ities depending on the village one lives in or even a particular family. The Buddhists worship the Buddha and follow the four noble truths. These are (1) Life is suffering; meaning that human existence is really painful from the minute of birth to the time of death. (2) All suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the craving, attachment, and grasping that result from such ignorance. (3) Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and attachment. (4) The path to the suppression of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right-mindedness, and right contemplation. These eight are divided into three categories: morality, wisdom, and samadhi or concentration. Buddhism also sees human existence as made up of 5 bundles or skandhas. These are the material body, feelings, perceptions, predispositions or karmic tendencies, and consciousness. Buddhists deny that these five bundles are considered an "independently existing self or soul or atman, which is taught by the doctrine of anatman, or the denial of a permanent soul. The Buddha felt that all existence is characterized by the three marks of anatman (no soul), anitya (impermanence) and dukkha (suffering). To get rid of the Tillotson 4 Idea of the rebirth cycle of existence known as samsara, the Buddha taught the doctrine of pratityasamutpada, or dependent origination. Close to this belief is the doctrine of karma, which is a person's acts and their consequences. He believed that people's actions lead to rebirth, where good deeds are rewarded and evil deeds are punished. The process that goes along with the idea of karma is through a kind of natural moral law rather then than the idea of divine judgement. It is believed that a person's karma determines things like one's species, beauty, intelligence, wealth, and also social status and that different types of karma d...
