IA quick read in five sentences
Buddhism began with a real person, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived in what is now northern India and southern Nepal around the fifth century BCE, and what he claimed to have found was not a god but a way to bring suffering to an end. The core of the religion is packed into the Four Noble Truths: there is suffering in life, suffering has a cause, suffering can cease, and there is a path to its ceasing. That path is the Noble Eightfold Path, eight strands concerning view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration, walked all at once rather than climbed like a staircase. Buddhism holds that all things are impermanent, that all things arise through conditions, and that no fixed self sits behind them: these are the Three Marks of Existence. The destination is called Nirvana, whose root meaning is extinguishing, that is, putting out the fires of greed, hatred and delusion, not a heaven to ascend to.
From that core, Buddhism spread across Asia and then to the West, splitting into many branches with scriptures in three languages and with images and rituals that differ widely. The Vietnamese mostly received it by way of China, so Vietnamese temples enshrine Amitabha Buddha, chant sutras in Chinese characters and are familiar with Avalokiteshvara (Quán Thế Âm) in female form. The Thai, the Burmese and the Lao follow a different stream, chant in Pali and have none of those figures in their shrine halls. Both are Buddhism. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020 the world had about 324 million Buddhists, more than 4 percent of the global population.
IIThe setting: India in the sixth century BCE
No religion falls from the sky. In the sixth and fifth centuries BCE the Ganges plain was changing fast: iron came into common use, forests became fields, cities rose, minted coins circulated, and small tribal republics were swallowed one by one by large kingdoms such as Magadha and Kosala. People left their villages, and the questions that had ready answers in village sacrifice suddenly had no one to answer them.
Brahmanism and the four castes
The religious order of the day was Brahmanism, built on the Vedas, a body of sacred texts in ancient Sanskrit passed down orally for centuries before being written down. Its core was sacrifice: perform the rite correctly, recite the words correctly, offer the right things, and the cosmic order is maintained. But only one class of people could perform those rites, and that is where the four castes were bound into religion: the Brahmins were the priests who held the monopoly on sacrifice, the Kshatriyas were kings and warriors, the Vaishyas were merchants and farmers, the Shudras were the serving class, and outside the four stood a group regarded as impure. Caste came by birth and could not be changed within a lifetime.
The Shramana movement
Set against this was the Shramana movement, from the Sanskrit sramana, whose root meaning is one who strives: people who left home, family and occupation entirely, lived by alms, did not accept the authority of the Vedas, and needed no Brahmin as an intermediary between themselves and the absolute. In that atmosphere, a person who found an answer on his own and then stood up to teach it was something society accepted. Siddhartha Gautama stepped out of precisely this movement.
The orthodox mainstream, built on the Vedas and sacrifice, tied to the four castes. It later evolved into what is now called Hinduism.
A layer of philosophical texts within the Vedic tradition, teaching an eternal self. Buddhism later denied exactly this point.
Founded by Mahavira, in almost the same period and region. Radical non-harming and strict asceticism. It still exists in India today.
Placed side by side like this, it becomes clear why Buddhism arose exactly when it did: it was one of many answers to a single question hanging over society. What made it last longer than most of the movements of its time comes down to two things. First, it opened the door of the Sangha, the monastic community, to every caste, and rank within the Sangha was counted by years since ordination, not by lineage. Second, it avoided both of the extremes then in fashion, neither indulging in worldly pleasure nor mortifying the body like the ascetic groups, and chose what it called the Middle Way.
IIIThe Buddha, Shakyamuni
The word Phật 佛 is a shortened transliteration of the Sanskrit buddha, meaning one who has awakened. It is a title, not a personal name. His given name was Siddhartha, his family name Gautama, and he belonged to the Shakya clan. The title Shakyamuni means the sage of the Shakyas.
The tradition itself holds that Queen Maya gave birth to the prince in the garden of Lumbini, and that the newborn at once took seven steps, a lotus blooming under each. His father, King Suddhodana, hearing a prophecy that his son would become either a universal monarch or a renunciant, kept him inside the palace, shielded from every sight of suffering. On reaching adulthood the prince went out through the four city gates on four occasions and met in turn an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and finally a wandering ascetic with a serene bearing. The first three sights showed what no one escapes, the fourth showed that there is a way out. That night he left the palace, at about twenty-nine years of age. For the next six years he studied meditation and then practised austerities, starving himself to skin and bone without getting anywhere. He abandoned asceticism, accepted a bowl of milk rice from the maiden Sujata, then sat beneath the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya and vowed not to rise until he had found the answer. That night he overcame the assaults of Mara and saw what brings suffering to an end. He sought out his five former companions at the Deer Park near Varanasi and gave his first sermon on the Four Noble Truths, called the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma. For the remaining forty-five years he walked and taught throughout the Ganges basin, founding a Sangha for both men and women. At the age of eighty he entered final Nirvana at Kushinagar.
Historians can verify that the firmest physical evidence for the historical Buddha is the Ashoka pillar at Lumbini. According to UNESCO, Emperor Ashoka made a pilgrimage there in 249 BCE and had a stone pillar erected with an inscription in Brahmi script confirming this as the Buddha's birthplace. The UNESCO record also notes that the site preserves brick foundations, remains of monasteries and stupas dating from the third century BCE onwards. On dating, the traditions differ and no consensus has been reached. The Theravada tradition places him at about 623 to 543 BCE, and UNESCO records that figure. Western scholarship once corrected this by sixty or seventy years, putting his death at around 486 or 487 BCE. More recently most scholars have moved it later still, placing the Buddha's death in the range of roughly 420 to 380 BCE, following the findings of the symposium on the dating of the Buddha chaired by Heinz Bechert in 1988. No figure is accepted by all sides. It is also worth knowing that the oldest Pali texts record his teachings far more than his life, and a continuous biography with all the details of the four gates appeared centuries later.
