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Essay on Gautam Buddha

An Introduction

Gautam Buddha is popularly called Lord Buddha or The Buddha. He was a great and religious leader of ancient India. He is regarded as the founder of Buddhism, which is one of the most followed religions in the world today.

The followers of Buddha are now called Buddhists which means the enlightened beings, the ones who have rediscovered the path to freedom starting from ignorance, craving to the cycle of rebirth and suffering. Buddha himself propagated it for nearly 45 years.

His teachings are based on his insights of suffering and dissatisfaction ending in a state called Nirvana.

Gautam Buddha is considered to be one of the greatest religious preachers in the world. He was the preacher of peace and harmony. In this Gautam Buddha essay, you will find one long and one short piece about the epic religious guru followed by many. Studying this piece will help you learn who Gautama Buddha was and what made him choose the path of spirituality. The long and short essay on Gautam Buddha will help students of Class 5 and above to write one on their own. These essays are specially designed so that you can have all the needed information about Gautam Buddha. This essay will help you to understand the life of Gautam Buddha in minimum words. Basically in a few words, this essay gives you a brief detail about Buddha.

Gautam Buddha, the messenger of peace, equality, and fraternity, was born in Lumbini in the 6th Century BC, the Terai region of Nepal. His real name was Siddhartha Gautam. He belonged to the royal family of Kapilavastu. His father was Suddhodhana, the ruler. Maya Devi, Gautam’s mother, died soon after giving birth to him. He was a thoughtful child with a broad mind. He was very disciplined and liked to question contemporary concepts to understand and gather more knowledge.

He wanted to devote his life to spirituality and meditation. This was what his father did not like about him. He went against his father’s wishes to find spirituality. His father was worried that someday, Gautam will leave his family to pursue his wishes. For this, Suddhodhana always guarded his son against the harshness surrounding him. He never let his son leave the palace anytime. When he was 18 years of age, Gautam was married to Yashodhara, a princess with magnificent beauty. They had a son named ‘Rahul’. Even though Siddhartha’s family was complete and happy, he did not find peace. His mind always urged him intending to find the truth beyond the walls.

As per the Buddhist manuscripts, when Siddhartha saw an old man, an ailing person, and a corpse, he understood that nothing in this material world is permanent. All the pleasures he enjoyed were temporary and someday, he had to leave them behind. His mind startled from the realization. He left his family, the throne, and the kingdom behind and started roaming in the forests and places aimlessly. All he wanted was to find the real truth and purpose of life. In his journey, he met with scholars and saints but nobody was able to quench his thirst for truth.

He then commenced meditation with the aim to suffer and then realized the ultimate truth sitting under a huge banyan tree after 6 years. It was in Bodh Gaya in Bihar. He turned 35 and was enlightened. His wisdom knew no boundaries. The tree was named Bodhi Vriksha. He was very satisfied with his newly found knowledge and gave his first speech on enlightenment in Sarnath. He found the ultimate truth behind the sorrows and troubles people face in the world. It was all due to their desires and attraction to earthly things.

A couple of centuries after he died, he came to be known as the Buddha which means the enlightened one. All the teachings of Buddha were compiled in the Vinaya. His teachings were passed to the Indo-Aryan community through oral traditions.

In his lecture, he mentioned the Noble Eightfold Path to conquer desires and attain full control. The first 3 paths described how one can gain physical control. The next 2 paths showed us how to achieve the fullest mental control. The last 2 paths were described to help people attain the highest level of intellect. These paths are described as Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration synchronously.

The title “Buddha” was used by several ancient groups and for each group, it had its meaning. The word Buddhism refers to a living being who has got enlightened and just got up from his phase of ignorance. Buddhism believes that there have been Buddhas in the past before Gautam Buddha and there will be Buddhas in the future also. The Buddhists celebrate the life of Gautam Buddha starting from his birth to his enlightenment and passage into Nirvana stage as well.

In his life, Gautam Buddha had done a lot of spiritual things and lived his life by going through so much. Each suffering and each liberation of his has turned into teachings.

Some of them are explained below:

Finding Liberation: the ultimate motive of our soul is to find liberation.

The Noble truth of Life: for salvation, you need to know about all the four Noble truths of your life.

Suffering is not a Joke:   each suffering leads you to experience a new you.

There are noble eightfold paths that you need to follow.

Death is final, the one who has taken birth will die surely and everything in life is impermeable, you are not going to have anything that will be permanent so focus on salvation rather than pleasing others.

He preached that only sacrifice cannot make a person happy and free from all the bonds he has in the world. He also defined the final goal as Nirvana. Even to this day, his preaching finds meaning and can be related to our sorrows. According to his teachings, the right way of thinking, acting, living, concentrating, etc can lead to such a state. He never asked anyone to sacrifice or pray all day to achieve such a state. This is not the way to gain such a mindful state.

He didn’t mention any god or an almighty controlling our fate. His teachings are the best philosophical thoughts one can follow. Gautam Buddha was his new name after gaining Nirvana and knowing the truth. He was sure that no religion can lead to Nirvana. Only the Noble Eightfold Path can be the way to achieve such a state. He breathed last in 483 BC in Kushinagar, now situated in Uttar Pradesh and his life became an inspiration.

Even after being in a happy family with a loving wife and son, he left his royal kingdom in search of the truth. No one was able to satisfy him with knowledge. He then attained his enlightenment under a banyan tree in Bodh Gaya. He described the Noble Eightfold Path that everyone should follow to get rid of sorrow and unhappiness. He died in 483 BC but his preaching is found to be still relevant to this date. This tells us how Siddhartha became Gautam Buddha. It also tells us about his valuable preaching and shows us the way to achieve Nirvana.

FAQs on Essay on Gautam Buddha

1. What made Siddhartha realize pleasures are Temporary?

When he first saw an ailing person, a corpse, and an old man, he realized worldly pleasures are temporary. He realized that all the pleasures that this world is running behind are fake. Nothing will stay forever, even the ones whom you love the most will leave you sooner or later, so you should not run behind these material pleasures. Focus on attaining salvation. Everyone who has taken birth will definitely leave one day, the thing that you have today will not be there tomorrow. There is only one soul for yourself. The body or the material things that you are proud of today will leave you tomorrow. Everything is not going to be the same.

2. What did he do to achieve Knowledge and Peace?

Gautam Buddha was more focused on achieving salvation, he wanted to know the truth of life. He wanted to have knowledge of all the things and peace along with Moksha. To receive knowledge and peace, Gautam Buddha left his home and his family behind. He wandered here and there aimlessly just to find peace in his life. Not only this, he talked with many scholars and saints so that he could receive the knowledge of everything that he was searching for. 

3. What did he Preach?

Gautam Buddha was the preacher of peace. In this essay, we are introduced to the preaching of Gautam Buddha. He has taught all about how to receive salvation and attain Nirvana without following any particular religion. Some of his preachings are :

Have respect for your life.

No lying and respect for honesty.

No sexual misconduct and at least you should respect the people of the same community and respect women as well. 

The path of sufferings, truth of causes; these factors will create a path of salvation for you. You need to believe in the reality of life and then move towards attaining the ultimate.

4. Does Gautam Buddha believe in God?

Buddhists actually don't believe in any dainty figure or God but according to them, there are some supernatural powers present in this universe that can help people or they can even encourage people to move toward enlightenment. Gautam Buddha, on seeing people dying and crying, realized that human life is nothing but suffering and all you need to do is get over this materialistic world and lead your life towards attaining salvation. Nothing is permanent nor even this body, so enlighten yourself towards the path of salvation.

Siddhartha Gautama

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Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha, l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE) was, according to legend, a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal and, in preaching his path to others, founded Buddhism in India in the 6th-5th centuries BCE.

The events of his life are largely legendary, but he is considered an actual historical figure and a younger contemporary of Mahavira (also known as Vardhamana , l. c. 599-527 BCE) who established the tenets of Jainism shortly before Siddhartha's time.

According to Buddhist texts, a prophecy was given at Siddhartha's birth that he would become either a powerful king or great spiritual leader. His father, fearing he would become the latter if he were exposed to the suffering of the world, protected him from seeing or experiencing anything unpleasant or upsetting for the first 29 years of his life. One day (or over the course of a few) he slipped through his father's defenses and saw what Buddhists refer to as the Four Signs:

• An aged man
• A religious ascetic

Through these signs, he realized that he, too, could become sick, would grow old, would die, and would lose everything he loved. He understood that the life he was living guaranteed he would suffer and, further, that all of life was essentially defined by suffering from want or loss. He therefore followed the example of the religious ascetic, tried different teachers and disciplines, and finally attained enlightenment through his own means and became known as the Buddha (“awakened” or “enlightened” one).

Afterwards, he preached his “middle way” of detachment from sense objects and renunciation of ignorance and illusion through his Four Noble Truths , the Wheel of Becoming, and the Eightfold Path to enlightenment. After his death , his disciples preserved and developed his teachings until they were spread from India to other countries by the Mauryan king Ashoka the Great (r. 268-232 BCE). From the time of Ashoka on, Buddhism has continued to flourish and, presently, is one of the major world religions.

Historical Background

Siddhartha was born in Lumbini (in modern-day Nepal) during a time of social and religious transformation. The dominant religion in India at the time was Hinduism ( Sanatan Dharma , “Eternal Order”) but a number of thinkers of the period had begun to question its validity and the authority of the Vedas (the Hindu scriptures) as well as the practices of the priests.

On a practical level, critics of orthodox Hinduism claimed that the religion was not meeting the needs of the people. The Vedas were said to have been received directly from the universe and could not be questioned, but these scriptures were all in Sanskrit , a language the people could not understand, and were interpreted by the priests to encourage acceptance of one's place in life – no matter how difficult or impoverished – while they themselves continued to live well from temple donations.

On a theological level, people began to question the entire construct of Hinduism. Hinduism taught that there was a supreme being, Brahman, who had not only created the universe but was the universe itself. Brahman had established the divine order, maintained this order, and had delivered the Vedas to enable human beings to participate in this order with understanding and clarity.

It was understood that the human soul was immortal and that the goal of life was to perform one's karma (action) in accordance with one's dharma (duty) in order to break free from the cycle of rebirth and death ( samsara ) and attain union with the oversoul ( atman ). It was also understood that the soul would be incarnated in physical bodies multiple times, over and over, until one finally attained this liberation.

The Hindu priests of the time defended the faith, which included the caste system, as part of the divine order but, as new ideas began to circulate, more people questioned whether that order was divine at all when all it seemed to offer was endless rounds of suffering. Scholar John M. Koller comments:

From a religious perspective, new ways of faith and practice challenged the established Vedic religion. The main concern dominating religious thought and practice at the time of the Buddha was the problem of suffering and death. Fear of death was an especially acute problem, because death was seen as an unending series of deaths and rebirths. Although the Buddha's solution to the problem was unique, most religious seekers at this time were engaged in the search for a way to obtain freedom from suffering and repeated death. (46)

Many schools of thought arose at this time in response to this need. Those which supported orthodox Hindu thought were known as astika (“there exists”), and those which rejected the Vedas and the Hindu construct were known as nastika (“there does not exist”). Among the nastika schools which survived the time and developed were Charvaka , Jainism, and Buddhism.

Early Life & Renunciation

Siddhartha Gautama grew up in this time of transition and reform but, according to the famous Buddhist legend concerning his youth, would not have been aware of any of it. When he was born, it was prophesied that he would become a great king or spiritual leader and his father, hoping for the former, hid his son away from anything that might be distressing. Siddhartha's mother died within a week of his birth, but he had no awareness of this, and his father did not want him to experience anything else as he grew which might inspire him to adopt a spiritual path.

Siddhartha lived among the luxuries of the palace , was married, had a son, and lacked for nothing as the heir-apparent of his father until his experience with the Four Signs. Whether he saw the aged man, sick man, dead man, and ascetic in rapid succession on a single ride in his carriage (or chariot , depending on the version), or over four days, the story relates how, with each one of the first three, he asked his driver, “Am I, too, subject to this?” His coachman responded, telling him how everyone aged, everyone was subject to illness, and everyone died.

Reflecting upon this, Siddhartha understood that everyone he loved, every fine object, all his grand clothes, his horses, his jewels would one day be lost to him – could be lost to him at any time on any day – because he was subject to age, illness, and death just like everyone else. The idea of such tremendous loss was unbearable to him but, he noticed, the religious ascetic – just as doomed as anyone – seemed at peace and so asked him why he seemed so content. The ascetic told him he was pursuing the path of spiritual reflection and detachment, recognizing the world and its trappings as illusion, and was therefore unconcerned with loss as he had already given everything away.

