Life of the Buddha

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General Essay on Buddhism

Life of the Buddha

Buddhism arose in northern India in the 6th century BCE. The historical founder of Buddhism, Siddharta Gautama (c.560-480 BCE) was born in a village called Lumbini into a warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning 'Sage of the Sakyas'). According to tradition Gautama's father, Suddhodana was the king of a small principality based on the town of Kapilavastu. 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.

At 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. His apparent 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.

So traumatised was Siddharta by his new found awareness of the transience of pleasure and the universality of suffering, that he decided to embark on a life dedicated to true knowledge. Inspired by the example of a mendicant monk, Siddharta abandoned his family and life as a prince, cut off his hair and adopted the lifestyle of a wanderer.

Siddharta began his spiritual quest under the guidance of two teachers who showed him how to reach very deep states of meditation (samadhi). This did not, however, lead to a sense of true knowledge or peace, and the practice of deep meditation was abandoned in favour of a life of extreme asceticism which he shared with five companions. But again, after five or six years, of self-mortification, Siddharta felt he had failed to achieve true insight and rejected such practices as dangerous and useless.

Resolved to continue his quest, Siddharta made his way to a deer park at Isipatana, near present day Benares. Here he sat beneath a tree meditating on death and rebirth. It was here that Siddharta attained a knowledge of the way things really are; it was through this knowledge that he acquired the title 'Buddha' (meaning 'awakened one'). This awakening was achieved during a night of meditation, which passed through various stag...

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...lling to India for religious education. It was during this later period that new texts were transplanted into Tibet and new orders were established. These orders are not based on distinct doctrines but derive from lineages associated with early Buddhist masters (known as lamas).

Buddhism in the West

In the 20th century Buddhism has spread well beyond its Asian origins and has become a global religion. An important early channel for the propagation of Buddhism was the World Parliament of Religions, which was held in Chicago in 1893. Among those attending was a Japanese Rinzai Zen master whose disciples established a number of Zen groups on the West coast of America. Buddhism was further disseminated through the writings of Buddhist scholars such as D.T. Suzuki in the United States and Christmas Humphries and Edward Conze in the United Kingdom. In the 1950s and 1960s the study of Buddhism became an integral part of higher education through the establishment of Religious Studies or Asian Studies departments. The establishment of Buddhist temples and centres for European and American converts or Asian immigrants has further strengthened the presence of Buddhism in the West.

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