The commonest misunderstanding is to treat the Buddha as a creator god. In Buddhist teaching itself, he did not create the world, does not govern it, does not decide anyone's fate, and asks no one to worship him in order to be saved. He is described as a human being who found a way and then pointed it out, and he himself grew old, fell ill and gave up the body like everyone else.
IVA timeline of two and a half thousand years
From the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma to the arrival of the Sangha in the West is more than two thousand five hundred years. The further back one goes, the wider the margin of error in the dates. Where sources disagree, as with the year the Pali Canon was written down or the dates of Bodhidharma, this library says so plainly.
- Thế kỷ 5 TCNAwakening and the first turning of the wheelEnlightenment beneath the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, then the first sermon at the Deer Park. The date is still debated, with a range from the 6th to the 4th century BCE.
- Ngay sau khi Phật nhập niết bànThe First CouncilThe tradition holds that five hundred Arhats led by Mahakashyapa gathered at Rajagriha and recited the Buddha's teachings together. There was still no written text. About a hundred years later the Second Council at Vaishali split the Sangha into two branches.
- 268 tới 232 TCNEmperor AshokaAfter the Kalinga war of around 260 BCE, the Mauryan emperor renounced conquest by force, had edicts carved on rocks and pillars across his empire, sponsored the Third Council and sent missions far afield. Around 247 BCE the monk Mahinda carried the religion to the island of Lanka.
- Thế kỷ 1 TCNThe Pali Canon is written downIn Sri Lanka the monks wrote the three baskets onto palm leaves. Sources give different years, some around 32 to 29 BCE, others around 100 BCE.
- Thế kỷ 1Buddhism enters ChinaLegend tells that Emperor Ming of Han dreamed of a golden man and sent envoys to the western regions, founding the White Horse Temple at Luoyang around 60 to 68 CE. Scholars are cautious, because the text recording this story was written three hundred years later.
- Thế kỷ 2 tới 3The Luy Lâu centre in Giao ChâuLuy Lâu, now in Bắc Ninh province, lay on the trade route linking India, Central Asia and China and is recorded as one of the earliest Buddhist centres in the region. The monk Khương Tăng Hội (Kang Senghui) was active here in the 3rd century.
- Khoảng thế kỷ 5 tới 6Bodhidharma comes to ChinaThe tradition honours this Indian monk as the first patriarch of Chan, the school that later spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam as Zen and Thiền. The historical record is very thin and the texts give conflicting dates.
- 629 tới 645Xuanzang's journey for the scripturesThe Tang dynasty monk travelled for sixteen years through Central Asia to India, studied at Nalanda and brought back to Chang'an, by one count, 657 texts. This is the historical core behind the novel Journey to the West.
- Thế kỷ 7 tới 8Buddhism reaches TibetKing Songtsen Gampo took the throne in 629 and opened the way for contact. Under King Trisong Detsen, who reigned from 755 to 797, Buddhism became the state religion, and Samye monastery was built around 779.
- 1193Nalanda declines, Buddhism fades in IndiaThe university of Nalanda declined after the attacks of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, usually associated with the name of Bakhtiyar Khalji, and its monks were killed or fled to Nepal, Tibet and China. The decline did not happen in a single day: the Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin, who reached the site around 1235, still found a few classes being held. Historians regard this as the final blow rather than the sole cause: Indian Buddhism by then had concentrated too heavily in a few great monasteries and lost its footing among the villagers.
- Thế kỷ 19 tới 20Buddhism enters the WestThe Pali Text Society was founded in England in 1881 and began translating the Pali Canon into English. In 1893, at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, the Japanese Zen master Shaku Soen and the Sri Lankan lay Buddhist Anagarika Dharmapala presented Buddhism to a Western public for the first time.
VThree routes of expansion
Buddhism did not spread by conquest but along trade routes, diplomatic routes and pilgrim routes. Three directions branch out from India, each taking on a different face, to the point that an outsider might easily take them for three separate religions.
Southward
This route set out earliest, in the time of Emperor Ashoka, to the island of Lanka and then along the coast into mainland South-East Asia. This branch kept the Pali canon almost intact, so it is now regarded as the most conservative in matters of text. It calls itself Theravada, a Pali word meaning the teaching of the elders. Its ideal figure is the Arhat, one who has extinguished every defilement by his own effort.
Northward along the Silk Road
From north-western India, the religion followed the camel caravans across Central Asia into China, and then on to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. This was the route of the most translation, since Indian thought had to be expressed in Chinese characters and in the ready-made concepts of Confucianism and Taoism. This branch carried the Mahayana sutras, Sanskrit for the great vehicle, and placed the Bodhisattva ideal above all: not hurrying into Nirvana alone, but vowing to stay and liberate all beings. From it came the Zen (Chan), Pure Land and Tiantai schools.
Up to the high plateau
The third route came later, from the 7th and 8th centuries, crossing the Himalaya into Tibet and then into Mongolia. Because it came late, it received the whole final phase of Indian Buddhism, both the Mahayana sutras and the esoteric system called Vajrayana, Sanskrit for the diamond vehicle. Its hallmarks are a very close bond between teacher and disciple and the lineages of reincarnated masters.
| Route | Language of scripture | Name of the tradition | Countries today |
|---|---|---|---|
| South: Sri Lanka, then mainland South-East Asia | Pali | Theravada, also called the Southern transmission | Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and part of the Khmer community in southern Vietnam |
| North: Central Asia, China, then Korea, Japan, Vietnam | Chinese characters | Mahayana, also called the Northern transmission | China, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore |
| Up to the plateau: Tibet, then Mongolia | Tibetan | Vajrayana, commonly called Tibetan Buddhism, within the Mahayana framework | Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, the Himalayan regions of India |
VICore teachings
The Four Noble Truths
These four truths are arranged exactly the way a physician works: name the illness, find its cause, determine whether it can be cured, then write the prescription. The truth of suffering says that life contains suffering. The truth of its origin says suffering has a source, chiefly craving and clinging, with ignorance behind them. The truth of cessation says that when that source is extinguished, suffering ceases with it, which is to say the illness can be cured. The truth of the path points out the way.
