The Story of Buddhism

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Buddhism is a unique religion. Unlike most mainstream religions, Buddhists do not believe in any Gods, or souls. They instead believe in training the human mind to extinguish all negative desires, and thus become free of an eternity of suffering.

The story of Buddhism started around 2500 years ago in India when Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family. His upbringing was the finest imaginable, being the son of a king. He was extremely well-educated and had all the qualities one would desire of a future king. He was however shielded from the harsh realities of life, in fear that he might give up his family and follow a path of meditation, something his father did not desire of him.

This form of living in extreme luxury continued until one day, by chance Siddhartha was riding on a chariot when he encountered an old man. Having never encountered such a sight before, he asked why the man looked the way he was. "That is old age," said the charioteer, "the ravisher of beauty, the ruin of vigour, the cause of sorrow, destroyer of delights, the bane of memories and the enemy of the senses..." (http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/history/buddha.htm)

This was a new experience for Siddhartha who was brought up to live without pain or suffering. He later also saw a sick man and a dead man. He then began to wonder why we grow old, get sick and die. Later he met an ascetic, “a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ascetic). Siddhartha then decided to follow leave his family and follow the ascetic, in order to try and find the mystery of life.

The sightings of the old man...

... middle of paper ...

...ultures of any religion in the world.

Works Cited

Fleming, Louise. Excel Studies of Religion. Glebe, N.S.W.: Pascal Press, 1998. Print.

"BBC - Religions - Buddhism: The Buddhist universe." BBC, Last updated 23 Nov. 2009. Web. Last viewed 8 Mar. 2011.

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"Basic Buddhism: The Theory of Karma." BuddhaNet. n.d. Last Viewed Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Kumar, Nitin. "Life of the Buddha - ReligionFacts." Religionfacts, n.d. Last Viewed Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

"The Eightfold Path." thebigview n.d. Web. Last viewed 8 Mar. 2011.

"The Four Noble Truths." thebigview.com n.d. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

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