The Dharma and its Four Hallmarks
Foundation • Module 4
• Introduction
• Video 1: The Dharma
• Video 2: Four Hallmarks of Buddhist Philosophy
• The Sangha: Buddhist Community
• Three Vehicles: A Framework Note
• Greg’s Insights
• Questions for Reflection
Estimated time to complete: 55 minutes
Introduction
When the Buddha died around 400 BCE in northern India, he left behind no sacred text, no appointed successor, no institutional structure. What he left was something far more fragile and far more powerful: a teaching claiming you could wake up from the nightmare of conditioned existence—and a community willing to test whether that claim was true.
This module introduces you to the Dharma (the teaching itself), the Four Hallmarks (the philosophical framework organizing all Buddhist study), and the Sangha (the community that preserved and transmitted these teachings across 2,500 years). You’ll discover what makes the Dharma so difficult to categorize, why philosophical frameworks become essential for practical study, and how different types of communities kept these teachings alive.
Understanding these three elements—teaching, framework, and community—prepares you for everything that follows.
What Is the Dharma?
Here’s a puzzle: Is Buddhism a psychology, a philosophy, or a religion?
The question reveals a Western attempt to fit something into our existing categories. But the word Dharma has ten different meanings in Buddhist texts. Perhaps the most fundamental is simply “truth” or “reality”—not psychological truth or philosophical truth or religious truth, just truth. The way things actually are, how to discover that for yourself, and what you reportedly see once you wake up to it.
The Dharma resists our categories the way “science” would seem strange to categorize as psychology, philosophy, or religion. Science is a method for discovering and describing reality. Similarly, the Dharma claims to teach reality itself, methods for investigating it directly, and what an awakened person is said to see when looking at any domain of experience.
But that claim raises immediate questions: Whose reality? How do you verify it? What if different people “wake up” and see different things?
What to watch for: Four analogies the Buddha reportedly used to characterize his teaching. Notice how each addresses the psychology/philosophy/religion question differently. Pay special attention to the Dream Analogy—it suggests something radical about what “truth” means when you’re trying to wake someone from a dream.
The Dharma
Duration: 14 minutes
The Problem of Teaching Truth to Dreamers
If you accept the Dream Analogy’s implications, you face a peculiar problem: How do you teach truth to people who are asleep?
You can’t simply describe what reality looks like when you’re awake. Dreamers have no framework for understanding that description. You can’t prove you’re awake using logic that makes sense inside the dream—that logic itself is part of what needs questioning. And you can’t force someone to wake up. They have to do it themselves.
This explains why the Buddha said his teachings were provisional (the Raft analogy). They’re methods that make sense within the dream to help you wake up, not accurate descriptions of what you’ll see once you’re awake. It explains why he insisted you test everything yourself (the Goldsmith analogy)—because the only thing that proves awakening is real is waking up. And it explains why he focused relentlessly on removing suffering rather than explaining metaphysics (the Arrow analogy)—a dreamer who’s suffering doesn’t need a philosophy lecture about the nature of dreams.
What this means for studying Buddhism: every teaching you encounter is potentially provisional. Every concept, every practice, every philosophical claim might be a raft meant for a particular river crossing—useful for certain people at certain stages, but not ultimate truth itself. The teachings point toward truth without being truth. They train you to see reality without describing reality. They wake you up without explaining awakening.
When we study the Dharma, we’re not exactly studying psychology or philosophy or religion. We’re studying the methods awakened people reportedly developed for helping dreamers wake up. Those methods look psychological when they address mental suffering, philosophical when they investigate reality’s nature, and religious when they provide frameworks for meaning and practice.
The question “What is Buddhism?” might itself be a dreamer’s question. The more interesting question for investigation: “What are these teachings trying to get me to see?”
And to investigate that question systematically, we need an organizing framework.
What to watch for: The distinction between conventional reality and ultimate reality—what dreamers see versus what awakened people reportedly see. Notice how the four statements move from what anyone can observe to what only awakening is said to reveal. Pay attention to which hallmark the video calls “the most difficult to understand”—that’s the one that caused most historical splits in Buddhist philosophy.