The word suffering, the translation that misleads most
The Pali word translated as suffering is dukkha. Squeezing it into a single word leads many people to conclude that Buddhism is pessimistic, that it sees life as a sea of suffering and nothing more. The root meaning is broader. One common image is a wheel whose hub does not fit its axle: the cart still runs, but it always grinds, always jolts. Translated more closely, dukkha is nearer to unsatisfactory, unable to stay still than to pain. It has three layers: the obvious pain of illness and loss. The suffering that sits inside pleasure itself, because a delicious meal is not suffering but being unable to hold on to it is. And the subtlest layer, that whatever comes about through conditions is by its nature precarious.
The Noble Eightfold Path
The eight strands are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, grouped into three trainings: ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom. The word right translates samma, whose sense is closer to correct and complete, and does not carry the meaning of orthodox as opposed to heretical. The easy mistake is to think one must finish step one before moving to step two. In fact the eight strands are walked together and lift one another, like eight strands twisted into a single rope.
The Three Marks of Existence
The Vietnamese term calls these seals, in the sense of a stamp used to check whether a teaching is genuinely the Buddha's Dharma. The three marks are impermanence, meaning everything that arises through conditions changes without pause. Suffering, in the sense just explained. And non-self. Most listeners can accept the first two at once. The third is the hardest point in the whole religion.
Non-self
The Pali is anatta, literally the absence of atta, that is, of the eternal self which the Upanishadic tradition of the day affirmed. The common distortion is to turn non-self into nihilism, into the line that nothing exists so nothing matters. The teaching says otherwise. Buddhism analyses a person into the five aggregates (skandhas): form is the body and senses, feeling is sensation, perception is recognising and naming, mental formations are volition and psychological habit, and consciousness is awareness. All five are real and in operation. What is denied is a sixth party standing behind them and owning them. Take a cart: wheels, frame, axle and seat are all there, but there is no cart existing apart from those parts.
Dependent origination
Dependent origination answers the question that springs up right after non-self: if there is no self, what links one moment to the next. The principle is contained in the formula: when this exists, that comes to be, and when this ceases, that ceases. A candle flame is not a thing, it is a process that needs wax, wick and air, and remove one condition and it is gone. One notable consequence: within the framework of dependent origination there is no first cause, and this is where Buddhism differs fundamentally from religions with a creator.
Karma and rebirth
Karma, from the Sanskrit karma, literally means nothing more than action. It is not a punishment, not a ledger kept by anyone, and no court sits in judgement. Buddhism stresses intention: only deliberate action creates karma, repeated action becomes a habit, and the habit draws its corresponding circumstances after it. Rebirth, or samsara in Sanskrit, has the root sense of wandering on. Here non-self comes in again: no soul flies from one body to the next, there is only the passing of a flame, one candle lighting another.
Nirvana
Nirvana in Sanskrit, nibbana in Pali, literally means blowing out. What is extinguished are the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion. It needs saying clearly: Nirvana is not a heaven to ascend to. The Buddhist cosmos does contain heavens and gods, but those realms still lie within samsara, and the gods too exhaust their merit and are reborn, so reaching them is not liberation. Nirvana is a state of cessation, not a place.
There is suffering, suffering has a cause, suffering can cease, there is a path to its cessation.
Eight strands grouped into three trainings: conduct, concentration, wisdom. Walked together, not in steps.
Three marks by which to recognise the Buddha's Dharma: impermanence, suffering, non-self.
Everything arises through conditions. There is no first cause.
Deliberate action and the momentum it leaves behind. Not a punishment, not a rigid fate.
Root meaning: blowing out. A state, not a place.
VIIBuddhas and Bodhisattvas
Step into a Vietnamese temple and you meet a crowded shrine hall, in which three different ranks are often lumped together. A Buddha is one who has awakened completely, found the path by himself and shown it to others. An Arhat is one who has extinguished every defilement and ended rebirth, but who followed a path someone else opened. This is the ideal of the Theravada tradition. A Bodhisattva, Sanskrit bodhisattva, is one who has vowed to become a Buddha but has not yet entered Nirvana, choosing to remain within samsara to liberate all beings. This is the ideal of the Mahayana tradition.