Siddhartha knew that his father would never allow him to follow this path and, further, he had a wife and son he was responsible for who would also try to prevent him. At the same time, though, the thought of accepting a life he knew he would ultimately lose and suffer for was unbearable. One night, after looking at all of the precious objects he was attached to and his sleeping wife and son, he walked out of the palace, left his fine clothes, put on the robes of an ascetic, and departed for the woods. In some versions of the story, he is assisted by supernatural means while, in others, he simply leaves.

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Criticism of the Four Signs Tale

Criticism of this story often includes the objection that Siddhartha could not possibly have gone 29 years without ever becoming sick, seeing an older person, or being aware of death, but this is explained by scholars in two ways:

• the story is symbolic of the conditions which cause/relieve suffering
• the story is an artificial construct to give Buddhism an illustrious past

Koller addresses the first point, writing :

Most likely the truth of the legend of the four signs is symbolic rather than literal. In the first place, they may symbolize existential crises in Siddhartha's life occasioned by experiences with sickness, old age, death, and renunciation. More important, these four signs symbolize his coming to a deep and profound understanding of the true reality of sickness, old age, death, and contentment and his conviction that peace and contentment are possible despite the fact that everyone experiences old age, sickness, and death. (49)

Scholars Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr. address the second point noting that the story of the Four Signs was written over 100 years after Buddha's death and that early Buddhists were “motivated in part by the need to demonstrate that what the Buddha taught was not the innovation of an individual, but rather the rediscovery of a timeless truth” in order to give the belief system the same claim to ancient, divine origins held by Hinduism and Jainism (149).

The story may or may not be true, but it hardly matters because it has come to be accepted as truth. It appears first in full in the Lalitavistara Sutra (c. 3rd century CE) and, before that, may have undergone extensive revision via oral tradition. The symbolic meaning seems obvious and the claim it was written to enhance the standing of Buddhist thought, which had to contend with the established faiths of Hinduism and Jainism for adherents, also seems probable.

Ascetic Life & Enlightenment

Siddhartha at first sought out the famous teacher Arada Kalama with whom he studied until he had mastered all Kamala knew, but the “attainment of nothingness” he gained did nothing to free him from suffering. He then became a student of the master Udraka Ramaputra who taught him how to suppress his desires and attain a state “neither conscious nor unconscious”, but this did not satisfy him as it, also, did not address the problem of suffering. He subjected himself to the harshest ascetic disciplines, most likely following a Jain model, eventually eating only a grain of rice a day, but, still, he could not find what he was looking for.

In one version of his story, at this point he stumbles into a river, barely strong enough to keep his head above water, and receives direction from a voice on the wind. In the more popular version, he is found in the woods by a milkmaid named Sujata, who mistakes him for a tree spirit because he is so emaciated, and offers him some rice milk. The milk revives him, and he ends his asceticism and goes to nearby village of Bodh Gaya where he seats himself on a bed of grass beneath a Bodhi tree and vows to remain there until he understands the means of living without suffering.

Deep in a meditative state, Siddhartha contemplated his life and experiences. He thought about the nature of suffering and fully recognized its power came from attachment. Finally, in a moment of illumination, he understood that suffering was caused by the human insistence on permanent states of being in a world of impermanence. Everything one was, everything one thought one owned, everything one wanted to gain, was in a constant state of flux. One suffered because one was ignorant of the fact that life itself was change and one could cease suffering by recognizing that, since this was so, attachment to anything in the belief it would last was a serious error which only trapped one in an endless cycle of craving, striving, rebirth, and death. His illumination was complete, and Siddhartha Gautama was now the Buddha, the enlightened one.

Tenets & Teachings

Although he could now live his life in contentment and do as he pleased, he chose instead to teach others the path of liberation from ignorance and desire and assist them in ending their suffering. He preached his first sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath at which he introduced his audience to his Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths are:

• Life is suffering
• The cause of suffering is craving
• The end of suffering comes with an end to craving
• There is a path which leads one away from craving and suffering

The fourth truth directs one toward the Eightfold Path, which serves as a guide to live one's life without the kind of attachment that guarantees suffering:

• Right Intention
• Right Speech
• Right Action
• Right Livelihood
• Right Effort
• Right Mindfulness
• Right Concentration

By recognizing the Four Noble Truths and following the precepts of the Eightfold Path, one is freed from the Wheel of Becoming which is a symbolic illustration of existence. In the hub of the wheel sit ignorance, craving, and aversion which drive it. Between the hub and the rim of the wheel are six states of existence: human, animal, ghosts, demons, deities, and hell-beings. Along the rim of the wheel are depicted the conditions which cause suffering such as body-mind, consciousness, feeling, thirst, grasping among many others which bind one to the wheel and cause one to suffer.

In recognizing the Four Noble Truths and following the Eightfold Path, one will still experience loss, feel pain, know disappointment but it will not be the same as the experience of duhkha , translated as “suffering” which is unending because it is fueled by the soul's ignorance of the nature of life and of itself. One can still enjoy all aspects of life in pursuing the Buddhist path, only with the recognition that these things cannot last, it is not in their nature to last, because nothing in life is permanent.

Buddhists compare this realization to the end of a dinner party. When the meal is done, one thanks one's host for the pleasant time and goes home; one does not fall to the floor crying and lamenting the evening's end. The nature of the dinner party is that it has a beginning and an ending, it is not a permanent state, and neither is anything else in life. Instead of mourning the loss of something that one could never hope to have held onto, one should appreciate what one has experienced for what it is – and let it go when it is over.

Buddha called his teaching the Dharma which means “cosmic law ” in this case (not “duty” as in Hinduism) as it is based entirely on the concept of undeniable consequences for one's thoughts which form one's reality and dictate one's actions. As the Buddhist text Dhammapada puts it:

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves. (I.1-2)

The individual is ultimately responsible for his or her level of suffering because, at any point, one can choose not to engage in the kinds of attachments and thought processes which cause suffering. Buddha would continue to teach his message for the rest of his life before dying at Kushinagar where, according to Buddhists, he attained nirvana and was released from the cycle of rebirth and death after being served a meal by one Cunda, a student, who some scholars claim may have poisoned him, perhaps accidentally.

Before dying of dysentery, he requested his remains be placed in a stupa at a crossroads, but his disciples divided them between themselves and had them interred in eight (or ten) stupas corresponding to important sites in Buddha's life. When Ashoka the Great embraced Buddhism, he had the relics disinterred and then reinterred in 84,000 stupas across India.

He then sent missionaries to other countries to spread Buddha's message where it was received so well that Buddhism became more popular in countries like Sri Lanka, China , Thailand, and Korea than it was in India - a situation which, actually, is ongoing – and Buddhist thought developed further after that. Today, the efforts of Siddhartha Gautama are appreciated worldwide by those who have embraced his message and still follow his example of appreciating, without clinging, to the beauty of life.

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Bibliography

• Baird, F. E. & Heimbeck, R. S. Philosophic Classics: Asian Philosophy. Routledge, 2005.
• Buddha. The Dhammapada. Royal Classics, 2020.
• Burtt, E. A. The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha. Berkley, 2000.
• Buswell, R. E. jr & Lopez, D. S. jr. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton University Press, 2013.
• Keay, J. India: A History. Grove Press, 2010.
• Koller, J. M. Asian Philosophies. Prentice Hall, 2007.
• Long, J. D. Historical Dictionary of Hinduism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010.
• Long, J. D. Jainism: An Introduction. I.B. Tauris, 2009.

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The life of the Buddha

Suffering, impermanence, and no-self.

• The Four Noble Truths
• The law of dependent origination
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The teacher known as the Buddha lived in northern India sometime between the mid-6th and the mid-4th centuries before the Common Era. In ancient India the title buddha referred to an enlightened being who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and achieved freedom from suffering. According to the various traditions of Buddhism, buddhas have existed in the past and will exist in the future. Some Buddhists believe that there is only one buddha for each historical age, others that all beings will become buddhas because they possess the buddha nature ( tathagatagarbha ).

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The historical figure referred to as the Buddha (whose life is known largely through legend) was born on the northern edge of the Ganges River basin, an area on the periphery of the ancient civilization of North India, in what is today southern Nepal . He is said to have lived for 80 years. His family name was Gautama (in Sanskrit ) or Gotama (in Pali ), and his given name was Siddhartha (Sanskrit: “he who achieves his aim”) or Siddhattha (in Pali). He is frequently called Shakyamuni , “the sage of the Shakya clan.” In Buddhist texts he is most commonly addressed as Bhagavat (often translated as “Lord”), and he refers to himself as the Tathagata , which can mean both “one who has thus come” and “one who has thus gone.” Traditional sources on the date of his death—or, in the language of the tradition, his “passage into nirvana ”—range from 2420 to 290 bce . Scholarship in the 20th century limited that range considerably, with opinion generally divided between those who believed he lived from about 563 to 483 bce and those who believed he lived about a century later.

Information about his life derives largely from Buddhist texts, the earliest of which were produced shortly before the beginning of the Common Era and thus several centuries after his death. According to the traditional accounts, however, the Buddha was born into the ruling Shakya clan and was a member of the Kshatriya , or warrior, caste . His mother, Maha Maya , dreamt one night that an elephant entered her womb, and 10 lunar months later, while she was strolling in the garden of Lumbini , her son emerged from under her right arm. His early life was one of luxury and comfort, and his father protected him from exposure to the ills of the world, including old age , sickness, and death. At age 16 he married the princess Yashodhara, who would eventually bear him a son. At 29, however, the prince had a profound experience when he first observed the suffering of the world while on chariot rides outside the palace. He resolved then to renounce his wealth and family and live the life of an ascetic . During the next six years, he practiced meditation with several teachers and then, with five companions, undertook a life of extreme self-mortification. One day, while bathing in a river, he fainted from weakness and therefore concluded that mortification was not the path to liberation from suffering. Abandoning the life of extreme asceticism , the prince sat in meditation under a tree and received enlightenment, sometimes identified with understanding the Four Noble Truths . For the next 45 years, the Buddha spread his message throughout northeastern India, established orders of monks and nuns, and received the patronage of kings and merchants. At the age of 80, he became seriously ill. He then met with his disciples for the last time to impart his final instructions and passed into nirvana. His body was then cremated and the relics distributed and enshrined in stupas (funerary monuments that usually contained relics), where they would be venerated.

The Buddha’s place within the tradition, however, cannot be understood by focusing exclusively on the events of his life and time (even to the extent that they are known). Instead, he must be viewed within the context of Buddhist theories of time and history. Among these theories is the belief that the universe is the product of karma , the law of the cause and effect of actions. The beings of the universe are reborn without beginning in six realms as gods, demigods, humans, animals, ghosts, and hell beings. The cycle of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”), is regarded as a domain of suffering, and the Buddhist’s ultimate goal is to escape from that suffering. The means of escape remains unknown until, over the course of millions of lifetimes, a person perfects himself, ultimately gaining the power to discover the path out of samsara and then revealing that path to the world.

A person who has set out to discover the path to freedom from suffering and then to teach it to others is called a bodhisattva . A person who has discovered that path, followed it to its end, and taught it to the world is called a buddha. Buddhas are not reborn after they die but enter a state beyond suffering called nirvana (literally “passing away”). Because buddhas appear so rarely over the course of time and because only they reveal the path to liberation from suffering, the appearance of a buddha in the world is considered a momentous event.

The story of a particular buddha begins before his birth and extends beyond his death. It encompasses the millions of lives spent on the path toward enlightenment and Buddhahood and the persistence of the buddha through his teachings and his relics after he has passed into nirvana. The historical Buddha is regarded as neither the first nor the last buddha to appear in the world. According to some traditions he is the 7th buddha, according to another he is the 25th, and according to yet another he is the 4th. The next buddha, Maitreya , will appear after Shakyamuni’s teachings and relics have disappeared from the world.

Sites associated with the Buddha’s life became important pilgrimage places, and regions that Buddhism entered long after his death—such as Sri Lanka , Kashmir , and Burma (now Myanmar )—added narratives of his magical visitations to accounts of his life. Although the Buddha did not leave any written works, various versions of his teachings were preserved orally by his disciples. In the centuries following his death, hundreds of texts (called sutras ) were attributed to him and would subsequently be translated into the languages of Asia .

