BUDDHISM AND THE FOUR MAIN BELIEFSBuddhism, with approximately 365 million followers, represents 6% of the world's population and is the fourth largest religion in the world (surpassed by Christianity, Islam and Hinduism).Buddhism was founded in northern India in the 6th century BCE by the first Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, when he achieved enlightenment. Buddhism consists of three main forms. These are Theravada Buddhism which is found mainly in Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos, Mahayana Buddhism which is widely found in China, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia and Vajrayana Buddhism. Others that may be included are Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. There are four main beliefs in Buddhism. They are: The four Nobel truths The eightfold path The three jewels The three marks of existence. The Four Noble Truths The “four noble truths” of Buddhism are: • Life means suffering. • The origin of suffering is attachment. • Cessation of suffering is achievable. • The path to the cessation of suffering. The first of the Four Noble Truths is that life means suffering. The basis of this is that to live is to suffer, because the human race is not perfect and neither is the world. On this earth, everyone inevitably suffers from pain, illness, injury, old age and eventually death, as well as psychological suffering such as sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment and depression. Life in its entirety is imperfect and incomplete, because the world is subject to impermanence. This means that we are never able to sustainably hold on to what we long for, and just as happy moments pass, we and our loved ones will one day also die there, for all is suffering and as all is life, life life is suffering. The second Noble Truth is that the origin of suffering is attachment. The origin of suffering is attachment to fleeting things. Transient things include not only the physical objects around us, but also ideas and all objects of our perception. The reasons for our suffering are desire, passion, the search for wealth and prestige and the search for fame and popularity, therefore basically attachment to ephemeral things and because the objects of our attachment are ephemeral, their Loss is inevitable and is therefore followed by suffering. The third Noble Truth is that cessation of suffering is achievable. Cessation of suffering can be achieved by eliminating desire and attachment..