Books in the Basic Buddhism series

Buddhism is the cool water of the Universe. It is refreshing. It sustains the Holy life. It revives the parched Heart of man. ''The purpose of the Holy Life, its goal, is unshakeable liberation of mind.'' Buddha: Middle Length Sayings, Sutta 29. (This booklet is included in Basic Buddhism for a World in Trouble.)

If these precepts were kept throughout the human world, it would make an unbelievable difference. There would be no war, no serious crime, and no need for money to be spent on armies, policing, courts of justice or prisons.If we were wholeheartedly to adopt these five precepts and live our lives by them, we would no longer cause suffering to other living beings by our actions. In this way we would normalise our relationships with others and the world around us.

Buddhism is a method by which one can put an end to the suffering that we experience in this world.When we find the whole universe, mind and body, unsatisfactory, and let it go, it falls away from us and we experience total Peace and Happiness. This is a state that has always been there. From time to time we get flashes of it. It is not death. Death is the end of something. Nibbana in not the end of anything. It is a state without a beginning and without an end.