The Buddha’s message

The teaching attributed to the Buddha was transmitted orally by his disciples, prefaced by the phrase “evam me sutam” (“thus have I heard”); therefore, it is difficult to say whether or to what extent his discourses have been preserved as they were spoken. They usually allude to the place and time they were preached and to the audience to which they were addressed. Buddhist councils in the first centuries after the Buddha’s death attempted to specify which teachings attributed to the Buddha could be considered authentic.

The Buddha based his entire teaching on the fact of human suffering and the ultimately dissatisfying character of human life. Existence is painful. The conditions that make an individual are precisely those that also give rise to dissatisfaction and suffering. Individuality implies limitation ; limitation gives rise to desire; and, inevitably, desire causes suffering, since what is desired is transitory.

Living amid the impermanence of everything and being themselves impermanent, human beings search for the way of deliverance, for that which shines beyond the transitoriness of human existence—in short, for enlightenment. The Buddha’s doctrine offered a way to avoid despair. By following the “path” taught by the Buddha, the individual can dispel the “ignorance” that perpetuates this suffering.

According to the Buddha of the early texts, reality , whether of external things or the psychophysical totality of human individuals, consists of a succession and concatenation of microelements called dhammas (these “components” of reality are not to be confused with dhamma meaning “law” or “teaching”). The Buddha departed from traditional Indian thought in not asserting an essential or ultimate reality in things. Moreover, he rejected the existence of the soul as a metaphysical substance, though he recognized the existence of the self as the subject of action in a practical and moral sense. Life is a stream of becoming, a series of manifestations and extinctions. The concept of the individual ego is a popular delusion; the objects with which people identify themselves—fortune, social position, family, body, and even mind—are not their true selves. There is nothing permanent, and, if only the permanent deserved to be called the self, or atman , then nothing is self.

To make clear the concept of no-self ( anatman ), Buddhists set forth the theory of the five aggregates or constituents ( khandhas ) of human existence: (1) corporeality or physical forms ( rupa ), (2) feelings or sensations ( vedana ), (3) ideations ( sanna ), (4) mental formations or dispositions ( sankhara ), and (5) consciousness ( vinnana ). Human existence is only a composite of the five aggregates, none of which is the self or soul. A person is in a process of continuous change, and there is no fixed underlying entity.

The belief in rebirth, or samsara , as a potentially endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was already associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman ; literally “act” or “deed”) in pre-Buddhist India, and it was accepted by virtually all Buddhist traditions. According to the doctrine, good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency toward similar evil acts. Some karmic acts bear fruit in the same life in which they are committed, others in the immediately succeeding one, and others in future lives that are more remote. This furnishes the basic context for the moral life.

The acceptance by Buddhists of the teachings of karma and rebirth and the concept of the no-self gives rise to a difficult problem: how can rebirth take place without a permanent subject to be reborn? Indian non-Buddhist philosophers attacked this point in Buddhist thought, and many modern scholars have also considered it to be an insoluble problem. The relation between existences in rebirth has been explained by the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is different in every moment—what may be called the continuity of an ever-changing identity.

The Editors

The Life of the Buddha

For more than 2,500 years, people have followed the path to liberation as taught by the Buddha. For just as long, the Buddha’s life story has had a powerful inspirational and motivational effect on many.

The story of the Buddha is an ode to the almost superhuman effort the Buddha made to achieve his liberation , the almost infinite patience it took, and the deep love and compassion that led him to share this path with others.

The emphasis is on ‘almost’ because his life story is ultimately a human story. The Buddha was not a god, not a being supernatural from birth. No, the Buddha was essentially a human being, like you and me.

More then anything else, the story of the Buddha shows that liberation is possible, even for ordinary mortals like us.

Fortunately, unlike the Buddha, we do not have to discover the path to the necessary deep insight into reality all by ourselves. We can follow the path of the Buddha , as long as we are willing to make the necessary effort. As the Buddha said (Dhp 276):

“You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way”

But who was the Buddha? What was his life like? And what exactly is a “Buddha”? In this text we hope to answer all these questions.

For this we will tell the story, beginning with the first intention during his life as Sumedha, through his quest as Siddhartha Gautama to the climax of his eventual liberation and his first teaching.

We will tell this story as much as possible using the words of the Buddha himself, as they have been transmitted in the ancient Buddhist scriptures.

Table of Contents

Time in perspective, the intention of sumedha, siddharta gautama becomes a buddha, setting in motion the wheel of dhamma.

If you want to appreciate the Buddha’s effort in its fullest, it is good to first get a little more sense of some basic Buddhist cosmology first so that things can be put into perspective, especially when it comes to the sense of time.

The Buddha sometimes used the word kalpa , here translated as ‘eon’ as an indication of time.

There are different kinds of eons, but for now only the kalpa in the sense of the maha-kalpa , or great-eon, is important.

During such an eon the universe as we know it arises, living beings can slowly but surely thrive, until finally a period comes in which the universe decays again and is followed by a period of emptiness.

After the period of emptiness the next eon ‘just’ begins and with it a new cycle of creation and decay of a universe, followed by a next cycle, and so on and so forth. The Buddha gave the following example to get a feeling for the length of a single eon:

“Imagine a large granite block at the beginning of the eon, about 25km by 25km by 25km, many times larger than the highest mountain in the Himalayas, and every 100 years a man wipes this block once with a silk cloth. Sooner will the granite block be weathered down than that an eon will be over.”

According to the Buddha, there is no first beginning, no moment of time to which there was no previous ignorance.

When some monks asked him how many eons, how many cycles from one universe to another, have passed, the Buddha gave the following equation:

“If you take the total number of grains of sand in the depths of the Ganges River, from where it begins to where it ends, even that number will be less than the number of eons that have already passed.”

The endless wandering of beings in this beginningless, unsatisfactory cycle of coming and going, is samsāra .

Next to some specific skills of the Buddha , his position in time is especially unique. He was the first to rediscovered the truth that leads to the liberation from samsāra , and thus the attainment of Nibbāna (Nirvana).

The truth (the Dhamma) rediscovered by the Buddha is universal and can be understood by anyone following his example with patience and energy.

Like a guide who shows travelers the way through dangerous and difficult terrain, or like a lamp that illuminates the darkness in the night, the Buddha only shows the way to this truth and liberation, you walk the path yourself.

The Dhamma always existed and will always exist, one can only determine whether or not the path leading to it has been pointed out by a Buddha in a period of time.

Those who have followed the Dhamma, the Buddha’s way to final liberation, the noble Sangha, can themselves serve as a guide for others. After all, only someone who sees can lead a blind person; only if you are healthy can you take care of the sick.

The Buddha, with his first exposition of the Dhamma , initiated the current Buddha-sāsana , i.e. the period in which the Dhamma, the truth, can be heard and the path to liberation can be practiced . Just like everything this time too will come to an end, after which a dark period will dawn. During that period the Dhamma cannot be heard, there are no enlightened beings on earth and there is no light to guide beings in the darkness.

If we combine this with the knowledge of the eons it will not be surprising that in the infinity of the past there have been countless Buddhas followed by countless dark periods and also in the future there will continue to be Buddha’s in the world who will point the way to liberation from suffering.

With this in mind we can begin the story of the Buddha of our time.

Many will have heard of the life of Prince Siddharta Gautama and his quest for enlightenment over 2500 years ago.

According to the Buddhavamsa (chronicles of Buddhas) however, the story begins earlier, many, many world cycles ago, many, many thousands of eons ago, at the time of an earlier Buddha, the Buddha Dipankara.

At the time of the Buddha Dipankara, a young man from a wealthy family called Sumedha lived in the same area.

Throughout his life, Sumedha was increasingly reluctant to accept the insubstantiality of existence. Seeking liberation from the suffering resulting from life and death, he decided to give away all his wealth away and live in the mountains as an ascetic.

There he practiced meditation full of energy and dedication and successfully developed high concentration .

At one point Sumedha heard of the existence of the Buddha Dipankara and that this Buddha would soon visit a nearby village.

The ascetic experienced a feeling of bliss upon hearing the word ‘Buddha’ and exclaimed “Buddha, Buddha!” full of joy. The thought came to him:

“[Extremely rare is it to hear the word Buddha, much rarer is it to meet a Buddha.] Here I will plant my seeds, verily, don’t let this opportunity pass!”

And he went to the village. He arrived early and got permission to help repair the path the Buddha would walk on during his visit.

While working hard, he kept thinking “Buddha, Buddha!” However, before his part of the path was finished, the Buddha appeared with his retinue of monks.

When Sumedha saw the Buddha, he was immediately deeply impressed by his calm and wise appearance.

Then he saw, on the part of the road he was tending to, a pool of mud through which the Buddha would inevitably have to walk in order to continue on his way.

Inspired by respect Sumedha threw herself into the mud pool to serve as a human bridge and thought:

“Let the Buddha and his disciples walk over me, don’t let them walk through the mud pool – this act will contribute to my well-being.”

As the Buddha approached Sumeda became more and more inspired and the thought came to him:

“I have the mental ability to become an Arahant, an enlightened one, today if I want to, but it does not feel right for me to let others wander around in samsāra while I could develop the energy to help all beings. What if I were to make an effort to become a Buddha just like Buddha Dipankara?”

When Buddha Dipankara arrived at Sumedha he stopped, looked at Sumedha and made the following prediction:

“See here, this young ascetic, lying in the mud at the risk of his own life. In countless eons, he will be a Buddha in the world, just as I am now.”

Thus, Sumedha’s intention was affirmed by the Buddha, and he and his disciples did not continue on their way, but walked respectfully around Sumedha.

Reflecting on what had happened and what it would take to become a Buddha, Sumedha saw ten paramis (specific mental qualities) that he would have to develop to the utmost perfection, namely generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, effort, loving kindness and equanimity.

And so Sumedha became a Bodhisatta , a Buddha-to-be .

Throughout all the subsequent lives in all those long eons, the Bodhisatta worked on his paramis, culminating in the attainment of the highest perfection of each of these qualities in his last birth 2500 years ago during his life as prince Siddharta Gautama.

About 2500 years ago, Siddharta Gautama was born as the son of Queen Maya and King Suddhodana, leader of the Sakya clan in the kingdom of Kapilavastu in Kosala, in modern day  northern India.

Seven days after his birth his mother queen Maya died and her sister, Pajapati, takes care of the young child.

The seer Asita comes to the king’s court and gives the following prophecy:

“The son of the king of Sakya will become world ruler or, if he turns away from the courteous life, a fully liberated one, a Buddha.”

To prevent Siddharta from turning away from his royal life, he was raised protected and married at the age of 16 to Princess Yasodhara. Together they had a son, Rahula.

Siddharta however, realizes despite his father’s frantic efforts to protect him in luxury and pleasure, that everyone is subject to old age, sickness and death and to all the suffering that accompanies life. He himself later says (AN 3:39) :

“Bhikkhus, I was delicately nurtured, most delicately nurtured, extremely delicately nurtured. At my father’s residence lotus ponds were made just for my enjoyment: in one of them blue lotuses bloomed, in another red lotuses, and in a third white lotuses. I used no sandalwood unless it came from Kāsi and my headdress, jacket, lower garment, and upper garment were made of cloth from Kāsi. By day and by night a white canopy was held over me so that cold and heat, dust, grass, and dew would not settle on me.”

“I had three mansions: one for the winter, one for the summer, and one for the rainy season. I spent the four months of the rains in the rainy-season mansion, being entertained by musicians, none of whom were male, and I did not leave the mansion. While in other people’s homes slaves, workers, and servants are given broken rice together with sour gruel for their meals, in my father’s residence they were given choice hill rice, meat, and boiled rice.”

“Amid such splendor and a delicate life, it occurred to me: ‘An uninstructed worldling, though himself subject to old age, not exempt from old age, feels repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when he sees another who is old, overlooking his own situation. Now I too am subject to old age and am not exempt from old age. Such being the case, if I were to feel repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when seeing another who is old, that would not be proper for me.’ When I reflected thus, my intoxication with youth was completely abandoned.”

“Again, it occurred to me: ‘An uninstructed worldling, though himself subject to illness, not exempt from illness, feels repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when he sees another who is ill, overlooking his own situation. Now I too am subject to illness and am not exempt from illness. Such being the case, if I were to feel repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when seeing another who is ill, that would not be proper for me.’ When I reflected thus, my intoxication with health was completely abandoned.”

“Again, it occurred to me: ‘An uninstructed worldling, though himself subject to death, not exempt from death, feels repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when he sees another who has died, overlooking his own situation. Now I too am subject to death and am not exempt from death. Such being the case, if I were to feel repelled, humiliated, and disgusted when seeing another who has died, that would not be proper for me.’ When I reflected thus, my intoxication with life was completely abandoned.”