Four Hallmarks of Buddhist Philosophy
Duration: 11 minutes
The Four Hallmarks as Organizing Framework
The Four Hallmarks are philosophical statements—ontological and epistemological claims about the nature of reality. But even though they are philosophical statements that encapsulate Buddhist philosophy, they also frame the primary thought-experiments and research questions investigated in insight (vipaśyanā) meditation. In this curriculum, we use them as an organizing framework for all Dharma teachings, not just philosophy.
Here’s how this works:
Under the Second Hallmark (all negatively influenced things are suffering), we explore the Four Noble Truths—the Buddha’s diagnosis of the human condition and the prescription for healing it. The Fourth Noble Truth—the truth of the path—becomes the gateway for extensive study of meditation theory and practice, including ethics, concentration, and wisdom.
Throughout the curriculum, you’ll encounter meditation exercises and contemplative practices. But the theory of meditation—why it works, what it does, how different techniques relate to different philosophical insights—will be discussed primarily as a subset of the path.
While the Four Hallmarks are philosophical statements, they organize practical teachings: ethics, meditation, the graduated path, and the fruition of practice. This is how a philosophical framework becomes a practical curriculum. Each hallmark will receive detailed investigation in dedicated modules throughout the Small Vehicle floor.
The Sangha: Buddhist Community
A teaching doesn’t transmit itself across 2,500 years. It needs people—people willing to memorize it, practice it, debate it, adapt it to new contexts, and pass it on. When we speak of the Sangha, we’re talking about the community that did exactly that.
But “community” is too simple a word for what actually happened. The Buddha reportedly taught different approaches to different people based on their capacities and circumstances. Those differences eventually crystallized into distinct ways of life—each with its own strengths, its own limitations, and its own relationship to the goal of awakening.
According to Reginald Ray in The Indestructible Truth, the Buddha’s teachings came to be preserved by four distinct types of Buddhist communities, each playing an essential role:
Four Ways of Buddhist Life
1. Forest Renunciants
Solitary practitioners living in remote wilderness, dedicating themselves entirely to meditation with minimal human contact. This path demonstrates that awakening doesn’t require social engagement—some individuals need complete withdrawal to break habitual patterns thoroughly.
2. Monastic Community
Celibate monks and nuns living in established communities under formal vows. Critical distinction: Buddhist monastics are not priests in the Christian sense. They don’t perform sacraments or serve as intermediaries. They focus on their own practice and on preserving the teachings through study, memorization, and transmission.
3. Lay Followers
Non-celibate householders maintaining families, careers, and property while following Buddhist teachings. The lay path addresses whether you can practice seriously while maintaining worldly responsibilities—can realization happen within the very conditions that generate suffering rather than by withdrawing from them?
4. Householder Yogins
Advanced practitioners (ngakpas in Tibetan) who maintain household life but dedicate themselves to intensive practice comparable to monastics. This path demonstrates that deep realization doesn’t require celibacy or property-lessness—what matters is depth and consistency of engagement.
Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels
When someone formally becomes Buddhist, they “take refuge” in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. This isn’t like joining a club or affirming beliefs. It’s more like checking into rehabilitation—acknowledging you have a problem (suffering based on delusion), recognizing someone has solved it (Buddha), committing to the method that works (Dharma), and accepting support from others on the same path (Sangha).
For the purposes of this curriculum, you don’t need to take formal refuge. This is academic study—learning about Buddhism, not necessarily practicing it. But understanding what refuge means helps you understand why community matters so deeply in Buddhist tradition. The Sangha isn’t peripheral to the teaching. It’s one of the three essential elements, as fundamental as the Buddha and the Dharma themselves.
A Note on Three Vehicles
Buddhism developed over approximately 1,500 years in India, creating three integrated approaches we call “vehicles”—methods for traveling the path to awakening.
When Buddhism disappeared from India around 1250 CE, these three vehicles ended up preserved in different regions: - The Small Vehicle’s descendant (Theravāda) was preserved in Southeast Asia - The Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna) was preserved in East Asia
- But all three vehicles together were preserved only in Tibet and the regions under Tibetan cultural influence
This is why the Palace of Learning has three upper floors (Small Vehicle, Great Vehicle, and Diamond Vehicle), and why Tibetan Buddhism claims to preserve something unique.
