Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is one of the world's major religions, with between 230 to 500 million followers, most of them living in Asia. Buddhism branches off into many other religions just as Christianity does. The two main branches of Buddhism are Mahayana and Theravada. The word Buddha can be translated to awakened or enlightened. Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, taught around 5th century B.C. in northeast India and Nepal. Most Buddhists believe in rebirth and that the experiences are determined by Karma. People who are very spiritual are not bound by Karma and can determine their own rebirth. Some people can even determine others rebirths’. Buddhists believe that meditation is necessary at a certain point but most believe that they have not reached that point. Buddhism proposes very strong ethics of which encourage generosity and the Five Precepts: refraining from killing living beings, stealing, sexual immorality, lying, and taking intoxicants.

Gautama Buddha, whose name was later found to be Siddhartha Buddha, was born in Lumbini, Nepal. He was born around 560-480 BCE into a warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning 'Sage of the Sakyas'). He was raised in Kapilavastu(an ancient Indian region that is considered a holy pilgrimage place for Buddhists. It is located close to Lumbini.). His story cannot be proved to be historical fact. The story says that he was born a prince as the son of King Suddhodana. Supposedly the King was visited by a wiseman a short time after Siddhartha was born. The man said that he would he either grow up to be a good king, or a great holy man. His father wanted to make him a king, so he tried to isolate him from seeing reality. His mother, Queen Maya, died seven days after Gautama's birth. Following the death of Maya, Suddhodana married Maya's sister, Prajapati, by whom Gautama was brought up in great luxury and sheltered from the harshness of the outside world. When he was sixteen, the prince married Yasodhara. Yasodhara bore him a son whom he called Rahula meaning "chain" or “fetter”, a name that indicated Gautama's sense of dissatisfaction with his life of luxury. This sense of dissatisfaction turned to disillusion when he saw three things from the window of his palace, each of which represented different forms human suffering: a decrepit old man, a diseased man, and a corpse. He was traumatized by his new awareness of the great extent of suffering that was going on around him. So he chose to embark on a life dedicated to true knowledge. He was then inspired by a monk so he decided to completely abandon his family and life as a prince, so he cut off all of his hair and adopted the life of a wonderer.

He then began his spiritual quest apprenticing under two teachers who showed him how to reach very deep states of meditation (samadhi). However this did not lead to a greater sense of knowledge or peace. The practice of deep meditation was abandoned in favour of a life of extreme asceticism which he shared with five companions. However, after a few years he decided that he failed to achieve true insight and rejected such practices, so he decided to continue with his old quest. He eventually made his way to a park near present day Benares. He sat underneath a tree and meditated on death and rebirth. It was here when he gained knowledge of the way things are. This is what lead to him being given the name “Buddha”, meaning 'awakened one'. This awakening was accomplished during a night of meditation, he passed through many stages. First, he saw each of his previous existences. Second he surveyed the death and rebirth of all living beings and understood the law that governs the cycle of birth and death. Third he identified the four noble truths: the universality of suffering, the cause of suffering through selfish desire, the solution to suffering and the way to overcome suffering.