As a result of this realisation, Siddharta decided at the age of 29 to leave the rich life of a prince behind and to go forth into homelessness as a wandering ascetic, in order to find a solution for the suffering in the world (MN 26, 36, 85, 100) :

“Later, while still young, a black-haired young man endowed with the blessing of youth, in the prime of life, though my mother and father wished otherwise and wept with tearful faces, I shaved off my hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and went forth from the home life into homelessness.”

At first he went to the great meditation teachers of his time, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, but although he quickly reached the highest meditation level taught by these teachers, and was asked by both to continue to guide their students as the highest teacher, he found only the temporary cessation of suffering and not the definitive end of birth, old age, illness and death he was looking for.

So Siddharta decided to continue his search and moved into the jungle to spend years in extreme ascetic practices.

He subjects himself to violent practices such as barely eating, enduring extreme pains, breathing as little as possible and more, everything in order to control his body and mind.

Five ascetics, Kondanna, Bhadduya, Wappa, Mahanama, and Assaji, who also left behind riches and a household life in search of liberation from suffering, were deeply impressed by Siddharta’s effort and followed him closely.

After six years of intense asceticism, Siddharta’s body was completely emaciated and his death was near, without having reached liberation from suffering.

Legend has it that at that moment a minstrel passes by the place where Siddharta sits with his travelling companion, and Siddharta hears the minstrel telling him how to get the strings of his lute right:

“The strings shouldn’t be too slack, but certainly not too hard. If they are too slack, you don’t get a sound, too tight and they snap, but if you tension them exactly in the middle of these two extremes, you get the most beautiful tones.”

At that moment Siddharta remembers a moment as a young boy when he was sitting in the cooling shade of a rose apple tree while his father was working in the fields.

As he sat there, without torment, cool and pleasant, in complete peace, his mind became silent. And he reached, immersed in a meditation that was natural to him, a high concentration .

Thinking about this Siddharta realized that not the violent asceticism with self-flagellation and not the courteous life full of sensory longing but precisely this middle ground of concentration and letting go is the way to liberation ( MN 36, 85, 100 ):

“I thought: ‘Whatever recluses or brahmins in the past have experienced painful, racking, piercing feelings due to exertion, this is the utmost, there is none beyond this. And whatever recluses and brahmins in the future will experience painful, racking, piercing feelings due to exertion, this is the utmost, there is none beyond this. And whatever recluses and brahmins at present experience painful, racking, piercing feelings due to exertion, this is the utmost, there is none beyond this. But by this racking practice of austerities I have not attained any superhuman states, any distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones. Could there be another path to enlightenment?’”

“I considered: ‘I recall that when my father the Sakyan was occupied, while I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. Could that be the path to enlightenment?’ Then, following on that memory, came the realisation: ‘That is indeed the path to enlightenment.’”

“I thought: ‘Why  am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states?’ I thought: ‘I am not afraid of that pleasure since it has nothing to do with sensual pleasures and unwholesome states.’”

“I considered: ‘It is not easy to attain that pleasure with a body so excessively emaciated. Suppose I ate some solid food—some boiled rice and porridge.’ And I ate some solid food—some boiled rice and porridge. Now at that time five bhikkhus were waiting upon me, thinking: ‘If our recluse Gotama achieves some higher state, he will inform us.’ But when I ate the boiled rice and porridge, the five bhikkhus were disgusted and left me, thinking: ‘The recluse Gotama now lives luxuriously; he has given up his striving and reverted to luxury.’”

This is how Siddharta traveld on the middle road, rediscovered by him.

At that moment the five ascetics leave him, they know nothing of Siddharta’s new insight and think that Siddharta has given up the search for liberation and turned back to the worldly life. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Siddharta strenghtens his body and, free from sensory desire and self-flagellation, sits under a Bodhi tree ( MN 36 ):

“Now when I had eaten solid food and regained my strength, then quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abided in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion. But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain. With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, I entered upon and abided in the second jhāna, which has self-confidence and singleness of mind without applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of concentration. With the fading away as well of rapture, I abided in equanimity, and mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body, I entered upon and abided in the third jhāna, on account of which noble ones announce: ‘He has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful.’ With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, I entered upon and abided in the fourth jhāna, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.”

“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births, three births, four births, five births, ten births, twenty births, thirty births, forty births, fifty births, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, many aeons of world-contraction, many aeons of world-expansion, many aeons of world-contraction and expansion: ‘There I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared elsewhere; and there too I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared here.’ Thus with their aspects and particulars I recollected my manifold past lives. This was the first true knowledge attained by me in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute.”

“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. With the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate. I understood how beings pass on according to their actions thus: ‘These worthy beings who were ill conducted in body, speech, and mind, revilers of noble ones, wrong in their views, giving effect to wrong view in their actions, on the dissolution of the body, after death, have reappeared in a state of deprivation, in a bad destination, in perdition, even in hell; but these worthy beings who were well conducted in body,  speech, and mind, not revilers of noble ones, right in their views, giving effect to right view in their actions, on the dissolution of the body, after death, have reappeared in a good destination, even in the heavenly world.’ Thus with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings pass on according to their actions. This was the second true knowledge attained by me in the middle watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute.”

“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is suffering’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the origin of suffering’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the cessation of suffering’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’ I directly knew as it actually is: ‘These are the taints’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the origin of the taints’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the cessation of the taints’; I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.’ When I knew and saw thus, my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance. When it was liberated there came the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.’ I directly knew: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’ This was the third true knowledge attained by me in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute. But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain.”

According to legend, Mara, the evil one, the seducer, the personification of death, challenges Siddharta during this last night.

First he sends his army to Siddharta to frighten him. Mara’s horrible and terrifying forces scream and roar and fire arrows at Siddharta, but Siddharta’s infinite loving kindness turns the arrows into flowers upon reaching him.

Then Mara sends his three beautiful daughters (desire, aversion and attachment) to Siddharta to seduce him and bind him to the world. They dance and sing with their voluptuous bodies and beautiful voices, but Siddharta remains completely untouched due to his concentration, separated from sensory desires and unwholesome mental qualities.

Finally, Mara, despairing that Siddharta will escape from his chains, asks why Siddharta thinks he has the right to free herself from all suffering.

Siddharta touches the earth with the fingertips of his right hand and calls upon the universe as a witness to the effort he has made in all his countless livetimes, during all those endless eons, with the sole goal of attaining liberation.

The universe trembles in achknowledgement and Mara is defeated.

Thus Siddharta Gautama, meditating under the Bodhi Tree, attains the complete, universal enlightenment of a Buddha.

After his enlightenment, the Buddha stays in retreat for a while. At a certain point the thought arises in him ( MN 26 ):

“This Dhamma that I have attained is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, takes delight in attachment, rejoices in attachment. It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, namely, specific conditionality, dependent origination . And it is hard to see this truth, namely, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.”

Out of compassion for the world, he decides to look into the world in search of beings who could understand his path ( MN 26 ):

“I saw beings with little dust in their eyes and with much dust in their eyes, with keen faculties and with dull faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and hard to teach, and some who dwelt seeing fear and blame in the other world. “

The Buddha wonders to whom he should point out his way first and thinks of his earlier meditation teachers Alara Kalaman and Uddaka Ramaputta, but the knowledge arises in him that these teachers have now died.

Then he thinks of the five ascetics that followed him for so long during his asceticism and sees that they are close by and receptive to his teachings.

Later, having arrived at the five ascetics in the deer park in Sarnath, near present day Varanasi, the Buddha gives his first teaching with which sets in motion the wheel of Dhamma, after which the path to liberation can again be heard and followed in the world. The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta is thus the Buddha’s first sermon ( SN 56.11 ):

Thus have i heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Baraṇasi in the Deer Park at Isipatana. There the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five thus:

“Bhikkhus, these two extremes should not be followed by one who has gone forth into homelessness. What two? The pursuit of sensual happiness in sensual pleasures, which is low, vulgar, the way of worldlings, ignoble, unbeneficial; and the pursuit of self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, unbeneficial. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata has awakened to the middle way, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna.

“And what, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the Tathagata, which gives rise to vision … which leads to Nibbāna? It is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the Tathagata, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna.

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination.

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it.

“Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view … right concentration.

“‘This is the noble truth of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of suffering is to be fully understood’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of suffering has been fully understood’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the origin of suffering is to be abandoned’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the origin of suffering has been abandoned’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the cessation of suffering is to be realized’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the cessation of suffering has been realized’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering is to be developed’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“‘This noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering has been developed’: thus, bhikkhus, in regard to things unheard before, there arose in me vision, knowledge, wisdom, true knowledge, and light.

“So long, bhikkhus, as my knowledge and vision of these Four Noble Truths as they really are in their three phases and twelve aspects was not thoroughly purified in this way, I did not claim to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, in this generation with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans. But when my knowledge and vision of these Four Noble Truths as they really are in their three phases and twelve aspects was thoroughly purified in this way, then I claimed to have awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, Mara, and Brahma, in this generation with its ascetics and brahmins, its devas and humans. The knowledge and vision arose in me: ‘Unshakable is the liberation of my mind. This is my last birth. Now there is no more renewed existence.’”

This is what the Blessed One said. Elated, the bhikkhus of the group of five delighted in the Blessed One’s statement. And while this discourse was being spoken, there arose in the Venerable Kondañña the dust-free, stainless vision of the Dhamma: “Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.”

And when the Wheel of the Dhamma had been set in motion by the Blessed One, the earth-dwelling devas raised a cry: “At Baraṇasi, in the Deer Park at Isipatana, this unsurpassed Wheel of the Dhamma has been set in motion by the Blessed One, which cannot be stopped by any ascetic or brahmin or deva or Mara or Brahma or by anyone in the world.” Having heard the cry of the earth-dwelling devas, the devas of the realm of the Four Great Kings raised a cry: “At Baraṇasi … this unsurpassed Wheel of the Dhamma has been set in motion by the Blessed One, which cannot be stopped … by anyone in the world.” Having heard the cry of the devas of the realm of the Four Great Kings, the Tavatiṃsa devas … the Yama devas … the Tusita devas … the Nimmanarati devas … the Paranimmitavasavatti devas … the devas of Brahma’s company raised a cry: “At Baraṇasi, in the Deer Park at Isipatana, this unsurpassed Wheel of the Dhamma has been set in motion by the Blessed One, which cannot be stopped by any ascetic or brahmin or deva or Mara or Brahma or by anyone in the world.”

Thus at that moment, at that instant, at that second, the cry spread as far as the brahma world, and this ten thousandfold world system shook, quaked, and trembled, and an immeasurable glorious radiance appeared in the world surpassing the divine majesty of the devas.

Then the Blessed One uttered this inspired utterance: “Koṇḍañña has indeed understood! Koṇḍañña has indeed understood!” In this way the Venerable Koṇḍañña acquired the name “Añña Koṇḍañña—Koṇḍañña Who Has Understood.”

Koṇḍañña was thus the first disciple of the Buddha who understood the true nature of things from his own experience.

This is a very important moment and good to think about.

It emphasizes that the path the Buddha taught can actually be realized by others, that the Buddha only points the way.

It is sometimes said that the Buddha’s path is a selfish path because it is about liberating yourself. But this is not true. It is out of love and compassion for all beings that the Buddha shared his way with us.

When he had 60 disciples who were all completely liberated from suffering, enlightened, Arahant , he commanded them to go forth into the world and share the path to liberation ( Vin I:20 ):

“Go, bhikkhu’s , for the good of many, for the happiness of many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, the welfare and the happiness of gods and men. Don’t let two of you go the same way.”

2500 years ago, out of love and compassion for the world, the Buddha left his home and made an unimaginable effort to find a way to the end of suffering, to find liberation, enlightenment, Nibbāna .

Having found this way, this truth, the Dhamma, having fathomed and realized it, he taught it to the world out of love and compassion for all being.

And for the past 2500 years, his enlightened disciples have followed his example and patiently worked to keep the path to deliverance in the world out of love and compassion and to share it with all who have the ability to listen to it.

Do you want to start meditating or deepen your practice? We offer personal guidance, completely on a donation basis.

