THE MAHATMA GAUTAMA, BUDDHA BIOGRAPHY,The Buddha: The Spiritual Journey that Became a Religion

                           
                                                    

The Buddha: The Spiritual Journey that Became a Religion

 Twenty-five thousand years ago one’s man’s spiritual journey was the beginning of one of the world’s seven religions -- boasting 376 million followers today. He is simply called “The Buddha,” and he grew up the son of a king…sheltered from the realities of human suffering. When he finally learned the harsh truth, heleft his family and set off on a path to understand life itself -- first as a monk and then as a teacher. 

                                        Early Life 

                     THE MAHATMA GAUTAMA BUDDHA BIOGRAPHY

                                                        

The  founder of Buddhism was a man named SiddharthaGautama. He was the son a chieftain and believed tobe born in Lumbini (modern-day Nepal) in the 6th century B.C. His father Śuddhodana (translating to, “hewho grows pure rice”) presided over a large clan called the Shakya in either a republicor an oligarchy system of rule. His mother was Queen Māyā of Sakya who issaid to have died shortly after his birth. The infant was given the name Siddhartha,meaning "he who achieves his aim.” When Siddhartha was still a baby, severalseers with the power of supernatural insight into the future, predicted he would eitherbe a great spiritual leader, military leader or a king. Since Siddhartha’s mother died, he was broughtup by his maternal aunt, Maha Pajapati. His father, hoping to steer Siddhartha inthe direction of the throne, shielded him from religion of any kind and sheltered himfrom seeing human hardship and suffering. 

As such, he was raised in the lap of luxuryand blissful ignorance where he knew nothing about aging, disease, or death. At the age of 16, Siddhartha’s father arrangedhis marriage to a cousin, Yaśodharā, who was also a teenager. She gave birth to a son, Rāhula, some yearslater. Siddhartha is said to have remained livingin the palace until the age of 29 when everything changed. According to the story, one day Siddharthatravelled outside of the palace gates and he was deeply disturbed by the sight of anold man. His charioteer Channa explained to Siddharthathat all people grow old and that death is an integral part of life. This prompted Siddhartha to secretly ventureoutside the palace on more trips. When leaving, it was said that, “the horse'shooves were muffled by the gods” so as to prevent the guards from knowing of his departure. 

Outside the gates on these trips he encountereda sick man, a decaying corpse, and a homeless, holy man (also known as an ascetic). Channa told Siddhartha ascetics give up theirmaterial possessions and forgo physical pleasures for a higher, spiritual purpose. After witnessing the reality of human hardshipand suffering, Siddhartha had no interest in living at the palace. He left his wife and child to discover thetrue meaning of life, first through living as a traveling beggar, like the ascetics hesaw on the streets. Ascetic life“The root of suffering is attachment.” Siddhartha first went to the city of Rajagahaand began begging on the streets to survive. He was recognized there by the king’s menand offered the throne. 

He rejected it but promised to come back andvisit once he attained enlightenment. When he left Rajagaha, he met a hermit Brahminsaint named Alara Kalama. Kalama taught Siddhartha a form of meditationknown as the dhyānic state, or the “sphere of nothingness.” Siddhartha eventually became his teacher’sequal and Kalama offered him his place saying, “You are the same as I am now. There is no difference between us. Stay here and take my place and teach my studentswith me.” But Siddhartha didn’t stay, and insteadhe moved on to another teacher, Udaka Ramaputta. Once again, he achieved high levels of meditativeconsciousness and was asked to succeed his teacher. Siddhartha refused the offer and moved on. 

Through the practice of meditation, Siddhartharealized dhyana, a “state of perfect equanimity and awareness” was the path to enlightenment. He also realized that living life as an extremelydeprived beggar, as he had done, wasn’t working. It had been six years, and he had eaten verylittle and fasted until he was weak. Awakening After starving himself for days, Siddharthafamously accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. He was so emaciated, she thought he was aspirit there to grant her a wish. Siddhartha, after having this meal, decidedagainst living a life of extreme self-denial since his spiritual goals were not being met. He instead opted to follow a path of balance,known in Buddhism as the Middle Way. At this turning point, his five followersbelieved he was giving up and abandoned him. Soon after he started meditating under a figtree (now called the Bodhi tree) and committed himself to staying there until he had foundenlightenment. He meditated for six days and nights and reachedenlightenment on the full moon morning of May, a week before he turned thirty-five. At the time of his enlightenment he gainedcomplete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. 

He called these steps the "Four Noble Truths." After his awakening, the Buddha met two merchantbrothers from the city of Balkh in modern-day Afghanistan. The brothers, Trapusa and Bahalika, offeredthe Buddha his first meal after enlightenment and they became his first lay disciplines. According to some texts, each brother gavea hair from his head and these became relics enshrined at the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon,Burma. The Teacher “I teach because you and all beings wantto have happiness and want to avoid suffering. I teach the way things are.” Legend has it that initially Buddha was reluctantto spread his knowledge to others as he was doubtful of whether the common people wouldunderstand his teachings. But then the king of gods, Brahma, convincedBuddha to teach, and he set out to do that. The Buddha travelled to Deer Park in northernIndia, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering hisfirst sermon to the five companions who had abandoned him earlier. Together with him, they formed the first Buddhistmonks, also known as saṅgha. All five attained nirvana, a state along thepath to enlightenment yet not full enlightenment. 

They were known as arahants, meaning “onewho is worthy,” or “perfected person.” From the first five, the group of arahantssteadily grew to 60 within the first few months and eventually, the sangha reached more thanone thousand. The sangha traveled through the subcontinent,expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, exceptduring the four months of the Vassa rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarelytraveled. One reason was that it was more difficultto do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreatto monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them. The first vassana was spent at Varanasi whenthe sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travelto Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayanawere converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to becomethe Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons atVeluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha. Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodanasent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. 

