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Siddhartha Gautama “Buddha”
• Founder of Buddhism
• Called the
Enlightened One
• Lived to 80 (563-483
BCE)
• Originated in India
The Buddha
Seeks
Enlightenment
• Buddhism developed out of
the same period of
religious questioning that
shaped modern Hinduism
and Jainism.
• Siddhartha Gautama
was the founder of
Buddhism.
• He was born into a
noble family that
lived in Kapilavastu, in
the foothills of the
Himalayas in Nepal.
• As a baby, Siddhartha exhibited the marks of a great man. A
prophesy indicated that if the child stayed at home he was
destined to become a world ruler. If the child left home,
however, he would become a universal spiritual leader.
Siddhartha
Gautama
• To make sure that he
would be a great king,
his father isolated
him in his palace.
• At the age of 16
Siddhartha married a
girl named Yasodhara.
• Siddhartha never ceased thinking about the world
that lay outside of the palace, which he had never
seen.
• When he was 29, he ventured outside of the palace
four times.
Siddhartha’s Quest
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He saw an old man
He saw a sick man
He saw a corpse
being carried to
the cremation
grounds
He saw a wondering
holy man who
seemed at peace
with himself.
• Siddhartha understood
that these events meant
that every living thing
experiences old age,
sickness, and death and
that only a religious life
offers a refuge from
this inevitable suffering.
• He wandered through the forests of India for six years
seeking enlightenment, or wisdom.
He tried many ways of reaching an enlightened state. He debated with
religious seeker.He fasted, eating only six grains of rice a day. (it was
said that he got so skinny that if you tried to poke him with your
finger in his stomach that you would touch his backbone.
• None of these methods brought him Enlightenment.
• Finally, he sat down and meditated under a large fig tree.
• After 49 days of meditation, he achieved an understanding
of the cause of suffering in this world.
• From then on, he was known as the Buddha, the
Enlightened one.
Beliefs
•
•
•
•
Reincarnation
Seek detachment from worldly desires
Nirvana- release from selfishness and pain
Nirvana = Buddhism Moksha = Hinduism
The Four Noble Truths
Suffering Exists (Life is Suffering):
Humans sleep away their lives in
senseless and self-centered preoccupations; this self-centeredness only leads to pain, misery,
sorrow, and unfulfillment.
Desire Causes Suffering:
The need to refer all things to ourselves causes
suffering. We suffer because our ego dupes us into believing that we need that which is not
permanent (body, perspective, emotion, feeling, impulse are all very real – it is our linking of
these realities to a “self” that is incorrect).
Cessation of Desire Brings the Cessation of Suffering:
One must
see things as they really are, not simply as they are for ourselves. Rather than absorb
everything into the ego for our own pleasure, we must allow our connection with reality to
cause an outward flow – a universal compassion toward all living creatures. This is not a
belief, it is an action.
The Cessation of Desire Is Found Through the Eightfold Path:
The observance of the truths of the Eightfold Path is at the heart of the Buddhist life.
Four Noble Truths
• 1st- life is suffering and sorrow
• 2nd- suffering is caused by people’s selfish
desire for pleasures
• 3rd- The way to end suffering is to end
desires
• 4th- The way to overcome such desires and
attain nirvana is to follow the Eightfold
Path, which is called the Middle Way
between desires and self-denial
Eight Fold Path
• Right views, right resolve, right speech,
right conduct, right livelihood, right effort,
right mindfulness, right concentration.
• This is the Middle Way
Practice
• An established order of
monks
• Lives of meditation,
live on alms
• Temples primarily
used for individual
meditation
• Monks and nuns took
vows to live in poverty,
to be nonviolent, and
not to marry
Effects on Society
• Spread through trade
• Theravada,
Mahayana, Zen
Modern Traditions
• Dalai Lama – leader of
Tibetan Buddhism
• Political protests
• Dec 8 – Bodhi Day –
the day Siddhartha
gained nirvana
• Pacifist
• Vegetarian