You yourselves must strive, the Buddhas only point the way Buddha, Dhp 276

Buddha Statues: History, Use & Meaning

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Alin-Kyan: The Manual of Light

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Vijjāmagga Dīpanī: Manual of the Path to Higher Knowledge

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Anapanasati Sutta: Mindfulness of Breathing

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Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma

Thus have i heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Baraṇasi in the Deer Park at Isipatana. There the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus of the…

Thoughts on the Dhamma

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The life of the Buddha

Although born a prince, he realized that conditioned experiences could not provide lasting happiness or protection from suffering. After a long spiritual search he went into deep meditation, where he realized the nature of mind. He achieved the state of unconditional and lasting happiness: the state of enlightenment, of buddhahood. This state of mind is free from disturbing emotions and expresses itself through fearlessness, joy and active compassion. For the rest of his life, the Buddha taught anyone who asked how they could reach the same state.

Buddha’s early life

India at the time of the Buddha was very spiritually open. Every major philosophical view was present in society, and people expected spirituality to influence their daily lives in positive ways.

At this time of great potential, Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, was born into a royal family in what is now Nepal, close to the border with India. Growing up, the Buddha was exceptionally intelligent and compassionate. Tall, strong, and handsome, the Buddha belonged to the Warrior caste. It was predicted that he would become either a great king or spiritual leader. Since his parents wanted a powerful ruler for their kingdom, they tried to prevent Siddharta from seeing the unsatisfactory nature of the world. They surrounded him with every kind of pleasure. He was given five hundred attractive ladies and every opportunity for sports and excitement. He completely mastered the important combat training, even winning his wife, Yasodhara, in an archery contest.

Suddenly, at age 29, he was confronted with impermanence and suffering. On a rare outing from his luxurious palace, he saw someone desperately sick. The next day, he saw a decrepit old man, and finally a dead person. He was very upset to realize that old age, sickness and death would come to everyone he loved. Siddharta had no refuge to offer them.

The next morning the prince walked past a meditator who sat in deep absorption. When their eyes met and their minds linked, Siddhartha stopped, mesmerized. In a flash, he realized that the perfection he had been seeking outside must be within mind itself. Meeting that man gave the future Buddha a first and enticing taste of mind, a true and lasting refuge, which he knew he had to experience himself for the good of all.

Buddha’s enlightenment

The Buddha decided he had to leave his royal responsibilities and his family in order to realize full enlightenment. He left the palace secretly, and set off alone into the forest. Over the next six years, he met many talented meditation teachers and mastered their techniques. Always he found that they showed him mind’s potential but not mind itself. Finally, at a place called Bodhgaya, the future Buddha decided to remain in meditation until he knew mind’s true nature and could benefit all beings. After spending six days and nights cutting through mind’s most subtle obstacles, he reached enlightenment on the full moon morning of May, a week before he turned thirty-five.

At the moment of full realization, all veils of mixed feelings and stiff ideas dissolved and Buddha experienced the all-encompassing here and now. All separation in time and space disappeared. Past, present, and future, near and far, melted into one radiant state of intuitive bliss. He became timeless, all-pervading awareness. Through every cell in his body he knew and was everything. He became Buddha , the Awakened One.

After his enlightenment, Buddha traveled on foot throughout northern India. He taught constantly for forty-five years. People of all castes and professions, from kings to courtesans, were drawn to him. He answered their questions, always pointing towards that which is ultimately real.

Throughout his life, Buddha encouraged his students to question his teachings and confirm them through their own experience. This non-dogmatic attitude still characterizes Buddhism today.

Visiting Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion?

You must join the virtual exhibition queue when you arrive. If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Buddhism and buddhist art.

Portrait of Shun'oku Myōha

Unidentified artist Japanese

Fasting Buddha Shakyamuni

Reliquary in the Shape of a Stupa

Standing Buddha Offering Protection

Buddha Maitreya (Mile)

Buddha Maitreya (Mile) Altarpiece

Buddha Offering Protection

Head of Buddha

Buddha, probably Amitabha

Pensive bodhisattva

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion

Buddha Shakyamuni or Akshobhya, the Buddha of the East

Enthroned Buddha Attended by the Bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani

The Bodhisattva Padmapani Lokeshvara

Buddha Vairocana (Dari)

Buddha Amoghasiddhi with Eight Bodhisattvas

Death of the Historical Buddha (Nehan-zu)

Cup Stand with the Eight Buddhist Treasures

Seated Buddha

Vidya Dehejia Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

February 2007

The fifth and fourth centuries B.C. were a time of worldwide intellectual ferment. It was an age of great thinkers, such as Socrates and Plato, Confucius and Laozi. In India , it was the age of the Buddha, after whose death a religion developed that eventually spread far beyond its homeland.

Siddhartha, the prince who was to become the Buddha, was born into the royal family of Kapilavastu, a small kingdom in the Himalayan foothills. His was a divine conception and miraculous birth, at which sages predicted that he would become a universal conqueror, either of the physical world or of men’s minds. It was the latter conquest that came to pass. Giving up the pleasures of the palace to seek the true purpose of life, Siddhartha first tried the path of severe asceticism, only to abandon it after six years as a futile exercise. He then sat down in yogic meditation beneath a bodhi tree until he achieved enlightenment. He was known henceforth as the Buddha , or “Enlightened One.”

His is the Middle Path, rejecting both luxury and asceticism. Buddhism proposes a life of good thoughts, good intentions, and straight living, all with the ultimate aim of achieving nirvana, release from earthly existence. For most beings, nirvana lies in the distant future, because Buddhism, like other faiths of India, believes in a cycle of rebirth. Humans are born many times on earth, each time with the opportunity to perfect themselves further. And it is their own karma—the sum total of deeds, good and bad—that determines the circumstances of a future birth. The Buddha spent the remaining forty years of his life preaching his faith and making vast numbers of converts. When he died, his body was cremated, as was customary in India.

The cremated relics of the Buddha were divided into several portions and placed in relic caskets that were interred within large hemispherical mounds known as stupas. Such stupas constitute the central monument of Buddhist monastic complexes. They attract pilgrims from far and wide who come to experience the unseen presence of the Buddha. Stupas are enclosed by a railing that provides a path for ritual circumambulation. The sacred area is entered through gateways at the four cardinal points.

In the first century B.C., India’s artists, who had worked in the perishable media of brick, wood, thatch, and bamboo, adopted stone on a very wide scale. Stone railings and gateways, covered with relief sculptures, were added to stupas. Favorite themes were events from the historic life of the Buddha, as well as from his previous lives, which were believed to number 550. The latter tales are called jatakas and often include popular legends adapted to Buddhist teachings.

In the earliest Buddhist art of India, the Buddha was not represented in human form. His presence was indicated instead by a sign, such as a pair of footprints, an empty seat, or an empty space beneath a parasol.

In the first century A.D., the human image of one Buddha came to dominate the artistic scene, and one of the first sites at which this occurred was along India’s northwestern frontier. In the area known as Gandhara , artistic elements from the Hellenistic world combined with the symbolism needed to express Indian Buddhism to create a unique style. Youthful Buddhas with hair arranged in wavy curls resemble Roman statues of Apollo; the monastic robe covering both shoulders and arranged in heavy classical folds is reminiscent of a Roman toga. There are also many representations of Siddhartha as a princely bejeweled figure prior to his renunciation of palace life. Buddhism evolved the concept of a Buddha of the Future, Maitreya, depicted in art both as a Buddha clad in a monastic robe and as a princely bodhisattva before enlightenment. Gandharan artists made use of both stone and stucco to produce such images, which were placed in nichelike shrines around the stupa of a monastery. Contemporaneously, the Kushan-period artists in Mathura, India, produced a different image of the Buddha. His body was expanded by sacred breath ( prana ), and his clinging monastic robe was draped to leave the right shoulder bare.

A third influential Buddha type evolved in Andhra Pradesh, in southern India, where images of substantial proportions, with serious, unsmiling faces, were clad in robes that created a heavy swag at the hem and revealed the left shoulder. These southern sites provided artistic inspiration for the Buddhist land of Sri Lanka, off the southern tip of India, and Sri Lankan monks regularly visited the area. A number of statues in this style have been found as well throughout Southeast Asia.

The succeeding Gupta period, from the fourth to the sixth century A.D., in northern India, sometimes referred to as a Golden Age, witnessed the creation of an “ideal image” of the Buddha. This was achieved by combining selected traits from the Gandharan region with the sensuous form created by Mathura artists. Gupta Buddhas have their hair arranged in tiny individual curls, and the robes have a network of strings to suggest drapery folds (as at Mathura) or are transparent sheaths (as at Sarnath). With their downward glance and spiritual aura, Gupta Buddhas became the model for future generations of artists, whether in post-Gupta and Pala India or in Nepal , Thailand , and Indonesia. Gupta metal images of the Buddha were also taken by pilgrims along the Silk Road to China .

Over the following centuries there emerged a new form of Buddhism that involved an expanding pantheon and more elaborate rituals. This later Buddhism introduced the concept of heavenly bodhisattvas as well as goddesses, of whom the most popular was Tara. In Nepal and Tibet , where exquisite metal images and paintings were produced, new divinities were created and portrayed in both sculpture and painted scrolls. Ferocious deities were introduced in the role of protectors of Buddhism and its believers. Images of a more esoteric nature , depicting god and goddess in embrace, were produced to demonstrate the metaphysical concept that salvation resulted from the union of wisdom (female) and compassion (male). Buddhism had traveled a long way from its simple beginnings.

Dehejia, Vidya. “Buddhism and Buddhist Art.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/budd/hd_budd.htm (February 2007)

Further Reading

Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art . London: Phaidon, 1997.

Mitter, Partha. Indian Art . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Additional Essays by Vidya Dehejia

• Dehejia, Vidya. “ Hinduism and Hindu Art .” (February 2007)
• Dehejia, Vidya. “ Recognizing the Gods .” (February 2007)
• Dehejia, Vidya. “ South Asian Art and Culture .” (February 2007)

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The Buddha (fl. circa 450 BCE) is the individual whose teachings form the basis of the Buddhist tradition. These teachings, preserved in texts known as the Nikāyas or Āgamas , concern the quest for liberation from suffering. While the ultimate aim of the Buddha’s teachings is thus to help individuals attain the good life, his analysis of the source of suffering centrally involves claims concerning the nature of persons, as well as how we acquire knowledge about the world and our place in it. These teachings formed the basis of a philosophical tradition that developed and defended a variety of sophisticated theories in metaphysics and epistemology.

1. Buddha as Philosopher

2. core teachings, 3. non-self, 4. karma and rebirth, 5. attitude toward reason, primary sources, secondary sources, other internet resources, related entries.

This entry concerns the historical individual, traditionally called Gautama, who is identified by modern scholars as the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist teachings, there have been other buddhas in the past, and there will be yet more in the future. The title ‘Buddha’, which literally means ‘awakened’, is conferred on an individual who discovers the path to nirvana, the cessation of suffering, and propagates that discovery so that others may also achieve nirvana. This entry will follow modern scholarship in taking an agnostic stance on the question of whether there have been other buddhas, and likewise for questions concerning the superhuman status and powers that some Buddhists attribute to buddhas. The concern of this entry is just those aspects of the thought of the historical individual Gautama that bear on the development of the Buddhist philosophical tradition.

The Buddha will here be treated as a philosopher. To so treat him is controversial, but before coming to why that should be so, let us first rehearse those basic aspects of the Buddha’s life and teachings that are relatively non-controversial. Tradition has it that Gautama lived to age 80. Up until recently his dates were thought to be approximately 560–480 BCE, but many scholars now hold that he must have died around 405 BCE. He was born into a family of some wealth and power, members of the Śākya clan, in the area of the present border between India and Nepal. The story is that in early adulthood he abandoned his comfortable life as a householder (as well as his wife and young son) in order to seek a solution to the problem of existential suffering. He first took up with a number of different wandering ascetics ( śramanas ) who claimed to know the path to liberation from suffering. Finding their teachings unsatisfactory, he struck out on his own, and through a combination of insight and meditational practice attained the state of enlightenment ( bodhi ) which is said to represent the cessation of all further suffering. He then devoted the remaining 45 years of his life to teaching others the insights and techniques that had led him to this achievement.

