d life.According to legend for his life, before his birth, Gautama had visited his mother during a vision, taking the form of a white elephant. During the birth celebrations, a seer announced that this baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. His father, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.
At age 16, his father arranged his marriage to Yashodhara, a cousin of the same age. She gave birth to a son, Rahula. Although his father ensured that Gautama was provided with everything he could want or need, Gautama was troubled and dissatisfied. At the age of 29, Gautama was escorted on four subsequent visits outside of the palace. Here Siddhartha came across an old crippled man, a sick man, a dead body and an ascetic. This is known as the Four Passing Sights which lead Siddhartha to recognise the reality of death and suffering and the cyclical nature of human existence (samsara). He then left the palace, abandoned his inheritance and became a wandering monk, seeking a solution to an end of suffering. He began with the Yogic path and although he reached high levels of meditative consciousness, he was not satisfied.
He abandoned asceticism and realised the power of the Middle Way. This is an important idea in Buddhist thought and practice. To seek moderation and avoid the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. At the age of 35, meditating under a Bodhi tree, Siddhartha reached Enlightenment, awakening to the true nature of reality, which is Nirvana (Absolute Truth);
Thus Siddhartha Gautama became known as the Buddha. 'Buddha' (from the ancient Indian languages of Pali and Sanksrit) means 'one who has awakened'. It is derived from the verbal root "budh", meaning "to awaken" or "to be enlightened", and "to comprehend".
The Buddha taught that the nature of reality was impermanent and interconnected. We suffer in life because of our desire to transient things. Liberation from suffering may come by training the mind and acting according to the laws of karma (cause and effect) i.e. with right action, good things will come to you. This teaching is known as the Four Noble Truths:
* Dukkha: Suffering is everywhere
* Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment or misplaced desire (tanha) rooted in ignorance.
* Nirodha: There is an end of suffering, which is Nirvana (the possibility of liberation exists for everyone).
*Maggo: There is a path that leads out of suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right effort, right attention and right concentration).
Bhuddhism quotes:
* ‘Wherefore, brethren, thus must ye train yourselves : Liberation of the will through love will develop, we will often practice it, we will make it vehicle and base, take our stand upon it, store it up, thoroughly set it going.’ (Buddha)
* A true Buddhist is the happiest of all beings. He has no fears or anxieties. He is always calm and serene, cannot be upset or dismayed by changes or calamities, because he sees things as they are. The Buddha was never melancholy or gloomy. He was described by his contemporaries as ‘ever-smiling’ (mihita-pubbamgama). (Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught)
* Neither mother, nor father, nor any other relative, can do a man such good as is wrought by a rightly-directed mind.
* That deed is not well done, which one regrets when it is done and the result of which one experiences weeping with a tearful face.
* He who holds back arisen anger as one checks a whirling chariot, him I call a charioteer; other folk only hold the reins.
* Conquer anger by love, evil by good, conquer the miser with liberality, and the liar with truth.
* Be on your guard against verbal agitation; be controlled in words. Forsaking wrong speech, follow right ways in words.
* Be on your guard against mental agitation; be controlled in thoughts. Foresaking evil thoughts, follow right ways in thoughts.
* There is no fire like lust. There is no grip like hate. There is no net like delusion. There is no river like craving.
* The fault of others is easily seen; but ones own is hard to see. Like chaff one winnows other’s faults, but one’s own one conceals as a crafty fowler disguises himself.
* Not by silence does one become a sage (muni) if one be foolish and untaught. But the wise man who, as if holding a pair of scales, takes what is good and leaves out what is evil, is indeed a sage.
