What is Buddhism's Purpose?
What is Buddhism's Purpose?
Empathy.
During my morning meditation, a key principle of Buddhism came into my mind: no-self (anātman). Naturally, it was front-loaded with some of the readings of the Dalai Lama, and in accordance with my established practice I allowed this to change the shape and waves of my mind. To be plain, my practice consists of: Buddhist reading and studying, then meditation. During meditation, I do not try to actively reflect on what I have studied. Rather, it is a way for me to prevent some of the waves of obsession and grasping on objects, materialism, and more.
So during my walking meditation this morning, I began to wonder: what is the function of Buddhism? What is it's purpose?
I think part of this question came from the presence of some of my Catholic family members. I was wondering how they articulate their faith, and I was placing myself in that position wondering how I would, should the time present itself, articular my own faith and practice to them in a clear but non-reductive manner. From a non-Buddhist standpoint, so much of what I've read is mystic and highly theoretical and abstract. Such is the nature of meaning in life. After all, if we use woodworking tools in the field of carpentry, why wouldn't the field of abstractions and meaning and conceptualization use tools of abstraction, meaning, and conceptualization.
So back to the concept of anātman: there is no I. There is no me. And the more we try to understand what parts belong to us or a unique, eternal identity, the more we begin to understand that there is no interdependent, unique element of the self. Where did I get this skin? Where did I get these emotions and feelings and expressions? They are all interdependent and contingent on things outside of the I.
Thus, one of the key realizations of Buddhism is the dissolution of the selfish, individual consciousness. I would argue that this is enlightenment: when the gaps and distances between people, things, animals, and everything are closed. When we take impermanence, knowledge, language, wisdom, abstractions, concrete elements, and everything else and realize it to be a cohesive whole; we are all blood cells part of the same universal organism.
So how do we achieve this?
Probably the easiest way is death. Ok, hold on here for a moment. I'm not lighting myself on fire anytime soon (or hopefully ever) and I hope you won't, either. But, death is the great unifier and it is the molcajete that will force realization on everyone and everything, eventually.
However, what if there is a way to bridge this unification before death? What if there is some act or perspective or philosophy that can help use realize the ultimate impermanence and unification of all things?
You see where this is going.
I would argue that Buddhism's function is the connection and unification of all things prior to death. The challenge here comes from which elements can be unified. In the spirit of Buddhism and its Hindu brother, let's make a list:
The Unification of the Mind
The Unification of the Self
The Unification of Consciousnesses
I don't want to go too far down the list rabbit whole, but let's explore these quickly.
To me, the first step to unifying all things is to unify the intellectual ideas. Learning is often categorized into different stages. Whether it is Costa or Buddhism, learning often has depth and layers. For Buddhism, the Dalai Lama categorizes into effectively intellectual learning, critical thinking about that intellectual learning, and the emotive, conceptual grasping of the idea. In other words: memorization and repetition first. Then, critical application and thought at an intellectual level. Finally, emotional and practical application.
In application, it could look something like this: a person begins to memorize the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path. This is, effectively, the function of my studying prior to meditation. From here, the person would intellectually test and challenge these ideas. How true is impermanence? How true is the order of the Eight Fold Path or the truth of suffering? Finally, after this intellectual and critical analysis comes the emotive feeling and application. In simply, a gut, reactive application of the teaching that comes out in every external action.
In effect: Person learns about "right speech." Person analysis what it means to have "right speech." Person actively speaks "rightly," and acts in accordance with that view impulsively and emotively.
Such is the unification of the mind: the cohesive, weblike construction of our philosophy and world view, with every idea and aspect of our intellectual mind integrated fully.
From the unification of the mind, the self itself can be unified. When I state the 'self,' I mean the conscious and unconscious mind, as well as aspects of ourselves that could be labeled as personas. I speak here from a strictly psychological view as (remember) there is no true 'self.' However, the 'self' cannot be dissolved until we learn about how each aspect of ourselves was integrated into our conscious being and how each aspect interacts with the other.
I do not feel like an authority to claim regarding what to do in order to unify the self, so rather I will speak as to what I think it could look like.
The person has a healthy acknowledgement and awareness of their past, present, and potential future. The person is aware of their deficiencies and their virtues, comes to terms with their potentiality for failure and goodness. To put into literary terms: the person was able to bring Victor Frankenstein and his creature to meeting, have them drink tea, and have them learn to live together managing conflicts and maintaining a healthy relationship.
But healthy relationships have conflict, they have arguments, and these conflicts and arguments are managed through the key to healthy relationships: validation. In this light, the 'darker' aspects of our personas validate the 'lighter' aspects of our personas. The inverse is also true: the 'lighter' aspects of ourselves validate the 'darker' aspects.
Thus, the person can be unified. This is, by the way, what Carl Jung called individuation. And, put simply, I am merely echoing his psychological model.
Everything I have written so far has been building to this conclusion: Buddhism is about empathy.
What is the next step if we are unified in our intellectual framework? What is the next step if we are unified and complete ourselves? We take this into the world and begin to unify the world.
When we have a deep connection with someone, when we see them for who they are, we could call this expression and sight love and compassion. What these words mean in this context is the unification of consciousnesses.
At that moment, both people are experiencing a deep interconnectedness where their consciousness is not isolated and alone. Instead, each consciousness is dependent on the other. This isn't just mysticism, but also psychology. Thanks to the magic of mirror-neurons, people feel what others feel and people shape their reality with the perceptions of another's reality.
That is the unification of consciousness: when two people see the world together as a collective consciousness, experiencing itself subjectively (to quote Bill Hicks). There is no gap, there is no bridge, and a non-dualistic state of being (advaya) is attained.
In the end, this seems like the logical and most cohesive, non-convoluted way to express the function of Buddhism, the purpose, the goal to someone not yet willing to swallow the terminology of Dharma or attachment or more. Simply:
The purpose of Buddhism is empathy.
And to paraphrase the Dalai Lama: There are no convoluted structures or complex, integrating works. My religion is compassion.
And to paragraph D. T. Suzuki: all else is scrap paper.
Written by Pavel Tretyak
On October 3, 2025