You’ll learn what these vehicles actually are after we cover the path in the Small Vehicle floor. For now, just understand that the curriculum structure reflects how Buddhism evolved and what Tibet preserved.
A few Insights:
The Problem of Authenticity : When Historical Truth Becomes Contested
You’ve now been introduced to the Dharma, the Four Hallmarks, and the Sangha. But there’s something we should address directly: much of what you just learned is contested.
Did the Buddha actually teach the Four Hallmarks in the form we’ve presented them? Did he really use those four specific analogies? Was there actually a First Sangha Council with 500 awakened monks? Modern scholars debate all of this. The earliest texts we have were written down centuries after the Buddha died, and they already show signs of later editing and systematization.
Here’s the honest answer: we don’t know for certain what the historical Buddha taught. We have traditions claiming to preserve his words, but those traditions disagree with each other on fundamental points. We have texts, but they were written by communities with agendas. We have archaeological evidence, but it’s fragmentary.
This might seem like a problem. If we can’t verify what the Buddha actually said, how do we know what’s authentic Buddhism?
The Buddha’s Own Standard
But here’s where the Buddha’s analogies become relevant. Remember the Goldsmith? The Buddha explicitly said: don’t take anything on faith just because I said it. Test it. Does it work? Does it reduce suffering? Does it lead to greater clarity and freedom?
By that standard, the question of historical authenticity becomes less important than the question of practical effectiveness. If a teaching that emerged 500 years after the Buddha died actually helps people wake up from suffering, does it matter whether the Buddha historically spoke those exact words?
Different Buddhist communities have answered that question differently. Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia says: yes, it matters enormously. We must preserve exactly what the Buddha taught and reject later additions. Mahāyāna Buddhism in East Asia says: the Buddha authorized awakened disciples to teach truth too, and times change.
Who’s right? That depends on what you think Buddhism is for.
Your Relationship to These Teachings
Here’s what matters for this curriculum: you’re being taught a specific interpretation of Buddhism—the Tibetan interpretation, which claims to preserve all three vehicles from India as an integrated system. That interpretation has its own history, its own debates, its own unresolved questions.
You can approach it as an anthropologist studying what Tibetans believe. You can approach it as a philosopher examining whether the arguments hold up. You can approach it as a practitioner testing whether the methods actually work. All three approaches are valid.
What’s not useful is treating any interpretation—including this one—as the final, definitive, historically accurate truth about what Buddhism really is. Buddhism has been many different things to many different communities for 2,500 years. What you’re learning is one version, one legitimate heir to the Indian tradition, with its own strengths and limitations.
The question isn’t “Is this authentic Buddhism?” The question is: “Does studying this help you understand something true about suffering and freedom?”
Answer that question yourself. That’s what the Goldsmith analogy was always about.
Questions for Reflection
You are welcome to explore these questions through ordinary intellectual analysis or, if you choose, through contemplative investigation.
1. Teaching Truth to Dreamers
If the Buddha’s teaching is like trying to wake someone from a dream, what methods would actually work? What wouldn’t work? Have you ever tried to change someone’s mind about something they were deeply convinced of? What did you learn?
2. Philosophical Framework vs. Practical Path
The Four Hallmarks are philosophical statements, but they organize practical teachings like meditation and ethics. Why do you think Buddhism starts with philosophy rather than just giving people practices? Or does it matter?
3. Which Path Appeals to You?
Four types of Buddhist communities were described: forest renunciants (isolation), monastics (structure), lay followers (family life), and householder yogins (intensive practice while working). Which genuinely appeals to you? What does your answer reveal about what you value or avoid?
4. The Authenticity Question
If we can’t verify what the historical Buddha actually taught, does that matter? What’s your relationship to the question of authenticity in spiritual or philosophical teachings?
This module is part of Tarpa's Palace of Learning curriculum, a secular educational program exploring Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and contemplative practice. All content © 2025