Gautama could himself be classified as one of the śramanas . That there existed such a phenomenon as the śramanas tells us that there was some degree of dissatisfaction with the customary religious practices then prevailing in the Gangetic basin of North India. These practices consisted largely in the rituals and sacrifices prescribed in the Vedas. Among the śramanas there were many, including the Buddha, who rejected the authority of the Vedas as definitive pronouncements on the nature of the world and our place in it (and for this reason are called ‘heterodox’). But within the Vedic canon itself there is a stratum of (comparatively late) texts, the Upaniṣads , that likewise displays disaffection with Brahmin ritualism. Among the new ideas that figure in these (‘orthodox’) texts, as well as in the teachings of those heterodox śramanas whose doctrines are known to us, are the following: that sentient beings (including humans, non-human animals, gods, and the inhabitants of various hells) undergo rebirth; that rebirth is governed by the causal laws of karma (good actions cause pleasant fruit for the agent, evil actions cause unpleasant fruit, etc.); that continual rebirth is inherently unsatisfactory; that there is an ideal state for sentient beings involving liberation from the cycle of rebirth; and that attaining this state requires overcoming ignorance concerning one’s true identity. Various views are offered concerning this ignorance and how to overcome it. The Bhagavad Gītā (classified by some orthodox schools as an Upaniṣad ) lists four such methods, and discusses at least two separate views concerning our identity: that there is a plurality of distinct selves, each being the true agent of a person’s actions and the bearer of karmic merit and demerit but existing separately from the body and its associated states; and that there is just one self, of the nature of pure consciousness (a ‘witness’) and identical with the essence of the cosmos, Brahman or pure undifferentiated Being.

The Buddha agreed with those of his contemporaries embarked on the same soteriological project that it is ignorance about our identity that is responsible for suffering. What sets his teachings apart (at this level of analysis) lies in what he says that ignorance consists in: the conceit that there is an ‘I’ and a ‘mine’. This is the famous Buddhist teaching of non-self ( anātman ). And it is with this teaching that the controversy begins concerning whether Gautama may legitimately be represented as a philosopher. First there are those (e.g. Albahari 2006) who (correctly) point out that the Buddha never categorically denies the existence of a self that transcends what is empirically given, namely the five skandhas or psychophysical elements. While the Buddha does deny that any of the psychophysical elements is a self, these interpreters claim that he at least leaves open the possibility that there is a self that is transcendent in the sense of being non-empirical. To this it may be objected that all of classical Indian philosophy—Buddhist and orthodox alike—understood the Buddha to have denied the self tout court . To this it is sometimes replied that the later philosophical tradition simply got the Buddha wrong, at least in part because the Buddha sought to indicate something that cannot be grasped through the exercise of philosophical rationality. On this interpretation, the Buddha should be seen not as a proponent of the philosophical methods of analysis and argumentation, but rather as one who sees those methods as obstacles to final release.

Another reason one sometimes encounters for denying that the Buddha is a philosopher is that he rejects the characteristically philosophical activity of theorizing about matters that lack evident practical application. On this interpretation as well, those later Buddhist thinkers who did go in for the construction of theories about the ultimate nature of everything simply failed to heed or properly appreciate the Buddha’s advice that we avoid theorizing for its own sake and confine our attention to those matters that are directly relevant to liberation from suffering. On this view the teaching of non-self is not a bit of metaphysics, just some practical advice to the effect that we should avoid identifying with things that are transitory and so bound to yield dissatisfaction. What both interpretations share is the assumption that it is possible to arrive at what the Buddha himself thought without relying on the understanding of his teachings developed in the subsequent Buddhist philosophical tradition.

This assumption may be questioned. Our knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings comes by way of texts that were not written down until several centuries after his death, are in languages (Pāli, and Chinese translations of Sanskrit) other than the one he is likely to have spoken, and disagree in important respects. The first difficulty may not be as serious as it seems, given that the Buddha’s discourses were probably rehearsed shortly after his death and preserved through oral transmission until the time they were committed to writing. And the second need not be insuperable either. (See, e.g., Cousins 2022.) But the third is troubling, in that it suggests textual transmission involved processes of insertion and deletion in aid of one side or another in sectarian disputes. Our ancient sources attest to this: one will encounter a dispute among Buddhist thinkers where one side cites some utterance of the Buddha in support of their position, only to have the other side respond that the text from which the quotation is taken is not universally recognized as authoritatively the word of the Buddha. This suggests that our record of the Buddha’s teaching may be colored by the philosophical elaboration of those teachings propounded by later thinkers in the Buddhist tradition.

Some scholars (e.g., Gombrich 2009, Shulman 2014) are more sanguine than others about the possibility of overcoming this difficulty, and thereby getting at what the Buddha himself had thought, as opposed to what later Buddhist philosophers thought he had thought. No position will be taken on this dispute here. We will be treating the Buddha’s thought as it was understood within the later philosophical tradition that he had inspired. The resulting interpretation may or may not be faithful to his intentions. It is at least logically possible that he believed there to be a transcendent self that can only be known by mystical intuition, or that the exercise of philosophical rationality leads only to sterile theorizing and away from real emancipation. What we can say with some assurance is that this is not how the Buddhist philosophical tradition understood him. It is their understanding that will be the subject of this essay.

The Buddha’s basic teachings are usually summarized using the device of the Four Nobles’ Truths:

• There is suffering.
• There is the origination of suffering.
• There is the cessation of suffering.
• There is a path to the cessation of suffering.

The first of these claims might seem obvious, even when ‘suffering’ is understood to mean not mere pain but existential suffering, the sort of frustration, alienation and despair that arise out of our experience of transitoriness. But there are said to be different levels of appreciation of this truth, some quite subtle and difficult to attain; the highest of these is said to involve the realization that everything is of the nature of suffering. Perhaps it is sufficient for present purposes to point out that while this is not the implausible claim that all of life’s states and events are necessarily experienced as unsatisfactory, still the realization that all (oneself included) is impermanent can undermine a precondition for real enjoyment of the events in a life: that such events are meaningful by virtue of their having a place in an open-ended narrative.

It is with the development and elaboration of (2) that substantive philosophical controversy begins. (2) is the simple claim that there are causes and conditions for the arising of suffering. (3) then makes the obvious point that if the origination of suffering depends on causes, future suffering can be prevented by bringing about the cessation of those causes. (4) specifies a set of techniques that are said to be effective in such cessation. Much then hangs on the correct identification of the causes of suffering. The answer is traditionally spelled out in a list consisting of twelve links in a causal chain that begins with ignorance and ends with suffering (represented by the states of old age, disease and death). Modern scholarship has established that this list is a later compilation. For the texts that claim to convey the Buddha’s own teachings give two slightly different formulations of this list, and shorter formulations containing only some of the twelve items are also found in the texts. But it seems safe to say that the Buddha taught an analysis of the origins of suffering roughly along the following lines: given the existence of a fully functioning assemblage of psychophysical elements (the parts that make up a sentient being), ignorance concerning the three characteristics of sentient existence—suffering, impermanence and non-self—will lead, in the course of normal interactions with the environment, to appropriation (the identification of certain elements as ‘I’ and ‘mine’). This leads in turn to the formation of attachments, in the form of desire and aversion, and the strengthening of ignorance concerning the true nature of sentient existence. These ensure future rebirth, and thus future instances of old age, disease and death, in a potentially unending cycle.

The key to escape from this cycle is said to lie in realization of the truth about sentient existence—that it is characterized by suffering, impermanence and non-self. But this realization is not easily achieved, since acts of appropriation have already made desire, aversion and ignorance deeply entrenched habits of mind. Thus the measures specified in (4) include various forms of training designed to replace such habits with others that are more conducive to seeing things as they are. Among these is training in meditation, which serves among other things as a way of enhancing one’s observational abilities with respect to one’s own psychological states. Insight is cultivated through the use of these newly developed observational powers, as informed by knowledge acquired through the exercise of philosophical rationality. There is a debate in the later tradition as to whether final release can be attained through theoretical insight alone, through meditation alone, or only by using both techniques. Ch’an, for instance, is based on the premise that enlightenment can be attained through meditation alone, whereas Theravāda advocates using both but also holds that analysis alone may be sufficient for some. (This disagreement begins with a dispute over how to interpret D I.77–84; see Cousins 2022, 81–6.) The third option seems the most plausible, but the first is certainly of some interest given its suggestion that one can attain the ideal state for humans just by doing philosophy.

The Buddha seems to have held (2) to constitute the core of his discovery. He calls his teachings a ‘middle path’ between two extreme views, and it is this claim concerning the causal origins of suffering that he identifies as the key to avoiding those extremes. The extremes are eternalism, the view that persons are eternal, and annihilationism, the view that persons go utterly out of existence (usually understood to mean at death, though a term still shorter than one lifetime is not ruled out). It will be apparent that eternalism requires the existence of the sort of self that the Buddha denies. What is not immediately evident is why the denial of such a self is not tantamount to the claim that the person is annihilated at death (or even sooner, depending on just how impermanent one takes the psychophysical elements to be). The solution to this puzzle lies in the fact that eternalism and annihilationism both share the presupposition that there is an ‘I’ whose existence might either extend beyond death or terminate at death. The idea of the ‘middle path’ is that all of life’s continuities can be explained in terms of facts about a causal series of psychophysical elements. There being nothing more than a succession of these impermanent, impersonal events and states, the question of the ultimate fate of this ‘I’, the supposed owner of these elements, simply does not arise.

This reductionist view of sentient beings was later articulated in terms of the distinction between two kinds of truth, conventional and ultimate. Each kind of truth has its own domain of objects, the things that are only conventionally real and the things that are ultimately real respectively. Conventionally real entities are those things that are accepted as real by common sense, but that turn out on further analysis to be wholes compounded out of simpler entities and thus not strictly speaking real at all. The stock example of a conventionally real entity is the chariot, which we take to be real only because it is more convenient, given our interests and cognitive limitations, to have a single name for the parts when assembled in the right way. Since our belief that there are chariots is thus due to our having a certain useful concept, the chariot is said to be a mere conceptual fiction. (This does not, however, mean that all conceptualization is falsification; only concepts that allow of reductive analysis lead to this artificial inflation of our ontology, and thus to a kind of error.) Ultimately real entities are those ultimate parts into which conceptual fictions are analyzable. An ultimately true statement is one that correctly describes how certain ultimately real entities are arranged. A conventionally true statement is one that, given how the ultimately real entities are arranged, would correctly describe certain conceptual fictions if they also existed. The ultimate truth concerning the relevant ultimately real entities helps explain why it should turn out to be useful to accept conventionally true statements (such as ‘King Milinda rode in a chariot’) when the objects described in those statements are mere fictions.

Using this distinction between the two truths, the key insight of the ‘middle path’ may be expressed as follows. The ultimate truth about sentient beings is just that there is a causal series of impermanent, impersonal psychophysical elements. Since these are all impermanent, and lack other properties that would be required of an essence of the person, none of them is a self. But given the right arrangement of such entities in a causal series, it is useful to think of them as making up one thing, a person. It is thus conventionally true that there are persons, things that endure for a lifetime and possibly (if there is rebirth) longer. This is conventionally true because generally speaking there is more overall happiness and less overall pain and suffering when one part of such a series identifies with other parts of the same series. For instance, when the present set of psychophysical elements identifies with future elements, it is less likely to engage in behavior (such as smoking) that results in present pleasure but far greater future pain. The utility of this convention is, however, limited. Past a certain point—namely the point at which we take it too seriously, as more than just a useful fiction—it results in existential suffering. The cessation of suffering is attained by extirpating all sense of an ‘I’ that serves as agent and owner.

The Buddha’s ‘middle path’ strategy can be seen as one of first arguing that since the word ‘I’ is a mere enumerative term like ‘pair’, there is nothing that it genuinely denotes; and then explaining that our erroneous sense of an ‘I’ stems from our employment of the useful fiction represented by the concept of the person. While the second part of this strategy only receives its full articulation in the later development of the theory of two truths, the first part can be found in the Buddha’s own teachings, in the form of several philosophical arguments for non-self. Best known among these is the argument from impermanence (S III.66–8), which has this basic structure:

It is the fact that this argument does not contain a premise explicitly asserting that the five skandhas (classes of psychophysical element) are exhaustive of the constituents of persons, plus the fact that these are all said to be empirically observable, that leads some to claim that the Buddha did not intend to deny the existence of a self tout court . There is, however, evidence that the Buddha was generally hostile toward attempts to establish the existence of unobservable entities. In the Pohapāda Sutta (D I.178–203), for instance, the Buddha compares someone who posits an unseen seer in order to explain our introspective awareness of cognitions, to a man who has conceived a longing for the most beautiful woman in the world based solely on the thought that such a woman must surely exist. And in the Tevijja Sutta (D I.235–52), the Buddha rejects the claim of certain Brahmins to know the path to oneness with Brahman, on the grounds that no one has actually observed this Brahman. This makes more plausible the assumption that the argument has as an implicit premise the claim that there is no more to the person than the five skandhas .

