/dharma/ - Buddhism

Hello friends, I am only a lay practitioner and not an expert by any means, but I would to hear your thoughts on a description of the core of Buddhism from my perspective:

At its core, Buddhism teaches people:
(Using the Four Noble Truths:)
-> to understand the natures of desire, suffering, cause & effect, impermanence, and interdependence

(Using the Eightfold Path and the Middle Way:)
-> to develop virtuous qualities such as wisdom, compassion, and inner strength/discipline
-> to discern wholesome desires, perceptions, and thoughts from unwholesome ones
-> to make skillful decisions
-> to reduce suffering and bring (impermanent yet valuable) happiness to sentient beings.

The more you understand these concepts, the closer you are to "enlightenment" (Bodhi) and the ability to choose not to create suffering for yourself or others (Nirvana).

The core teachings of Buddhism are not concerned with deities or worship, and polytheistic, monotheistic, atheistic, and agnostic forms of Buddhism have existed around the world. Even concerns of what happens after death are secondary to the goal of enlightenment.

The rules for monks are meant to make the process more efficient but most lay people only adhere to certain encouragements and discouragements such as not killing, not stealing, etc. but even so, the core teachings do not dictate whether they will be absolutely be punished or rewarded for these actions, only that there are physical and mental causes and effects to them that those who do them in most cases are too ignorant to understand fully and often create senseless suffering for themselves and others.