| Name | Who they are | How to recognise the image |
|---|---|---|
| Shakyamuni | The historical Buddha, founder of the religion | Plain monastic robe, no ornaments, hair in tight curls. The right hand reaches down to touch the earth, the earth-touching gesture, or holds an alms bowl. |
| Amitabha (A Di Đà) | Buddha of the Western Pure Land, the centre of Pure Land practice | Usually standing, hand extended downward in a gesture of welcome, or seated in the meditation gesture on a lotus throne. Flanked by Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprapta. |
| The Medicine Buddha (Dược Sư) | Buddha of healing, of the Lapis Lazuli realm in the east | Holds a medicine jar or a bowl of medicine. In many places the body is painted lapis blue. |
| Maitreya (Di Lặc) | The Bodhisattva who will become a Buddha in a future age | In Indian and Tibetan art: crowned, seated on a chair with both legs down as if about to rise. In Vietnamese temples he is instead the pot-bellied laughing figure, modelled on the monk Budai (Bố Đại). |
| Avalokiteshvara (Quán Thế Âm) | Bodhisattva of compassion | Holds a vase of nectar and a willow branch, with a tiny image of Amitabha on the crown. Also appears in the thousand-armed, thousand-eyed form. |
| Kshitigarbha (Địa Tạng) | Bodhisattva who vowed to descend into the hells to rescue beings, linked with rites for the dead | Wears a plain monastic robe, without the jewelled necklaces of other Bodhisattvas. Holds a ringed staff and a wish-fulfilling jewel. |
| Manjushri (Văn Thù) | Bodhisattva of wisdom | Raises a sword that cuts through ignorance, the other hand holding a sutra on a lotus. Rides a lion. |
| Samantabhadra (Phổ Hiền) | Bodhisattva of practice and vows | Rides a white elephant, usually standing opposite Manjushri on either side of Shakyamuni. |
A question often asked: why does Avalokiteshvara appear in female form in Vietnam and China when the original Sanskrit sutras describe a male figure. Chinese images of the Wei and Jin period are still clearly male. Scholars generally see the Tang dynasty as the transitional stage, and by the Song dynasty the female form had settled. The sutra itself opened the way: the Universal Gate chapter says this Bodhisattva manifests in thirty-three bodies according to whichever body a person needs to meet, and among them is a female body. Then Chinese popular religion already had a need for a close, sheltering protector who could hear the prayers of mothers and wives, and out of this came the form of Guanyin the giver of children. Finally, the legend of Princess Miaoshan attached a female life story to this Bodhisattva and spread very widely.
The Vietnamese habitually call every statue in a temple a Buddha. That habit erases a distinction the teaching itself takes seriously: a Bodhisattva is not a Buddha. Avalokiteshvara, Kshitigarbha, Manjushri, Samantabhadra and Maitreya are all Bodhisattvas. Maitreya alone is said to become a Buddha, but in a future age, not now. A further confusion follows: calling the pot-bellied laughing statue Maitreya Buddha and rubbing its belly for wealth.
VIIIScriptures
The Buddhist library is called the Tripitaka, Sanskrit for three baskets, because in ancient times the inscribed palm leaves were kept in baskets. The three baskets are the Sutras, the discourses of the Buddha and his chief disciples. The Vinaya, the rules and daily discipline of the Sangha. And the Abhidharma, the analysis and commentary composed by later masters.
| Canon | Language | When it took shape | Tradition using it | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pali Canon | Pali | Written down in Sri Lanka around the 1st century BCE. Sources give different years, some around 32 to 29 BCE, others around 100 BCE | Theravada, the Southern transmission | The complete three baskets of one tradition. The Sutra basket alone is divided into five collections, the five Nikayas. |
| The Chinese Canon | Chinese characters | Translated continuously from around the 2nd century to the Song dynasty. First complete woodblock printing in 983 | Northern transmission: China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam | The standard edition today is the Taisho Tripitaka, printed in Tokyo from 1924 to 1934. Sources count it differently: some give 55 main volumes with 2,184 texts plus 45 supplementary volumes, others give the whole at 100 volumes with 3,360 works. |
| The Tibetan Canon | Tibetan | Translated from the 7th century onward and edited into a collection in the 14th century, largely the work of Buton (1290 to 1364) | Vajrayana: Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia | The Kangyur is the word of the Buddha, about 108 volumes. The Tengyur is the commentaries, about 224 volumes with 3,626 texts. Many of these have lost their Sanskrit originals. |
Out of that enormous body, the texts Vietnamese Buddhists chant daily can be counted on one hand. The Heart Sutra is the shortest and the most chanted, packing the teaching of emptiness into about two hundred and sixty Chinese characters and ending with the mantra 揭諦揭諦. The Amitabha Sutra describes the Pure Land and the practice of reciting the Buddha's name, and is the main chant of Pure Land practitioners. The Universal Gate Sutra is in fact a chapter of the Lotus Sutra, on the thirty-three manifestations of Avalokiteshvara, and is often chanted for blessings and peace. The Kshitigarbha Sutra deals with filial duty and the deliverance of the departed, and is tied to the Vu Lan festival of the seventh lunar month. The Diamond Sutra belongs to the same Prajnaparamita family as the Heart Sutra but is longer, and is the text associated with Zen.
IXMantras, mudras and the swastika
A mantra 咒, also called a true word, from the Sanskrit mantra, is a formula kept in its original Sanskrit sound and not translated. The scriptures call such formulas dharani, from the Sanskrit dharani, whose root meaning is that which holds. They are left untranslated because the ancients believed that translation loses the power of the sound, just as a lullaby translated into another language no longer puts the child to sleep.
What sets these apart from the spells of petitionary religions is the direction they point. A petitionary spell points outward: it summons spirits, commands ghost soldiers, binds a power to the reciter's will. A Buddhist mantra points inward: a phrase is repeated until the mind settles and the three actions of body, speech and mind gather into one. In Esoteric Buddhism this goes together with hand gestures and visualisation, called the union of the three mysteries. In everyday life, that boundary has blurred considerably.
The six-syllable mantra of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, literally the jewel in the lotus: mani is the jewel, standing for the mind of awakening, and padme is the lotus, standing for the human heart. Tibetans carve it on rock faces and prayer wheels. Vietnamese meet it on prayer beads.
Its full title is the Dharani of the Vast, Perfect, Unimpeded Great Compassionate Heart of the Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. The version common in Vietnam has 84 lines, is tied to Avalokiteshvara's vow to relieve suffering, and is the mantra most recited in the daily services of Mahayana temples.
Its full title is the Dharani for Uprooting All Karmic Obstacles and Attaining Rebirth in the Pure Land. It belongs to the Pure Land tradition and is directed toward Amitabha Buddha and the Western Pure Land. The Vietnamese recite it at memorial services and funerals.
