As a preliminary step for the uninformed or misinformed, the pleasure seeker as well as the misguided ascetic, the Buddha taught the triple doctrine: (1) if one gives to the poor and (2) observes the five precepts, (3) one can expect to be reborn in paradise.

People who understand the true principle of dependent origination and discover the highest aim of Buddhism realize that they cannot find happiness through their own salvation alone and that the true aim of human life must be the achievement of peace and well-being for society as a whole. Having reached this point, such people reject the self-oriented for the world-oriented vision. Instead of worrying about their own comfort and peace of mind, they become altruistic enough to fall into lower states of being (the realms of hell, hungry spirits, and beasts) for the sake of saving others. Less noble motives recede into the background or are rejected altogether. This step-by-step advancement accounts for the complexity of religious phenomena and for the expedient methods of Buddhist guidance, in which each teaching is adjusted to the need of the moment, just as medication must be selected to suit the illness being treated.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

The way to achieve personal happiness while helping society move in the right direction is to forget oneself and consider the good of the entire social body, always recognizing the rights of one’s fellows and maintaining a lofty, objective general outlook. Although this ideal stance is not easy to adopt or uphold, bearing it constantly in mind and moving steadily forward are of the greatest importance. This is the way of true democracy, a system that finds its optimum expression and its foundation in the law of dependent origination and the limitless interrelation of all beings everywhere.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Concern for religion may start with various motives. It may be less a dissatisfaction with reality than a desire for status or profit. It may begin as indefinite theoretical or philosophical curiosity or as mere habit. Furthermore, the fear of reality that leads some people to religion varies in degree and intensity and therefore may be expected to result in equally varied degrees of faith. But it is the religious spirit, no matter what its source, that is the fundamental force inspiring people to seek the ideal state.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Without removing the karmic effects of past actions, a malefactor can find whole or partial salvation through repentance, for the merits that one person acquires through good deeds can be transferred (as in the case of the merits a Bodhisattva transfers to others) and used to atone for others’ transgressions.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Life is influenced by all kinds of natural and scientific laws – physical, mathematical, chemical, physiological, psychological, economic, political, legal, ethical, and aesthetic. All of these standards and principles constantly intermingle and interact with one another and with karma in the complex mixture of objective and subjective phenomena that constitutes life. Under these circumstances, totally explaining dependent origination as it operates in life would involve the impossible task of mastering all fields of modern science, scholarship, and art. From the religious viewpoint, however, it is enough to try to understand how things are and to strive to determine how they should be. These are the purposes of a true understanding of dependent origination.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

The Buddhist law of dependent origination teaches that everything in the universe is interrelated and that all human beings live in an organically structured world, all of whose parts are interdependent. To attempt to divorce oneself from the whole and seek no more than one’s own personal bliss is to ignore the principle of universal causation and the moral code it implies. This is why the Buddha rejected both meditation and asceticism as paths to enlightenment: both mistake a false cause for a true one.Basic Buddhist Concepts

The doctrines of universal impermanence and the absence of a persisting self are based on an objective view of reality but motivate religious practice. These doctrines mean that all things are constantly changing, that nothing is a fixed entity, and that all existence is relative and interdependent. Realization of these truths helps prevent attachments to the transient phenomena of the world and inspires the wish to avoid harming others and to make each passing moment as valuable as possible for everyone. People who understand impermanence and the absence of a persisting self are unlikely to fritter away their short lives in vain pursuits. Aware of the pricelessness of their material and spiritual heritage, which has been created through the labor, talent, and devotion of countless people, they feel obliged to do what they can to preserve it for future generations. Such people know that precisely because it is impermanent life must not be lived carelessly.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

Though apparently mechanical, society moves in a purposeful way because all of its members are consciously goal oriented. Since they are morally neutral, the Buddhist doctrines of impermanence and the absence of a persisting self are as purposeless as the laws of physics and chemistry. The principles that all existence is suffering and that nirvana is tranquility, however, are purposeful: their goal is the elimination of suffering, and they set standards for religious – specifically, Buddhist – ideals. A course of action is organic when it has ideal purposes, regards as evil whatever runs counter to those purposes and as good whatever conduces to their achievement, and strives to move away from evil and toward good. The Buddhist law of dependent origination regards confinement to the cycle of transmigration and suffering as evil, interprets the elimination of the causes that produce such suffering as good, and teaches the way to attain that goal.
Basic Buddhist Concepts

At the outset, a person may engage in charitable works in the hope of the karmic reward of rebirth in paradise. But as the experience is repeated the person forgets about rewards and gives for the pleasure of giving, eventually advancing to the realization that even this pleasure is selfish. Warmed by the light and peace generated by giving, such a person finds life meaningless without giving selflessly and no longer even takes into consideration the pleasure to be derived from acts of giving.
Basic Buddhist Concepts