The Buddhist religion and the set of truths that resides at the core of the faith will be the topic of a free lecture Monday.

Carol Anderson, associate professor of religious studies at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, will speak about Buddhism in a lecture titled “Practice Makes Perfect: Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths,” Monday at 8 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. Anderson’s specialty is in the studies of eastern religions, methodology and women’s studies.

“The Four Noble Truths are as central to Buddhism as the Ten Commandments are to Christianity,” Anderson said.

Anderson is also the author of “Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths in the Theravada Buddhist Canon.”

Anderson described the Four Noble Truths as the observation that suffering is in the world, how suffering arises, how suffering can be ended and the Eight-fold Path.

“The Eight-fold Path is a set of instructions on how to go about ending suffering,” Anderson said.

“Suffering is caused by thirst – what we call Trsna,” said Nikki Bado-Fralick, temporary assistant professor of philosophy and religious studies.

For example, Bado-Fralick said the cosmetics industry is built on Trsna. She said people see, through advertisements, that they need to be beautiful and need the products they see making people beautiful, so they buy anything they are told will help them achieve that.

Bado-Fralick, academic adviser for the Indonesian Buddhist Society at Iowa State, said she met Anderson while serving as the president for the Midwest American Academy of Religion, and decided to ask her to come to Iowa State to speak about Buddhism.

“We wanted to get a scholar in, but also someone who knew how people practice religion,” Bado-Fralick said.