In Sino-Vietnamese it reads yết đế yết đế, ba la yết đế, ba la tăng yết đế, bồ đề tát bà ha. In Sanskrit it is gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha, meaning gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone completely to the other shore, awakening, so be it. It closes the Heart Sutra, the text chanted in every Vietnamese temple.
Mudras
A mudra 印, from the Sanskrit mudra, is a hand gesture. Look at the images in a main hall and each has its own: the palm held out forward is the gesture of fearlessness, meaning do not be afraid. Two hands resting one on the other, palms up, in the lap is the gesture of meditation. Thumb and forefinger joined in a circle is the gesture of turning the wheel of the Dharma. A mudra is not magic but body language, telling the person before the image what the image is saying.
The swastika
The character vạn 卍 is an ancient and legitimate symbol of Buddhism. The Vietnamese read it as vạn, meaning ten thousand, with the sense of ten thousand blessings. In Sanskrit it is svastika, whose root meaning is well-being or good fortune. In the Mahayana sutras this mark lies on the Buddha's chest. It has been present in India, China, Japan and Vietnam for thousands of years, that is, long before the German Nazi Party came into being, and today it is still carved on the three-arched gates, the statue bases and the sutra covers of Vietnamese temples. As to its direction of rotation, scholars still debate it and Vietnamese temples use both. What is agreed is that whichever way it turns, the swastika stands for compassion and wisdom. The form usually seen in temples is set upright, its four arms parallel to the ground. The left-facing 卍 is the common form in East Asia, and the right-facing 卐 is also found.
This is a place to draw the distinction clearly and calmly. The emblem of the German Nazi Party, called the Hakenkreuz in German, literally the hooked cross, is drawn tilted at forty-five degrees, filled in black, and set inside a white disc on the red field of that party's flag. The temple swastika is set upright and carries the meaning of good fortune. They differ in angle, in colour, in orientation, and entirely in meaning. Stating this fact is not meant to condemn anyone, only so that when you see the swastika on a temple roof you know exactly what it is.
XRites and practice
Buddhism has no single obligatory rite that every follower must perform, no rule that says on this day at this hour do this. What is regarded as fundamental lies in three parts: ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom. Ritual is the shell that gives those three a place in daily life. It is not an end in itself.
The entry into the religion: accepting the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha as one's refuge and receiving a Dharma name from one's teacher. Not a baptism, but a declaration of the path one has chosen.
Five undertakings of the lay follower: not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to lie, not to take intoxicants. Once taken they are kept for life, and how well one keeps them is for each person to know.
Reading the sutras aloud to the beat of the wooden fish, at the morning and evening services. The Vietnamese chant the Heart Sutra, the Amitabha Sutra and the Universal Gate Sutra most of all. The chanting is not for the Buddha to hear but for the one chanting.
Repeating the name Nam mô A Di Đà Phật (Homage to Amitabha Buddha), counted on prayer beads or recited silently while walking. The practice of the Pure Land tradition, the easiest entry for busy people and the most common in Vietnamese homes.
Sitting still, following the breath or contemplating a chosen subject. Theravada has calm and insight meditation from the Pali Canon, Mahayana has the meditation of the Zen school. Meditation requires no prior belief.
Five points touching the ground: both knees, both elbows and the forehead. The temple teaches that this is lowering the ego, not grovelling for favours. Usually three prostrations, for the Three Jewels.
Presenting incense, flowers, lamps, fruit and water to the Three Jewels, and food to the Sangha. The sutras rank the offering of one's own practice highest, above any material gift.
Lay followers go to the temple and take eight precepts for one day and one night, practising the life of a renunciant. To the five precepts are added: no garlands, ornaments, singing or dancing. No sleeping on high or luxurious beds. No eating after midday. Tradition sets six days of the lunar month for this.
Monastics and lay followers
These two groups differ in degree, not in destination. The monastics are the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, monks and nuns, who shave their heads, wear the robe of the Sangha, live in the temple, keep a code of several hundred rules, and do not marry. The lay followers are the upasakas, householders who still work and raise children, keep the five precepts and visit the temple on the full moon and new moon. The sutras do not rank lay followers lower in their capacity for awakening, but they recognise that the two groups live under different conditions and so are asked for different things. In Vietnam the two lean on each other: the temple teaches and performs rites, and the laity make offerings and carry most of the charitable work.
XISchools
After the Buddha entered final Nirvana, the Sangha compiled the scriptures at several councils and then gradually parted ways. Today the usual division is into three great vehicles: Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. All three honour the same historical Buddha and accept the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. They differ in the canon they use, in the ideal they pursue and in their manner of practice.
| Vehicle | Main regions | Scriptural language | Ideal | Distinctive features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Theravada, the Southern school | Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia. In Vietnam, the Kinh Theravada and the Khmer Theravada communities | Pali | The Arhat, who extinguishes all defilements by his own effort in this very life | Keeps the Pali Canon, monks go on alms rounds, vegetarianism not required |
| Mahayana, the Northern school | China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam | Chinese, translated from Sanskrit | The Bodhisattva, whose own liberation goes hand in hand with liberating others | Many schools, venerates the Bodhisattvas as well, monks and nuns are vegetarian. Most Vietnamese temples belong to this tradition |
| Vajrayana, the Esoteric school | Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, the Himalaya | Tibetan, from Sanskrit originals | The Bodhisattva, aiming at attainment within a single lifetime | Mantra recitation, mudras, mandala visualisation, and a very heavy role for the guru |
Mahayana schools the Vietnamese often hear of
Not relying on words or letters, pointing directly at the human mind, seeing one's nature and becoming a Buddha. Brought to China by the patriarch Bodhidharma around the 6th century and given its shape by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. Its bedside text is the Diamond Sutra.
