Buddhism
See clearly. Cling less. Practice, not belief.
A 2,500-year-old practice for meeting suffering directly. The Four Noble Truths name why we hurt; the Noble Eightfold Path shows a way through — with Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and non-clinging at its centre.
A practice for meeting what is.
Buddhism began around 2,500 years ago with Siddhārtha Gautama — a man who left comfort to sit with the question of why humans suffer even when their circumstances are good. What he taught is not a religion of belief; it is a training in how attention works.
Its core move is small and demanding: notice the pull before it becomes the reaction. Suffering is not the pain itself — it is the grasping around the pain. Loosen the grip and something quieter shows up underneath.
The Four Noble Truths
- 1
There is suffering (dukkha)
Life includes friction, dissatisfaction, and unease. Not because something is broken — because impermanence is real.
- 2
Suffering has a cause
Craving (taṇhā) — grasping at what we want, pushing away what we don't. The pull is the pain.
- 3
Suffering can end
Cessation (nirodha) — the same pull can be released. Not by force. By seeing clearly what's driving it.
- 4
There is a path
The Noble Eightfold Path — right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration. Practice, not belief.
Two ideas that do most of the daily work
- A
Right Effort
Not maximum effort. Skillful effort. Prevent unhelpful states from arising, release the ones already here, cultivate what serves, and sustain it. The middle way between grinding and drifting.
- B
Right Mindfulness
Non-judgmental attention to what's actually happening — in the body, in feeling-tone, in mind, in the moment. The soil in which every other practice grows.
The voices worth reading
Vietnamese Zen teacher. Warm, practical, deeply embodied. The Miracle of Mindfulness is a doorway.
American Tibetan-Buddhist nun. Writes about groundlessness and staying with difficulty without turning away.
Bridges Theravāda practice with Western psychology. A Path with Heart is the classic entry point.
A compact 2,000-year-old collection of the Buddha's verses. One of the oldest and most quoted texts in the tradition.
Start here
- The Miracle of Mindfulness — Thich Nhat Hanh
- When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chödrön
- A Path with Heart — Jack Kornfield
- The Dhammapada (Easwaran or Fronsdal translation)
Turn on the practice inside your Sets
When on, five Sets quietly surface a Buddhist prompt at the moment it's useful — none of them change your existing flow. You can turn it off any time.
- Reorient asks whether craving or aversion is behind the pull before it hands you a principle.
- Trigger Repair adds a Four-Noble-Truths lens across Steps 2 and 3 — name the suffering, name the craving underneath.
- Weekly Review reframes the Lessons prompt around clinging and letting go.
- Daily Record Section F offers a Right Mindfulness primer — what deserved your attention today that didn't get it?
- Simple Equation adds a Right Effort reflective note on the friction drill — which frictions are skillful to keep, and which are grinding?
Make a Model through the Buddhism lens
Works with clinging and suffering directly — see clearly, hold loosely, practise daily.
Start a Model on Buddhism →Switch the overlay on above and a short reflective line appears inside each of these Sets. Nothing is stored separately; you answer it in the Set's own words.