgiving dinner every day with your family and your family either fights every day, or gets along every day, for the next 500 or 500,000 years. I'd rather not be fighting. I'd rather not be holding my tongue and building resentment, either. The better option? To work on resolving our issues so we can enjoy the time we have.

#4. Nirvana Is Peace, or sometimes: Nirvana Is Beyond Extremes. Nirvana is available here and now. It's not a special place or a special time. If we can cut through the noise, we will experience it. If we fully grasp the true nature of reality, we will be truly connected, and we will experience bliss. Nirvana is also beyond conceptualization, meaning we can't describe it, and we can't reach it only by understanding our way into it. It can only be attained by removing personal obstacles - like guilt, attachment, and anger. To remove that which hides peace from us, we must rid ourselves of the view of duality. The view of duality is basically how almost all of us were all raised. Duality says, "I am me, and you are you." Buddhism says, "We're all living together, and we all are affecting each other, making each other happy or miserable or something in between. We are a unit." By meditating on Buddhist teachings, we can sense the truth. Through truth we find Nirvana. We don't need to become a perfect being or ascend to a heaven. Our true nature is beautiful. We only need to clean off the dirt covering our pure selves. Then, we can become enlightened and reach Nirvana.

These are the 4 Seals of Buddhism. These mark legitimate teachings.