Reciting the name of Amitabha Buddha and vowing to be reborn in the Western Pure Land to continue practice there, based on the Amitabha Sutra and the Sutra of Infinite Life. This is the school with the widest popular reach in Vietnam, because its practice is easy to grasp and needs no literacy.
Also called the True Word school, taking mantra recitation, mudras and visualisation as its gateway, based on the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Vajrasekhara Sutra. In Vietnam it seldom stands alone and is blended into the liturgy of Mahayana temples.
Takes the monastic rules as its foundation, specialising in the study and strict observance of the Vinaya basket. Few followers, but a large influence on temple life, because ordination platforms and ordination rites rest on this material.
Based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, teaching that the whole realm of phenomena is one body and that the one contains the all. Heavily philosophical, its influence is felt more in thought than in ritual.
Founded by the master Zhiyi in 6th-century China, taking the Lotus Sutra as its foundation, famous for the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single thought. In Vietnam this school has seeped in through the chanting of the Universal Gate Sutra.
XIIFollowers today
According to the Pew Research Center's June 2025 report on global religious change from 2010 to 2020, the world had about 324 million Buddhists in 2020, more than 4% of the world's population, a decline of about 5% from 343 million in 2010, when Buddhists made up nearly 5%. Also according to Pew, 98% of Buddhists live in the Asia-Pacific region. North America has 5.0 million and Europe 2.5 million, both regions up by more than a quarter since 2010.
The country with the most Buddhists is Thailand, with 68 million, or 94% of its population. Next is China with 53 million, but only 4% of its population. The ten largest countries together account for 296 million, or 91% of the global total. By share of population, the highest are Cambodia at 97%, Thailand 94%, Myanmar 89%, Bhutan 75%, Sri Lanka 70%, Laos 64% and Mongolia 51%. All are Pew estimates for 2020.
Vietnam: two figures very far apart
| Source | Year | Figure | Method of counting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population and Housing Census | 2019 | 4.6 million people, 4.8% of the population and 35% of those declaring a religion | People who declared themselves Buddhist on the census form. In 2019 Catholics moved into first place with 5.9 million |
| Population and Housing Census | 2009 | 6.8 million people, then the largest group | Same method of counting as above |
| Government Committee for Religious Affairs, figure cited by the Sangha | 2010 | About 10 million followers | Administrative estimate, broader than the census form |
| Website of the Most Venerable Chairman of the Executive Council, article reviewing 42 years of the Sangha | 2023 | Roughly 60% of the population | An estimate that includes people sympathetic to Buddhism |
| Vietnam Buddhist Sangha | June 2023 | 55,011 monks and nuns, more than 19,000 temples and monasteries | Counts monastics and institutions, not followers |
The gap between 4.6 million and several tens of millions is too large to ignore, so here is a plain account of why. The census counts declarations: a respondent must state that he or she is a Buddhist in order to be counted. The Sangha's statistics count far more broadly: they include those who have formally taken refuge, those who regularly visit temples, and those the Sangha describes as sympathetic to Buddhism. According to Luật Khoa tạp chí in 2021, the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha does not compile its own count of followers but cites the estimate of the Government Committee for Religious Affairs, while also arguing that apart from those who have declared another religion, everyone else belongs to Buddhism.
The crux is this: a great many Vietnamese go to the temple but declare no religion. They burn incense on the full moon, visit the temple at New Year, hold memorial rites for their parents, but when asked their religion they answer none. To them, going to the temple is something Vietnamese people do, not something a registered believer does. The figure of 4.6 million measures the label, the figure of several tens of millions measures the custom. No survey has yet been accepted by both sides, so this page records both figures with their methods of counting, rather than picking one and calling it the truth.
XIIIIn Vietnam
Buddhism reached Vietnam very early and by both routes: by sea, aboard Indian merchant ships arriving in Giao Châu, and overland from the north with parties of monks. The sea route came first.
Historians can verify that the first centre was Luy Lâu, now in Thuận Thành, Bắc Ninh province. According to the Journal of Buddhist Studies (Tạp chí Nghiên cứu Phật học), it was one of the three great Buddhist centres of East Asia in the first centuries CE, alongside Luoyang and Pengcheng. By the 2nd century more than 20 stupas had been built here, more than 500 monks ordained and 15 sutras translated. Mouzi composed his Lý Hoặc Luận (Treatise on Settling Doubts) in this land, and Khương Tăng Hội (Kang Senghui), who died in 280, studied the Dharma in Giao Châu before going to China to teach. From that very beginning, Buddhism at Luy Lâu blended with local belief, leaving behind the cult of the Four Dharmas: cloud, rain, thunder and lightning.
Historians can verify that the Lý and Trần dynasties were the high point, when the temple held something close to the status of a state religion: kings learned to read with Zen masters, Zen masters advised on affairs of state, and the temple was the village school. The emblematic figure is Trần Nhân Tông, born in 1258, king from 1278 to 1293, who twice led the resistance against the Mongol Yuan, abdicated in 1293 and took monastic vows on Mount Yên Tử in 1299. He founded the Trúc Lâm Zen school, the first purely Vietnamese Zen lineage, uniting the existing Zen lines into one, took the title Điều Ngự Giác Hoàng, and died in 1308. The three patriarchs of the school are Trần Nhân Tông, Pháp Loa and Huyền Quang. A victorious king leaving his throne for a mountain monastery is rare in East Asian history, and it explains why Yên Tử remains a major pilgrimage site in the north today.
After centuries of yielding ground to Confucian learning, the temple set about reforming itself. The Cochinchina Buddhist Studies Society was founded on 26 August 1931, initiated and campaigned for by the Most Venerable Khánh Hoà, with the Most Venerable Từ Phong as its head, and its seat at Linh Sơn temple in Saigon. The Annam Buddhist Studies Society was founded in 1932 at Từ Đàm temple in Huế. The Tonkin Buddhist Society was founded in 1934 at Quán Sứ temple in Hanoi.
