The latest volume of the Harvard Classics series I’ve been reading is the second of two volumes covering “Sacred Writings”- Selections from the Bible, the Quran, Confucius, Buddhist writings, and the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita.
Since I’ve not read any of the Buddhist writings, I was interested in seeing what I could learn directly about the doctrine. I know some basics about it, but there are times when I know the words, but can’t make much sense of what exactly they mean.
One example of what I’m talking about is the idea of life being an illusion. Well, the way I tend to think of that is to understand they are saying life isn’t real. Illusion in that sense is a false belief. So life as we see it doesn’t really exist, it’s a false conception. Kind of like the matrix.
But what I think they really mean is that the reality of things aren’t what we see. Life can be deceptive in appearance or impression.

That’s far easier to comprehend than our impressions being a false conception like the matrix.

With that example in mind, I wanted to try and really understand what some of the doctrines mean. I still don’t get enough, but here’s what I’ve gotten so far.

The Doctrinal writings include:
Questions that Tend Not to Edification
A story about not getting caught up in questions that don’t matter.

There is No Ego
A conversation about what constitutes self. I believe the idea is that the ‘self’ isn’t contained in any particular aspect of an individual. The self isn’t unchanging or permanent, nor is it contained in the phenomena. This clears the way for rebirth.  

The Middle Doctrine/Way
Between extreme asceticism and sensual indulgence, there is an eightfold path that leads to awakening. Dependent origination is that everything that exists has a cause. This is supposedly a ground between eternalism and annihilationism. This cause and effect will influence karma.

Karma
Karma are deeds or actions, ultimately these causes will have effects, all of which is considered ‘karma’ that affect future life. There are two sets of triplets of karma, the first concern the effect of the deeds; meritorious, demeritorious, and indifferent; the second concern the avenue of the deeds; which are body, vocal, and mental.

All are said to depend on ignorance, which is a lack of understanding concerning misery.

Because the individual is ignorant about misery and past life, he is reborn thinking happiness will be in this round of life. But ignorance means he repeats the mistakes by thinking that performing actions that only feed his desire will make him happy, while instead it is bringing him misery.

The source of his misery is the pursuit of pleasures, but really, it’s his belief that some form of existence will prove to be the cessation of misery. Even if he begins to figure it out, attempting to perform meritorious acts with a wrong focus, he is still wrongly focused on a perverse type of gratification and gets nowhere.

Fruitful and Barren Karma
Fruitful Karma- there are three conditions under which deeds are produced: covetousness, hatred, and infatuation.  

Barren Karma- the three conditions under which deeds are produced are freedom from- covetousness, hatred, and infatuation.  

Typically we think of fruitful as good and barren as bad, but here it’s reversed. Fruitful karma reproduces more deeds, meaning the cycle continues. Barren karma doesn’t reproduce the deeds, and nirvana can be achieved.  

Rebirth is Not Transmigration
Transmigration refers to the elements of a past life that are reborn into the new.  
It is explained that rebirth happens without anything transmigrating. A series of illustrations are given to show that current elements are dependent on the effects of past lives, but that consciousness does not continue from one to the next. An illustration of a seed bringing forth new fruit is used to show that the new fruit is neither the same thing, nor something completely other. The seeds contain a fabricating power. I take it to mean then that when one dies, a completely new being is caused/born, but comes in to existence under the effects of the old life.

Death’s Messengers
A story recounting how there are three messengers of death that are sent to us all.
1) The elderly, 2) disease, 3) seeing people die. These three warn us that we are not immortal or immune to death, so we should take warning and show mercy.

The Devoted Wife
Story to illustrate the shortness of a single life and the power of death.

The Way of Purity
Purity of Conduct, purity of concentration, and purity of wisdom. It seems the basic idea is to avoid extremes, I believe in the search for elimination of attachments.

Concentration
Basically, intentness of meritorious thoughts

Love For Animals
Declaration of solidarity with all life/living things.