In 1908, in what surely must be one of the most creative public outreach efforts in history, members of Gideon’s International placed Bibles in the rooms of the Superior Hotel in Montana.

In the century that followed the organization has distributed millions of Bibles in 180 countries and 80 languages. Still, I was surprised to find a Gideon Bible in the bedside table of our hotel in Thailand, a country that is 95% Buddhist.

In the drawer, tucked next to the Gideon Bible, I noted another slimmer book: A Constitution for Living – Buddhist Principles for a Fruitful and Harmonious Life.

Curiosity got the better of me and I picked up the book.

There is no firm estimate of the number of practicing Buddhists in the world today – some claim as many as 500 million, others as few as 250 million.  (As a point of reference, there are approximately 1.5 billion Christians).

Buddhism is based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, who came to be known as “The Buddha” (the Awakened One). Siddhartha lived four hundred years before Jesus in what is today northeastern India.

Buddhists recognize him as an awakened teacher who shared his insights to help people end their suffering by understanding the true nature of reality, thereby eventually achieving enlightenment (i.e., Nirvana).

How one achieves Nirvana is the study of a lifetime, not a blog post.  Briefly, though, here are three concepts that caught my attention.

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