The newspaper Pháp Âm, launched in 1929, is regarded as the first Buddhist periodical in the romanised Vietnamese script, followed by Viên Âm in 1933 in Huế and Đuốc Tuệ in 1935 in Hanoi. From then on ordinary people could read the sutras without knowing Chinese characters.
Founded on 7 November 1981 at Quán Sứ temple, Hanoi, uniting 9 organisations and traditions into a single body. As of June 2023 the Sangha reported 55,011 monks and nuns and more than 19,000 temples and monasteries across 63 provinces and cities.
In the Mekong Delta, the Khmer community follows Theravada with its own temples, its own architecture, Pali scriptures and the custom of the alms round. Visible proof that Vietnamese Buddhism is not uniform.
The common misunderstanding is to identify every Vietnamese temple with a single school, to hear the word temple and think at once of Zen, or to hear the Buddha's name being recited and assign it all to Pure Land. In reality most Vietnamese temples are syncretic. In a single morning service at a Mahayana temple you hear all three: the sitting meditation is the Zen part, the recitation of Amitabha's name is the Pure Land part, and the Great Compassion Mantra is the Esoteric part. The Journal of Buddhist Studies has documented this syncretic approach in the Buddhist literature of Đàng Trong (the southern realm) from the 17th century. Naming a Vietnamese temple by exactly one school is usually naming it incompletely.
XIVTraces in daily life and in feng shui
Some things soak in so deeply that people no longer recognise where they came from. A Vietnamese person who says the kind meet with kindness, who burns three sticks of incense on the full moon, who sighs that a stroke of bad luck is their karma, is speaking the language of Buddhism without ever having taken refuge.
First is cause and effect. The sutras teach that every act of body, speech and mind sows a cause, and that cause ripens into a result according to its own conditions, with no god needed to keep the books. In popular speech that doctrine shrinks to sayings like the kind meet with kindness, or the father eats salt and the son goes thirsty. The person saying it does not think of themselves as quoting scripture.
Next is the rhythm of the full moon and the new moon, which follows the farmer's lunar calendar, but it was the temple that tied it to a habit: eating vegetarian food, visiting the temple to pay respects to the Buddha, lighting incense at the ancestral altar. Few people think of themselves as keeping a schedule of practice, yet that is what it is, a practice schedule that has become the habit of a whole society.
Then there is Vu Lan, the full moon of the seventh lunar month, rooted in the Ullambana Sutra, which tells how Maudgalyayana saw his mother fallen into a realm of suffering, offered her rice that turned to fire, and could only save her through the collective prayer of the Sangha of the ten directions. The name Vu Lan is a transliteration of Ullambana, with the sense of rescuing those hung upside down. Today Vu Lan has become the nation's day of filial gratitude, with the custom of pinning a rose to one's shirt. Filial piety is usually thought of as a Confucian matter, yet the biggest day of filial devotion in the Vietnamese year is a temple festival.
The traces are also in the layout of the home: where there is a Buddha altar, the Buddha altar is placed higher than the ancestral altar, an order few people explain, namely that the ancestors are departed kin while the Buddha is an awakened being. The prayer beads have one hundred and eight beads for the one hundred and eight defilements. The lotus is everywhere, meaning that which rises from the mud unstained. Speech too: duyên (affinity), nghiệp (karma) and kiếp trước (a past life) are all Buddhist terms, with nghiệp being the translation of karma. In the sutras nghiệp means deliberate action. At the tea stall it just means bad luck.
Where it meets and where it parts from feng shui
This needs to be said squarely, because both sides tend to overstate. Early Buddhism does not teach feng shui. In the Brahmajala Sutta of the Long Discourses, the Buddha lists a series of occupations he calls wrong livelihood, including physiognomy, palmistry, astrology, divination and choosing auspicious days and hours, and states plainly that he does not live by such things. The Sutra of the Buddha's Final Instruction, his teaching before he entered final Nirvana, likewise advises bhikkhus not to practise divination, casting lots, astrology or fortune-telling. The reason lies in the teaching: karma is made by oneself and can be changed, and no fate lies waiting in the lie of the land.
But that is the doctrine. In the folk practice of East Asia, temples and feng shui have gone together for a very long time. Almost all old Vietnamese temples are built with a mountain at the back and water in front, the back against the hills and the face toward river or lake. The Journal of Buddhist Studies, surveying the temples designated as special national monuments in the north, cited Hương temple, Thầy temple, Phật Tích temple and Côn Sơn temple. One point should be recorded honestly: architectural studies usually call this principle site and landscape selection, and do not always call it feng shui. The two labels overlap on most criteria but are not identical in origin.
The meeting point is even clearer in belief. The temple layout called Buddha in front, Mother Goddess behind has been common in the north since about the 16th and 17th centuries: the Buddha is worshipped at the front, and a Mother Goddess shrine stands behind. According to the same journal, on the new moon and full moon people pay respects to the Buddha and then to the Mother Goddess in the same temple.
Out of this come two misunderstandings running in opposite directions: treating Buddhism as a feng shui system with supernatural power, going to the temple to have one's fortune changed. Or holding that anyone who checks the orientation of a house or picks a wedding date has betrayed Buddhism. The truth is that two layers coexist in one temple: the doctrinal layer laid down by the scriptures, and the customary layer built up by life. They are not obliged to agree with each other.
XVCommon misunderstandings
A religion that has lasted twenty-five centuries and passed through dozens of cultures inevitably carries many layers of misreading. The section below untangles the points most often confused in the way Vietnamese people talk about Buddhism, not to defend it, only so that you see correctly what you are looking at.