On the first nine occasions, the delegatesfailed to deliver the message and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhoodfriend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message. Now two years after his awakening, the Buddhaagreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharmaas he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared amidday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son,the Buddha, saying: “Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warriorhas gone seeking alms.” The Buddha is said to have replied: “Thatis not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone byseeking alms.” Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invitedthe sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royalfamily joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddhabecame two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined,and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and becamean arahant.

 His wife, reportedly became a nun. Throughout his life, Buddha encouraged hisstudents to question his teachings and confirm them through their own experience. This non-dogmatic attitude still characterizesBuddhism today. Buddhism“You yourself must strive. The Buddhas only point the way.” Buddhism is the fourth largest religion inthe world and t is also one of the oldest, established in the 6th century B.C. in present-dayNepal, India. Unlike other religions, Buddhists do not worshipa God. Instead, they focus on spiritual developmentwith the end-goal of becoming “enlightened” -- though not in the intellectual sense ofthe word. In the Western world, enlightenment is mostoften associated with the 18th century European Enlightenment Period, a movement characterizedby a rational and scientific approach to politics, religion, and social and economic issues. In Buddhism, the simplest explanation of attainingenlightenment is when an individual finds out the truth about life, and experiences“an awakening” where they are freed from the cycle of being reborn. Central to Buddhism is the notion that tolive is to suffer, and everything is in a constant state of change. All Buddhists believe, unless one has becomeenlightened, they will be reincarnated again and again. Enlightenment can be achieved through thepractice and development of morality, meditation and wisdom. Four Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha's teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddhacame to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree. These are: 

The truth of suffering (Dukkha);the truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya); the truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha);and the truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga). Suffering comes in many forms. Three obvious kinds of suffering correspondto the first three sights the Buddha saw on his first journey outside his palace: oldage, sickness and death. But according to the Buddha, the problem ofsuffering goes much deeper. Life is not ideal: it frequently fails tolive up to our expectations. Human beings are subject to desires and cravings,but even when we are able to satisfy these desires, the satisfaction is only temporary. Pleasure does not last; or if it does, itbecomes monotonous. Even when we are not suffering from outwardcauses like illness or bereavement, we are unfulfilled, unsatisfied. 

This is the truth of suffering. The next noble truth is the origin of suffering. Our day-to-day troubles may seem to have easilyidentifiable causes: thirst, pain from an injury, sadness from the loss of a loved one. In the second of his Noble Truths, though,the Buddha claimed to have found the cause of all suffering - and it is much more deeplyrooted than our immediate worries. The Buddha taught that the root of all sufferingis desire, tanhā. This comes in three forms, which he describedas the Three Roots of Evil, or the Three Fires, or the Three Poisons. The three roots of evil are greed and desire,represented in art by a rooster; ignorance or delusion, represented by a pig, and hatredand destructive urges, represented by a snake. He taught more about suffering in his FireSermon, saying,a that is burning? The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousnessis burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasantthat arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fireof hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging anddeath, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs. The Third Noble Truth is Cessation of suffering(Nirodha). 

The Buddha taught that the way to extinguishdesire, which causes suffering, is to liberate oneself from attachment. This is the third Noble Truth - the possibilityof liberation. The Buddha was a living example that thisis possible in a human lifetime. "Estrangement" here means disenchantment:a Buddhist aims to know sense conditions clearly as they are without becoming enchanted ormisled by them. Nirvana means extinguishing. Attaining nirvana - reaching enlightenment- means extinguishing the three fires of greed, delusion and hatred. Someone who reaches nirvana does not immediatelydisappear to a heavenly realm. Nirvana is better understood as a state ofmind that humans can reach. It is a state of profound spiritual joy, withoutnegative emotions and fears. Someone who has attained enlightenment isfilled with compassion for all living things.After death an enlightened person is liberated fromthe cycle of rebirth, but Buddhism gives no definite answers as to what happens next. The Buddha discouraged his followers fromasking too many questions about nirvana. He wanted them to concentrate on the taskat hand, which was freeing themselves from the cycle of suffering. Asking questions is like quibbling with thedoctor who is trying to save your life. The Fourth Noble Truth is the path to thecessation of suffering (Magga). The final Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescriptionfor the end of suffering. 

This is a set of principles called the EightfoldPath. The Eightfold Path is also called the MiddleWay: it avoids both indulgence and severe asceticism, neither of which the Buddha hadfound helpful in his search for enlightenment. The eight stages are not to be taken in order,but rather support and reinforce each other. Death and Legacy “I can die happily. I have not kept a single teaching hidden ina closed hand. Everything that is useful for you, I havealready given. Be your own guiding light.” According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta ofthe Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach Parinirvana,or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal,which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed hisattendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to dowith his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it providedthe last meal for a Buddha. 

Mettanando and von Hinüber argue that theBuddha died of old age, rather than food poisoning. The Buddha’s teachings began to be codifiedshortly after his death, and continue to be followed one way or another (and with majordiscrepancies) by at least 400 million people to this day. There are numerous different schools or sectsof Buddhism. The two largest are Theravada Buddhism, whichis most popular in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Burma (Myanmar), and Mahayana Buddhism,which is strongest in Tibet, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. The majority of Buddhist sects do not seekto proselytise (preach and convert), with the notable exception of Nichiren Buddhism. All schools of Buddhism seek to aid followerson a path of enlightenment. “If with a pure mind a person speaks oracts, happiness follows them like a never-departing shadow.”