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Buddhismis the religion and philosophy based on the teachings of Gautamma Siddhartha who lived between approximately 563 and 483 BC. This religion originated in India and gradually spread throughout Asia, to Central Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, as well as the East Asian countries of China, Korea and Japan.The BuddhaBuddha is a word in the ancient Indian languages Pali and Sanskrit which means "one who is awake". It is related to the word Bodhi which means "to awaken". OriginsLegend has it that the Buddha to be, Siddhartha Gautamma, was born around the 6th century BC. His birth place is said to be Lumbini, which is in present day Nepal, although in ancient India, it is part of the Kingdom of Magadha. His father was a king, and Siddhartha lived in luxury, being spared any hardship. The legends say that a seer predicted that Siddhartha would either become a great king, or a great holy man, and this led the king to make sure that Siddhartha never had any cause for dissatisfaction with his life. However, at the age of 29, while being escorted by his attendant Channa, he came across what has become known as the "Four Passing Sights": an old crippled man, a sick man, a decaying corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. These "four sights", as they are called, led him to the realization that birth, old-age, sickness and death came to everyone, not only once but repeated for life after life in succession for uncounted aeons. He decided to abandon his worldly life, leaving behind his wife and child, his privileged, rank, caste, and to take up the life of a wandering holy man in search of the answer to the problem of birth, old-age, sickness and death. It is said that he stole out of the house in the dead of the night, pausing for one last look at his family, and did not return for a very long time. Indian holy men (sadhus), in those days just as today, practiced a variety of ascetic disciplines designed to "mortify" the flesh - it was thought that by enduring pain and suffering, the atman or soul became free from the round of rebirth into pain and sorrow. (This was an early form of pre-Hinduism.) Siddhartha proved adept at these practices, and was able to surpass his teachers. However, he found no answer to his problem and, leaving behind his teachers, he and a small group of companions set out to take their austerities even further. He became a skeleton covered with skin, surviving on a single grain of rice per day, and practiced holding his breath. After neatly starving himself to dearth with no success (some sources claim that he nearly drowned), Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's plowing, and he had fallen into a naturally concentrated and focused state in which time seemed to stand still, and which was blissful and refreshing. Perhaps this would provide an alternative to the dead end of self-mortification? Taking a little buttermilk from a passing goat herd, he found a large tree (now called the Bodhi tree) under which he would be shaded from the heat of the mid-summer sun, and started meditating. This new way of practicing began to bear fruit. His mind became concentrated and pure, and then, six years after he began his quest, he attained "Enlightenment", and became "Budda". This meant that he had discovered a way to be free from the troubles of this world. Historically speaking there are some problems with this story. Firstly, there are other stories of his life which do not exactly match - another story has the Budda laving home in the "prime of his youth", and with his parents weeping and wailing. Secondly, we know from other sources that the country of "Magadha" where he was born was a "oligarchic republic" at that time, so there was no royal family. However the story is a powerful one and its historical accuracy has not been central to its ability to inspire "Buddhists" for two and a half millennia. What is a Buddha?A "Buddha" is a human being who has awaked to the true nature of cause and effect reality, whose insight into the true nature of reality has totally transformed them beyond birth, death, and subsequent rebirth. A "Budda" is not a god in the monotheistic sense of a creator god, and "Buddhism traditionally does not emphasize importance in relying on a creator god. "Buddha" is a title of recognition rather than a personal name. In fact, all schools of "Buddhism" recognize multiple "Buddhas" in the past and future.
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