This article is one of the essays in my new book, On the Buddha Way with Zen Drawings. The book is composed of several essays and my drawings which represent core Buddhist notions.

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What am I doing exactly? A question I posed for myself in my former career as a psychother­apist, and now pose for myself in retirement to understand my meditation practice of nearly forty years.

What is my understanding of the teachings of the Buddhadharma? I believe it's what is common to all the major traditions of Buddhism. And what is that? The Three Marks of Existence, The Four Noble Truths, or, in my paraphrasing, The Four Essential Truths, and the Enlightened Eightfold Path. These are the fundamental principles that appear to be common to the Theravada/Vipassana, Zen, Tibetan, and Pure Land practices, though each tradition elaborates them in somewhat different ways.

Buddhist principles are often presented in the manner of revealed religious truth. Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha, is rarely discussed as a thinker or ancient philosopher in the manner of, say, Plato or Aristotle. But my own understanding of the teachings has always been along naturalistic lines. For example, however many translations you read of the Dhammapada's verses, what strikes you is their empirical and logical formulation. Today's western Buddhist teachers almost invariably emphasize and expound on the psychological and ethical implication of the Buddhas' teachings.

The teachings in the Pali Canon were first written down approximately 400 years after the historical Buddha's passing. When I read those suttas, I was struck by what appeared to be two different Buddha personalities, one expounding empirical observations of nature and human behavior conjoined with an ethical teaching based on empathy and compassion, and contra­posed to purely metaphysical teachings invoking different kinds of supernatural beings, heavens, hells, and a cosmology very like the Vedic/Hindu world constructions. It seems impossible to know now if these views were held by the same person.

I believe that sensitive to the suffering of animals and humans, the Buddha asked himself what he saw in the nature of reality that would explain the mass of suffering he observed. By in­tensely reflecting on that reality, he saw impermanence, and that all things are the result of causes and conditions: the first two marks of existence. These aspects of phenomenal existence produce suffering to an extent, but it's proximate cause consists in the ignorance and/or denial of them.

Had the Buddha only recognized impermanence and conditionality, he could have been accused of nihilism, i.e., there is no meaning in life and no moral order. And he was accused of this. But he didn't stop his analysis at that point. The Third Mark of existence is the suffering born of attachment to phenomena, specifically meaning a deluded attachment resulting in craving and clinging. If suffering exists, its existence is conditional. Clinging and craving can be attenuated or eliminated by understanding the nature of the attachment and the conditions of its existence. In teaching the non-denial of impermanence and conditionality, the Buddha saw a way to ethi­ cal behavior and liberation from suffering.

These are the apparent fundamental aspects of reality; impermanence, and that all phenom­ena are the result of causes and conditions. Stated this way, they are very general observational statements. They fall short of being scientific generalizations because there is no measurement of any kind or hypothesis-testing; yet they do provide a broad scope for understanding. They are empirical generalizations without specific parameters, i.e., exact analysis and measurement of specific causes and conditions. They do, however, provide an empirical basis for philosophic inquiry and analysis.

It was the conjoining of this analysis of reality with the emotional and behavioral responses of compassion, loving-kindness, altruistic joy, and equanimity that led to the Enlightened (Noble) Eightfold Path. These four Bhrama Viharas, or four Immeasurable Abidings, are the emotional components of enlightenment, and necessary mediators toward a wise and life affirming way of living. It is Right Understanding and Right Intention that lead the way to a fully worked out way of living a life of peace. There are many fine books on the Enlightened Eightfold Path. The Enlightened Eightfold Path are not exactly tech­nological/scientific statements either, they are rational prescriptions for the cure of existen­tial suffering.