Siddhartha Gautama was, by tradition, a prince shielded from all hardship — until he saw a sick man, an old man, and a corpse, and understood that no wealth could exempt him from any of them. He left his palace to find a way through. After years of searching he sat beneath a tree and, the story goes, awoke. "Buddha" simply means "the awakened one." What he taught was not a set of beliefs to accept on faith but a practice to test in your own experience.
All conditioned things are impermanent — work out your liberation with diligence.— attributed to the Buddha, traditional final words
Three marks of existenceNothing you hold will hold still.
Impermanence
Everything changes, constantly. Clinging to what must pass is a recipe for suffering.
Unsatisfactoriness
Because things change, no experience can give lasting, complete satisfaction on its own.
No fixed self
The "I" is a changing process, not a permanent core — loosening its grip loosens craving.
The meaning of life, Buddhist-styleLess a purpose, more a practice.
Buddhism doesn't answer "what is the meaning of life?" with a cosmic decree. The point of a life is found in what you do with it: reducing suffering — your own and others' — through wisdom and compassion, until the grasping that distorts experience quietens. Different traditions (Theravāda, Mahāyāna, Zen, Vajrayāna) emphasise different routes, but the compass is shared: see clearly, cling less, care more. This is an overview of a vast tradition offered for understanding, not a religious or clinical prescription.