This view stems from the word suffering in the Four Noble Truths, but dukkha does not only mean pain. It names a condition of being unsatisfying and unstable. The first truth is a diagnosis, not a conclusion. The other three deal with the cause, the possibility of cure and the path. A system that ends with a path is hard to call world-weary.
In the sutras he is a real human being who was born, practised, awakened and entered final Nirvana, and who called himself one who shows the way, not one who grants favours. The temple teaches that bowing to the Buddha is bowing to an example and a path. Anyone who worships the Buddha to change their luck is doing something the sutras themselves never promise.
Theravada does not require vegetarianism: monks go on alms rounds and eat whatever is offered, and the scriptures permit the threefold pure meat, meat where the recipient did not see, hear or suspect that the animal was killed for them. In Mahayana, monks and nuns are fully vegetarian, while most Vietnamese lay followers keep vegetarian days. Vegetarianism is a practice for cultivating compassion, not a condition for being called a Buddhist.
Nirvana, Sanskrit nirvana, has the root meaning of extinguishing, like putting out a fire. What is extinguished is greed, hatred and delusion, not a grant of residence in some realm. The sutras describe Nirvana more by negation than by affirmation, so that the reader stops picturing it as a place. The Pure Land of the Pure Land tradition is a different matter, and even that tradition regards it as a place to continue practising.
Both religions arose in India and share many terms such as karma, samsara and liberation, so they are easily confused. But they differ at the root: Hinduism has the Vedas as scripture, a pantheon of gods, and the doctrine of an eternal self. Buddhism rejects the authority of the Vedas, teaches non-self, and places no creator god at its centre.
The plump, laughing figure clutching a cloth sack that many homes and restaurants display is not Shakyamuni Buddha. It is the Bodhisattva Maitreya in the Chinese manner, modelled on the monk Budai (Bố Đại), a 10th-century monk fond of giving gifts to children. Maitreya in the sutras is the Buddha who will appear in the future, and the Indian-style image of Maitreya is slender and seated in meditation.
The sutras rank offerings by the mind behind them, not by the sum of money. The person who gives their last coin with a pure heart is counted above the one who gives a hundred coins in exchange for what they want. Trading money for merit is a commercial way of thinking and has no place in the teaching.
?Quick Questions
What is Buddhism
Buddhism is the path of practice pointed out by the Buddha Shakyamuni about twenty-five centuries ago, aimed at ending suffering by seeing its true nature and following the Noble Eightfold Path. The religion places no creator god at its centre, but rather cause and effect and each person's own transformation. Followers take refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
How many Buddhists are there
According to the Pew Research Center's June 2025 report, the world had about 324 million Buddhists in 2020, more than 4% of the world's population, down from 343 million in 2010. As many as 98% of Buddhists live in the Asia-Pacific region. Thailand has the most, with 68 million, or 94% of its population.
How do Theravada and Mahayana differ
Theravada keeps the Pali canon, is widespread in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, takes the Arhat as its ideal, and its monks go on alms rounds and are not required to be vegetarian. Mahayana uses sutras in Chinese translated from Sanskrit, is widespread in China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, takes the Bodhisattva as its ideal, venerates the Bodhisattvas as well, and its monks and nuns are fully vegetarian. Most Vietnamese temples are Mahayana, while the Khmer community of the Mekong Delta follows Theravada.
Must Buddhists be vegetarian
No, and it depends on the tradition. Theravada does not require vegetarianism, since monks go on alms rounds and eat whatever is offered, and the scriptures permit the threefold pure meat, meat where the recipient did not see, hear or suspect that the animal was killed for them. In Mahayana, monks and nuns are fully vegetarian, while most lay followers keep vegetarian days, usually two, four or ten days in each lunar month. Vegetarianism is seen as a practice for nurturing compassion, not a condition for being called a Buddhist.
Is the Buddhist swastika connected to Nazi Germany
No. The swastika 卍, Sanskrit svastika, whose root meaning is well-being, was present in India, China, Japan and Vietnam for thousands of years before the German Nazi Party came into being. In the Mahayana sutras this mark lies on the Buddha's chest and is counted among the thirty-two marks of a great being. The emblem of that party, called the Hakenkreuz in German, is drawn tilted at forty-five degrees inside a white disc on a red flag, and differs from the temple swastika in angle, in colour and in meaning.
Is Avalokiteshvara male or female
In the original Sanskrit sutras, Avalokiteshvara is a Bodhisattva, not a goddess, and the early Indian form is male. According to the Journal of Buddhist Studies (Tạp chí Nghiên cứu Phật học), in China Guanyin was still being carved in male form as late as the 10th century, and only afterwards shifted gradually to the white-robed female form. The Universal Gate chapter of the Lotus Sutra says the Bodhisattva appears in male or female form according to the needs of beings, so the question of gender here has no fixed answer.
What is Nirvana
Nirvana, in Sanskrit nirvana, has the root meaning of extinguishing, like putting out a fire. What is extinguished is greed, hatred and delusion, not a rebirth in some heaven. The sutras describe Nirvana more by negation than by affirmation, precisely so that the reader stops picturing it as a place with an address. The Pure Land that the Pure Land school aims for is a different matter, and even that school regards it as a place to continue practising, not the final goal.
When did Buddhism reach Vietnam
Very early, in the first centuries CE, by both sea and land, with the sea route aboard Indian merchant ships arriving first. The first centre was Luy Lâu, now in Thuận Thành, Bắc Ninh province, one of the three great Buddhist centres of East Asia alongside Luoyang and Pengcheng. According to the Journal of Buddhist Studies, by the 2nd century more than 20 stupas had been built there, more than 500 monks ordained and 15 sutras translated.