Buddhism is distinct from most other religions in that it does not hold with the idea of a personal God. Instead, it concentrates on individual spiritual development and the search for enlightenment, based on the teachings and experience of Siddhartha Gautama, a sixth-century BCE royal prince turned wandering monk who confronted head on the question of human suffering.
Siddhartha Gautama abandoned his wife, his newborn child and his parents—who wept as he swapped his fine clothes for a monk’s simple yellow robe and cut his hair off with a sword—to spend six years roaming northern India, struggling to reconcile the pain that he saw in the world around him with the Vedic religion of India. He lived as an ascetic, rejecting all comforts and luxuries, and was disciplined in his life of prayer and meditation, but all to no avail. A part of him—what he termed his “shadow self”—remained rooted in this world and held him back from enlightenment.
In his despair, he relaxed his regime and sat for three days and three nights under a large fig tree. At his lowest point, Gautama finally laid to rest that shadow self and understood dharma—the same word used by Hindus but which he described as the law (or truth) that reflects the fundamental principles of existence. Ignorance of the true nature of humankind, he perceived, was the real cause of suffering in the world.
With this realization he achieved spiritual enlightenment and saw the world with new eyes. The tree is called the Bodhi tree, or tree of enlightenment, and Gautama became the Buddha, “the enlightened one.” He spent his remaining years on Earth trying to help others to reach the same state of awareness, insisting that it was a path all could follow.
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
The Buddha, 6th century BCE
Buddhist scriptures The story of Buddha is contained in the Buddhist scriptures, a many-volumed collection of a variety of origins. At first the account was passed on in the oral tradition by Buddha’s original disciples, a community of monks—the sangha. It was only around the third century BCE that the story was written down. There has always been much dispute, though rarely conflict, over the authenticity of the various texts. The version preferred by many scholars is that from the first century BCE in the Pali dialect of northern India—a close relative of the tongue Buddha himself would have spoken.
What makes the Buddhist scriptures unusual is that they tell us very little about the life of Buddha. They are not a biography and they deliberately shun the idea of focusing on his personality. The details of his life that emerge do so as anecdotes he drops into sermons.
There are three essential strands or baskets (tipitaka) in the Buddhist scriptures: the discourses or sermons; the disciplines, a set of rules and practices for those who wish to follow Buddha by joining his monastic order; and a disparate collection of more philosophical material.
The Mahabodhi Temple
The spot where Buddha made his spiritual breakthrough is today the site of the Mahabodhi—or “great awakening”—Temple. It is 60 miles from Patna in Bihar state in eastern India and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 250 BCE, a Buddhist monastery was established there by the Emperor Asoko. The current building—which features four smaller towers around a central one that is 180 feet tall—was completed in the fifth century CE. Buddhists believe this place to be the “navel of the world,” and that it will be the last placed destroyed at the end of time.
Four noble truths The essence of Buddha’s teaching was contained in a discourse he delivered in the deer park at Samath to his first students. It is known as “the Discourse on the Four Noble Truths.” These truths are: Dukkha, the truth of suffering; Samudaya, the truth of the origin of suffering; Nirodha, the truth of the cessation of suffering; and Magga, the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. Sometimes Buddhists liken Buddha to a doctor. In the first two truths he saw, diagnosed and identified the cause of suffering. In the third he realized it could be cured. And in the fourth he prescribed that cure.
“He who sees me sees the dharma and he who sees the dharma sees me.”
The Buddha, 6th century BCE
Buddha blamed suffering on desire, tanha. Desire could, he conceded, be positive, but he identified three negative types—greed, ignorance and hatred—all of which lead to destructive urges. In one of his best-known discourses, the “Fire Sermon,” he described humankind as “burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, ageing and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.”
To avoid such burning, he held out the third Noble Truth—the possibility of liberation to Nirvana, the state of reaching enlightenment, where the fire was put out and replaced with spiritual joy that was without fear or emotional excess.
The early life of Siddhartha Gautama
Although the Buddhist scriptures tell us little about Buddha’s early life, tradition teaches that he was born around 563 BCE in the small kingdom of Kapilvastu in what is today Nepal. His father was King Suddhodana and his mother Queen Maha Maya. Some accounts say she died giving birth to him. Others recount how a hermit seer came to see the baby and predicted that he would be a holy man. As a young man, Gautama lived a life of luxury, with three palaces built for him. At 16 he married his cousin, Yasodhara, and had a son, Rahula. Some texts say that he turned his back on this life at the age of 29. His death is traditionally placed in 483 BCE, but scholars today suggest it was around 400 BCE.
Eightfold Path To attain Nirvana, Buddhists are urged to follow the Eightfold Path, part of the fourth Noble Truth. “I saw an ancient path, an ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times,” Buddha says in the scriptures. “And what is that ancient path, that ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration … I followed that path.” What guided him above all was the practice of meditation, which lies at the heart of the Buddhist tradition.
the condensed idea
Humans must strive for dharma
| timeline | |
|---|---|
| 563 BCE | Siddhartha Gautama born |
| 528 BCE | Moment of enlightenment |
| 483 BCE | Buddha dies |
| 3rd century BCE | Buddhist scriptures written down |
| 250 BCE | Mahabodhi Temple built |