Life Stage

Householder

The lay path. The Sigalovada Sutta, the five precepts, the Buddha's teaching to ordinary people living ordinary lives.

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Knowledge

Core Teachings

The Five Precepts

Five voluntary trainings undertaken by every lay Buddhist: to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and intoxicants. They are the minimum architecture of ethical life and the foundation on which all higher practice rests.

Golden Dharma Wheel flanked by two deer atop the roof of the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

Core Teachings

Right Livelihood

Samma-ajiva — right livelihood. The Buddha's direct teaching that one's means of earning a living is itself part of the path, and that certain occupations are incompatible with the dharma.

Monks on their morning alms round (pindacāra) carrying alms bowls

Practices

Dana — The Practice of Generosity

The cultivation of generosity. The first of the six paramitas, the first of the ten paramis. The practice the Buddha taught laypeople before any other. The economic foundation of the sangha for 2,500 years.

A gilded Newar Buddhist deity shrine with offerings in the Kathmandu Valley

TraditionsNewar

Newar Buddhism

The only surviving form of Indic Mahayana–Vajrayana Buddhism — preserved in the Kathmandu Valley for over a millennium through hereditary Vajracharya and Shakya priesthood, Sanskrit liturgy, and lay devotion to Swayambhu and the Pancha Buddha.

Teachings

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche

The Dharma Belongs to Everyone

On the necessity of dharma education for laypeople — not the preserve of monastics alone, but the inheritance of every person who walks the path.

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