Premise (1) appears to be based on the assumption that persons undergo rebirth, together with the thought that one function of a self would be to account for diachronic personal identity. By ‘permanent’ is here meant continued existence over at least several lives. This is shown by the fact that the Buddha rules out the body as a self on the grounds that the body exists for just one lifetime. (This also demonstrates that the Buddha did not mean by ‘impermanent’ what some later Buddhist philosophers meant, viz., existing for just a moment; the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness represents a later development.) The mental entities that make up the remaining four types of psychophysical element might seem like more promising candidates, but these are ruled out on the grounds that these all originate in dependence on contact between sense faculty and object, and last no longer than a particular sense-object-contact event. That he listed five kinds of psychophysical element, and not just one, shows that the Buddha embraced a kind of dualism. But this strategy for demonstrating the impermanence of the psychological elements shows that his dualism was not the sort of mind-body dualism familiar from substance ontologies like those of Descartes and of the Nyāya school of orthodox Indian philosophy. Instead of seeing the mind as the persisting bearer of such transient events as occurrences of cognition, feeling and volition, he treats ‘mind’ as a kind of aggregate term for bundles of transient mental events. These events being impermanent, they too fail to account for diachronic personal identity in the way in which a self might be expected to.

Another argument for non-self, which might be called the argument from control (S III.66–8), has this structure:

Premise (1) is puzzling. It appears to presuppose that the self should have complete control over itself, so that it would effortlessly adjust its state to its desires. That the self should be thought of as the locus of control is certainly plausible. Those Indian self-theorists who claim that the self is a mere passive witness recognize that the burden of proof is on them to show that the self is not an agent. But it seems implausibly demanding to require of the self that it have complete control over itself. We do not require that vision see itself if it is to see other things. The case of vision suggests an alternative interpretation, however. We might hold that vision does not see itself for the reason that this would violate an irreflexivity principle, to the effect that an entity cannot operate on itself. Indian philosophers who accept this principle cite supportive instances such as the knife that cannot cut itself and the finger-tip that cannot touch itself. If this principle is accepted, then if the self were the locus of control it would follow that it could never exercise this function on itself. A self that was the controller could never find itself in the position of seeking to change its state to one that it deemed more desirable. On this interpretation, the first premise seems to be true. And there is ample evidence that (2) is true: it is difficult to imagine a bodily or psychological state over which one might not wish to exercise control. Consequently, given the assumption that the person is wholly composed of the psychophysical elements, it appears to follow that a self of this description does not exist.

These two arguments appear, then, to give good reason to deny a self that might ground diachronic personal identity and serve as locus of control, given the assumption that there is no more to the person than the empirically given psychophysical elements. But it now becomes something of a puzzle how one is to explain diachronic personal identity and agency. To start with the latter, does the argument from control not suggest that control must be exercised by something other than the psychophysical elements? This was precisely the conclusion of the Sāṃkhya school of orthodox Indian philosophy. One of their arguments for the existence of a self was that it is possible to exercise control over all the empirically given constituents of the person; while they agree with the Buddha that a self is never observed, they take the phenomena of agency to be grounds for positing a self that transcends all possible experience.

This line of objection to the Buddha’s teaching of non-self is more commonly formulated in response to the argument from impermanence, however. Perhaps its most dramatic form is aimed at the Buddha’s acceptance of the doctrines of karma and rebirth. It is clear that the body ceases to exist at death. And given the Buddha’s argument that mental states all originate in dependence on sense-object contact events, it seems no psychological constituent of the person can transmigrate either. Yet the Buddha claims that persons who have not yet achieved enlightenment will be reborn as sentient beings of some sort after they die. If there is no constituent whatever that moves from one life to the next, how could the being in the next life be the same person as the being in this life? This question becomes all the more pointed when it is added that rebirth is governed by karma, something that functions as a kind of cosmic justice: those born into fortunate circumstances do so as a result of good deeds in prior lives, while unpleasant births result from evil past deeds. Such a system of reward and punishment could be just only if the recipient of pleasant or unpleasant karmic fruit is the same person as the agent of the good or evil action. And the opponent finds it incomprehensible how this could be so in the absence of a persisting self.

It is not just classical Indian self-theorists who have found this objection persuasive. Some Buddhists have as well. Among these Buddhists, however, this has led to the rejection not of non-self but of rebirth. (Historically this response was not unknown among East Asian Buddhists, and it is not rare among Western Buddhists today.) The evidence that the Buddha himself accepted rebirth and karma seems quite strong, however. The later tradition would distinguish between two types of discourse in the body of the Buddha’s teachings: those intended for an audience of householders seeking instruction from a sage, and those intended for an audience of monastic renunciates already versed in his teachings. And it would be one thing if his use of the concepts of karma and rebirth were limited to the former. For then such appeals could be explained away as another instance of the Buddha’s pedagogical skill (commonly referred to as upāya ). The idea would be that householders who fail to comply with the most basic demands of morality are not likely (for reasons to be discussed shortly) to make significant progress toward the cessation of suffering, and the teaching of karma and rebirth, even if not strictly speaking true, does give those who accept it a (prudential) reason to be moral. But this sort of ‘noble lie’ justification for the Buddha teaching a doctrine he does not accept fails in the face of the evidence that he also taught it to quite advanced monastics (e.g., A III.33). And what he taught is not the version of karma popular in certain circles today, according to which, for instance, an act done out of hatred makes the agent somewhat more disposed to perform similar actions out of similar motives in the future, which in turn makes negative experiences more likely for the agent. What the Buddha teaches is instead the far stricter view that each action has its own specific consequence for the agent, the hedonic nature of which is determined in accordance with causal laws and in such a way as to require rebirth as long as action continues. So if there is a conflict between the doctrine of non-self and the teaching of karma and rebirth, it is not to be resolved by weakening the Buddha’s commitment to the latter.

The Sanskrit term karma literally means ‘action’. What is nowadays referred to somewhat loosely as the theory of karma is, speaking more strictly, the view that there is a causal relationship between action ( karma ) and ‘fruit’ ( phala ), the latter being an experience of pleasure, pain or indifference for the agent of the action. This is the view that the Buddha appears to have accepted in its most straightforward form. Actions are said to be of three types: bodily, verbal and mental. The Buddha insists, however, that by action is meant not the movement or change involved, but rather the volition or intention that brought about the change. As Gombrich (2009) points out, the Buddha’s insistence on this point reflects the transition from an earlier ritualistic view of action to a view that brings action within the purview of ethics. For it is when actions are seen as subject to moral assessment that intention becomes relevant. One does not, for instance, perform the morally blameworthy action of speaking insultingly to an elder just by making sounds that approximate to the pronunciation of profanities in the presence of an elder; parrots and prelinguistic children can do as much. What matters for moral assessment is the mental state (if any) that produced the bodily, verbal or mental change. And it is the occurrence of these mental states that is said to cause the subsequent occurrence of hedonically good, bad and neutral experiences. More specifically, it is the occurrence of the three ‘defiled’ mental states that brings about karmic fruit. The three defilements ( kleśa s) are desire, aversion and ignorance. And we are told quite specifically (A III.33) that actions performed by an agent in whom these three defilements have been destroyed do not have karmic consequences; such an agent is experiencing their last birth.

Some caution is required in understanding this claim about the defilements. The Buddha seems to be saying that it is possible to act not only without ignorance, but also in the absence of desire or aversion, yet it is difficult to see how there could be intentional action without some positive or negative motivation. To see one’s way around this difficulty, one must realize that by ‘desire’ and ‘aversion’ are meant those positive and negative motives respectively that are colored by ignorance, viz. ignorance concerning suffering, impermanence and non-self. Presumably the enlightened person, while knowing the truth about these matters, can still engage in motivated action. Their actions are not based on the presupposition that there is an ‘I’ for which those actions can have significance. Ignorance concerning these matters perpetuates rebirth, and thus further occasions for existential suffering, by facilitating a motivational structure that reinforces one’s ignorance. We can now see how compliance with common-sense morality could be seen as an initial step on the path to the cessation of suffering. While the presence of ignorance makes all action—even that deemed morally good—karmically potent, those actions commonly considered morally evil are especially powerful reinforcers of ignorance, in that they stem from the assumption that the agent’s welfare is of paramount importance. While recognition of the moral value of others may still involve the conceit that there is an ‘I’, it can nonetheless constitute progress toward dissolution of the sense of self.

This excursus into what the Buddha meant by karma may help us see how his middle path strategy could be used to reply to the objection to non-self from rebirth. That objection was that the reward and punishment generated by karma across lives could never be deserved in the absence of a transmigrating self. The middle path strategy generally involves locating and rejecting an assumption shared by a pair of extreme views. In this case the views will be (1) that the person in the later life deserves the fruit generated by the action in the earlier life, and (2) that this person does not deserve the fruit. One assumption shared by (1) and (2) is that persons deserve reward and punishment depending on the moral character of their actions, and one might deny this assumption. But that would be tantamount to moral nihilism, and a middle path is said to avoid nihilisms (such as annihilationism). A more promising alternative might be to deny that there are ultimately such things as persons that could bear moral properties like desert. This is what the Buddha seems to mean when he asserts that the earlier and the later person are neither the same nor different (S II.62; S II.76; S II.113). Since any two existing things must be either identical or distinct, to say of the two persons that they are neither is to say that strictly speaking they do not exist.

This alternative is more promising because it avoids moral nihilism. For it allows one to assert that persons and their moral properties are conventionally real. To say this is to say that given our interests and cognitive limitations, we do better at achieving our aim—minimizing overall pain and suffering—by acting as though there are persons with morally significant properties. Ultimately there are just impersonal entities and events in causal sequence: ignorance, the sorts of desires that ignorance facilitates, an intention formed on the basis of such a desire, a bodily, verbal or mental action, a feeling of pleasure, pain or indifference, and an occasion of suffering. The claim is that this situation is usefully thought of as, for instance, a person who performs an evil deed due to their ignorance of the true nature of things, receives the unpleasant fruit they deserve in the next life, and suffers through their continuing on the wheel of saṃsāra. It is useful to think of the situation in this way because it helps us locate the appropriate places to intervene to prevent future pain (the evil deed) and future suffering (ignorance).

It is no doubt quite difficult to believe that karma and rebirth exist in the form that the Buddha claims. It is said that their existence can be confirmed by those who have developed the power of retrocognition through advanced yogic technique. But this is of little help to those not already convinced that meditation is a reliable means of knowledge. What can be said with some assurance is that karma and rebirth are not inconsistent with non-self. Rebirth without transmigration is logically possible.

When the Buddha says that a person in one life and the person in another life are neither the same nor different, one’s first response might be to take ‘different’ to mean something other than ‘not the same’. But while this is possible in English given the ambiguity of ‘the same’, it is not possible in the Pāli source, where the Buddha is represented as unambiguously denying both numerical identity and numerical distinctness. This has led some to wonder whether the Buddha does not employ a deviant logic. Such suspicions are strengthened by those cases where the options are not two but four, cases of the so-called tetralemma ( catuṣkoṭi ). For instance, when the Buddha is questioned about the post-mortem status of the enlightened person or arhat (e.g., at M I.483–8) the possibilities are listed as: (1) the arhat continues to exist after death, (2) does not exist after death, (3) both exists and does not exist after death, and (4) neither exists nor does not exist after death. When the Buddha rejects both (1) and (2) we get a repetition of ‘neither the same nor different’. But when he goes on to entertain, and then reject, (3) and (4) the logical difficulties are compounded. Since each of (3) and (4) appears to be formally contradictory, to entertain either is to entertain the possibility that a contradiction might be true. And their denial seems tantamount to affirmation of excluded middle, which is prima facie incompatible with the denial of both (1) and (2). One might wonder whether we are here in the presence of the mystical.

There were some Buddhist philosophers who took ‘neither the same nor different’ in this way. These were the Personalists ( Pudgalavādins ), who were so called because they affirmed the ultimate existence of the person as something named and conceptualized in dependence on the psychophysical elements. They claimed that the person is neither identical with nor distinct from the psychophysical elements. They were prepared to accept, as a consequence, that nothing whatever can be said about the relation between person and elements. But their view was rejected by most Buddhist philosophers, in part on the grounds that it quickly leads to an ineffability paradox: one can say neither that the person’s relation to the elements is inexpressible, nor that it is not inexpressible. The consensus view was instead that the fact that the person can be said to be neither identical with nor distinct from the elements is grounds for taking the person to be a mere conceptual fiction. Concerning the persons in the two lives, they understood the negations involved in ‘neither the same nor different’ to be of the commitmentless variety, i.e., to function like illocutionary negation. If we agree that the statement ‘7 is green’ is semantically ill-formed, on the grounds that abstract objects such as numbers do not have colors, then we might go on to say, ‘Do not say that 7 is green, and do not say that it is not green either’. There is no contradiction here, since the illocutionary negation operator ‘do not say’ generates no commitment to an alternative characterization.

