Hey, I normally would never evangelize like this, but some body wrote a post asking about how to get into Buddhism and I spent like 20 minutes writing up a reply (and maybe doing one other thing on the side), so in order to feel like that time wasn't a waste, and to hopefully help that original poster and maybe anyone else thinking of looking into Buddhism, here goes:

(ps: stop deleting posts unless it's shit and you get downvoted a bunch over an hour. Quick response does not indicate a general response)

Buddhism is all about truth. There is absolutely nothing to take on faith. In fact -- the Buddha is thought to have said something like, "Take nothing I say as fact just because I say it, but take what I say and determine its truth yourself."

Buddhism is about freedom. Free yourself from ignorance. Free yourself from falsehood. Free your mind from external interactions. Free yourself from desire. Free yourself from the desire of others. Free yourself from women. Free yourself from other men. Free yourself from yourself.

Life is suffering. The cause of suffering is desire. If you can control desire, you can end suffering.

It's all about making yourself into the best person you can be. It's self-improvement. Mindfulness: being aware of the "foot prints" you leave, on other people, on yourself, on the ground. Learning to live in the now. To separate thoughts from observations. Experience.

It's about removing attachments from your life. An attachment is a fallacy that goes, "I could be happy if only [x]". That x could be "if I had money", it could be "if I had a girlfriend", it could be "If I had more food" whatever. Anything you make it. But happiness doesn't work that day. You may obtain x and when you find you are still not happy, or the happiness fades quickly, you either need to obtain more x or now you need y. It's a never-ending chase. Happiness is a state of mind, it's something you give yourself. It's the default condition. You are happy. You are also experiencing the world. These two do not need to be falsely bound.

It goes on and on. It's not like Christianity where there's good and evil and some judge out there is going to decide if you were good or not and you're going to go to heaven or hell. In buddhism, nobody is coming to judge you. In life, nobody is coming to save you.

You are the judge of your life, and lives (if you decide to believe in reincarnation. I do.) carry the negative karma and positive karma with you. This isn't a "do good things good things happen to you" bullshit interpretation that is commonly given, "Oh! Karma will get him!" kind of stuff. That's a Christian interpretation. There is no divine judge determine what is good and what is bad and pays you good karma or bad karma accordingly, which you spend on fate. No. Karma is what we give ourselves. Bad karma is hurting other people. You will feel guilt from this, it will affect you in negative ways, you will be scared of hurting more people or you will crave it. You build up bad karma by not following "the path." You can balance this with good karma -- helping people, doing kind acts. Making yours and others' experiences better. You carry good karma with you for these acts, you feel good about yourself, a warm glow, people see you and want to return the kindness you radiate back unto you.

The thing about Buddhism is there is no one holy text. In fact none of it was ever written down. A system of writing, sanskrit was developed specifically to write down the teachings of Buddhism. The earliest writings were of the traditions passed down for hundreds of years by buddha's monks. So the closest we have to the original Buddha is several generations of memory later. But that's okay -- it's not like it's a list of holy rules you have to follow or the divine judge will fail you. It's guidance on expanding your mind.

Different sects hang on to different writings. I like the mahayana sect's writings a lot, they're pretty popular. Buddhist masters continue to write new works today. They are all just as valid as any other.

You apply what you can understand, and you apply what benefits your life. Apply as much as you can. Like one of the tenants of Buddhism is that you should never kill. I take this, and I don't kill even a fly or a spider. I save bugs that are trapped inside and take them outside. But I still eat meat. For me -- the animal has already died. But that's part of nature. By eating it, I am making it not have died in vain. And it will become a tiny part of me.

/r/buddhism is GREAT. There are some great people there who will get you started. You can lurk and read the stories. There's a lot on the sidebar.

There's a lot on youtube, but be careful of a bad teacher. That can be worse for you than no teacher at all, it may take time to undo some wrong teachings and get back on the path. Not wrong because it is "not holy", ,but wrong because it is faulty reasoning. Remember: Buddhism is about learning how to find the truth. How to be pure and not be influenced. It starts today when you start reading and applying it to your life. And you can go for your entire lifetime and not even cover 1% of what's out there. It's truth. That's why we spend multiple lifetimes on the study of the path. Good thing you've found it in this one!