There is also evidence that claims of type (3) involve parameterization. For instance, the claim about the arhat would be that there is some respect in which they can be said to exist after death, and some other respect in which they can be said to no longer exist after death. Entertaining such a proposition does not require that one believe there might be true contradictions. And while claims of type (4) would seem to be logically equivalent to those of type (3) (regardless of whether or not they involve parameterization), the tradition treated this type as asserting that the subject is beyond all conceptualization. To reject the type (4) claim about the arhat is to close off one natural response to the rejections of the first three claims: that the status of the arhat after death transcends rational understanding. That the Buddha rejected all four possibilities concerning this and related questions is not evidence that he employed a deviant logic.

The Buddha’s response to questions like those concerning the arhat is sometimes cited in defense of a different claim about his attitude toward rationality. This is the claim that the Buddha was essentially a pragmatist, someone who rejects philosophical theorizing for its own sake and employs philosophical rationality only to the extent that doing so can help solve the practical problem of eliminating suffering. The Buddha does seem to be embracing something like this attitude when he defends his refusal to answer questions like that about the arhat , or whether the series of lives has a beginning, or whether the living principle ( jīva ) is identical with the body. He calls all the possible views with respect to such questions distractions insofar as answering them would not lead to the cessation of the defilements and thus to the end of suffering. And in a famous simile (M I.429) he compares someone who insists that the Buddha answer these questions to someone who has been wounded by an arrow but will not have the wound treated until they are told who shot the arrow, what sort of wood the arrow is made of, and the like.

Passages such as these surely attest to the great importance the Buddha placed on sharing his insights to help others overcome suffering. But this is consistent with the belief that philosophical rationality may be used to answer questions that lack evident connection with pressing practical concerns. And on at least one occasion the Buddha does just this. Pressed to give his answers to the questions about the arhat and the like, the Buddha first rejects all the possibilities of the tetralemma, and defends his refusal on the grounds that such theories are not conducive to liberation from saṃsāra . But when his questioner shows signs of thereby losing confidence in the value of the Buddha’s teachings about the path to the cessation of suffering, the Buddha responds with the example of a fire that goes out after exhausting its fuel. If one were asked where this fire has gone, the Buddha points out, one could consistently deny that it has gone to the north, to the south, or in any other direction. This is so for the simple reason that the questions ‘Has it gone to the north?’, ‘Has it gone to the south?’, etc., all share the false presupposition that the fire continues to exist. Likewise the questions about the arhat and the like all share the false presupposition that there is such a thing as a person who might either continue to exist after death, cease to exist at death, etc. (Anālayo 2018, 41) The difficulty with these questions is not that they try to extend philosophical rationality beyond its legitimate domain, as the handmaiden of soteriologically useful practice. It is rather that they rest on a false presupposition—something that is disclosed through the employment of philosophical rationality.

A different sort of challenge to the claim that the Buddha valued philosophical rationality for its own sake comes from the role played by authority in Buddhist soteriology. For instance, in the Buddhist tradition one sometimes encounters the claim that only enlightened persons such as the Buddha can know all the details of karmic causation. And to the extent that the moral rules are thought to be determined by the details of karmic causation, this might be taken to mean that our knowledge of the moral rules is dependent on the authority of the Buddha. Again, the subsequent development of Buddhist philosophy seems to have been constrained by the need to make theory compatible with certain key claims of the Buddha. For instance, one school developed an elaborate form of four-dimensionalism, not because of any deep dissatisfaction with presentism, but because they believed the non-existence of the past and the future to be incompatible with the Buddha’s alleged ability to cognize past and future events. And some modern scholars go so far as to wonder whether non-self functions as anything more than a sort of linguistic taboo against the use of words like ‘I’ and ‘self’ in the Buddhist tradition (Collins 1982: 183). The suggestion is that just as in some other religious traditions the views of the founder or the statements of scripture trump all other considerations, including any views arrived at through the free exercise of rational inquiry, so in Buddhism as well there can be at best only a highly constrained arena for the deployment of philosophical rationality.

Now it could be that while this is true of the tradition that developed out of the Buddha’s teachings, the Buddha himself held the unfettered use of rationality in quite high esteem. This would seem to conflict with what he is represented as saying in response to the report that he arrived at his conclusions through reasoning and analysis alone: that such a report is libelous, since he possesses a number of superhuman cognitive powers (M I.68). But at least some scholars take this passage to be not the Buddha’s own words but an expression of later devotionalist concerns (Gombrich 2009: 164). Indeed one does find a spirited discussion within the tradition concerning the question whether the Buddha is omniscient, a discussion that may well reflect competition between Buddhism and those Brahmanical schools that posit an omniscient creator. And at least for the most part the Buddhist tradition is careful not to attribute to the Buddha the sort of omniscience usually ascribed to an all-perfect being: the actual cognition, at any one time, of all truths. Instead a Buddha is said to be omniscient only in the much weaker sense of always having the ability to cognize any individual fact relevant to the soteriological project, viz. the details of their own past lives, the workings of the karmic causal laws, and whether a given individual’s defilements have been extirpated. Moreover, these abilities are said to be ones that a Buddha acquires through a specific course of training, and thus ones that others may reasonably aspire to as well. The attitude of the later tradition seems to be that while one could discover the relevant facts on one’s own, it would be more reasonable to take advantage of the fact that the Buddha has already done all the epistemic labor involved. When we arrive in a new town we could always find our final destination through trial and error, but it would make more sense to ask someone who already knows their way about.

The Buddhist philosophical tradition grew out of earlier efforts to systematize the Buddha’s teachings. Within a century or two of the death of the Buddha, exegetical differences led to debates concerning the Buddha’s true intention on some matter, such as that between the Personalists and others over the status of the person. While the parties to these debates use many of the standard tools and techniques of philosophy, they were still circumscribed by the assumption that the Buddha’s views on the matter at hand are authoritative. In time, however, the discussion widened to include interlocutors representing various Brahmanical systems. Since the latter did not take the Buddha’s word as authoritative, Buddhist thinkers were required to defend their positions in other ways. The resulting debate (which continued for about nine centuries) touched on most of the topics now considered standard in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of language, and was characterized by considerable sophistication in philosophical methodology. What the Buddha would have thought of these developments we cannot say with any certainty. What we can say is that many Buddhists have believed that the unfettered exercise of philosophical rationality is quite consistent with his teachings.

• Albahari, Miri, 2006, Analytical Buddhism , Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• –––, 2014, ‘Insight Knowledge of No Self in Buddhism: An Epistemic Analysis,’ Philosophers’ Imprint , 14(1), available online .
• Anālayo, Bhikkhu, 2018, Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current research , Cambridge, MA: Wisdom.
• Collins, Stephen, 1982, Selfless Persons , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cousins, L. S., 2022, Meditations of the Pali Tradition: Illuminating Buddhist Doctrine, History, and Practice, edited by Sarah Shaw, Boulder, CO: Shambala.
• Gethin, Rupert, 1998, The Foun dations of Buddhism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Gombrich, Richard F., 1996, How Buddhism Began , London: Athlone.
• –––, 2009, What the Buddha Thought , London: Equinox.
• Gowans, Christopher, 2003, Philosophy of the Buddha , London: Routledge.
• Harvey, Peter, 1995, The Selfless Mind , Richmond, UK: Curzon.
• Jayatilleke, K.N., 1963, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge , London: George Allen and Unwin.
• Rahula, Walpola, 1967, What the Buddha Taught , 2 nd ed., London: Unwin.
• Ronkin, Noa, 2005, Early Buddhist Metaphysics , London: Routledge.
• Ruegg, David Seyfort, 1977, ‘The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catuṣkoṭi and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahāyāna Buddhism,’ Journal of Indian Philosophy , 5: 1–71.
• Siderits, Mark, 2021, Buddhism As Philosophy , 2nd edition, Indianapolis: Hackett.
• Smith, Douglass and Justin Whitaker, 2016, ‘Reading the Buddha as a Philosopher,’ Philosophy East and West , 66: 515–538.

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The Life of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama

A Prince Renounces Pleasure and Founds Buddhism

• Origins and Developments
• Figures and Texts
• Becoming A Buddhist
• Tibetan and Vajrayana Buddhism
• B.J., Journalism, University of Missouri

The life of Siddhartha Gautama, the person we call the Buddha, is shrouded in legend and myth. Although most historians believe there was such a person, we know very little about the actual historical person. The "standard" biography, relayed in this article, appears to have evolved over time. It was largely completed by the "Buddhacarita," an epic poem written by Aśvaghoṣa in the second century A.D.

Siddhartha Gautama's Birth and Family

The future Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was born in the fifth or sixth century B.C. in Lumbini (in modern-day Nepal). Siddhartha is a Sanskrit name meaning "one who has accomplished a goal," and Gautama is a family name.

His father, King Suddhodana, was the leader of a large clan called the Shakya (or Sakya). It's not clear from the earliest texts whether he was a hereditary king or more of a tribal chief. It is also possible that he was elected to this status.

Suddhodana married two sisters, Maya and Pajapati Gotami. They are said to have been princesses of another clan, the Koliya, from what is northern India today. Maya was the mother of Siddhartha, and he was her only child. She died shortly after his birth. Pajapati, who later became  the first Buddhist nun , raised Siddhartha as her own.

By all accounts, Prince Siddhartha and his family were of the Kshatriya caste of warriors and nobles. Among Siddhartha's more well-known relatives was his cousin Ananda, the son of his father's brother. Ananda would later become the Buddha's disciple and personal attendant. He would have been considerably younger than Siddhartha, however, and they didn't know each other as children.

The Prophecy and a Young Marriage

When Prince Siddhartha was a few days old, it is said, a holy man prophesied over the prince. By some accounts, nine Brahman holy men made the prophecy. It was foretold that the boy would be either a great ruler or a great spiritual teacher. King Suddhodana preferred the first outcome and prepared his son accordingly.

He raised the boy in great luxury and shielded him from knowledge of religion and human suffering. At the age of 16, he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, who was also 16. This was no doubt a marriage arranged by the families, as was customary at the time.

Yasodhara was the daughter of a Koliya chief, and her mother was a sister to King Suddhodana. She was also a sister of  Devadatta , who became a disciple of the Buddha and then, by some accounts, a dangerous rival.

The Four Passing Sights

The prince reached the age of 29 with little experience of the world outside the walls of his opulent palaces. He was oblivious to the realities of sickness, old age, and death.

One day, overcome with curiosity, Prince Siddhartha asked a charioteer to take him on a series of rides through the countryside. On these journeys he was shocked by the sight of an aged man, then a sick man, and then a corpse. The stark realities of old age, disease, and death seized and sickened the prince.

Finally, he saw a wandering ascetic. The charioteer explained that the ascetic was one who had renounced the world and sought release from the fear of death and suffering. 

These life-changing encounters would become known in Buddhism as the Four Passing Sights.

Siddhartha's Renunciation

For a time the prince returned to palace life, but he took no pleasure in it. Even the news that his wife Yasodhara had given birth to a son did not please him. The child was called Rahula , which means "fetter."

One night the prince wandered the palace alone. The luxuries that had once pleased him now seemed grotesque. Musicians and dancing girls had fallen asleep and were sprawled about, snoring and sputtering. Prince Siddhartha reflected on the old age, disease, and death that would overtake them all and turn their bodies to dust.

He realized then that he could no longer be content living the life of a prince. That very night he left the palace, shaved his head, and changed from his royal clothes into a beggar's robe. Renouncing all the luxury he had known, he began his quest for enlightenment .

The Search Begins

Siddhartha started by seeking out renowned teachers. They taught him about the many religious philosophies of his day as well as how to meditate. After he had learned all they had to teach, his doubts and questions remained. He and five disciples left to find enlightenment by themselves.

The six companions attempted to find release from suffering through physical discipline: enduring pain, holding their breath, and fasting nearly to starvation. Yet Siddhartha was still unsatisfied.

It occurred to him that in renouncing pleasure he had grasped the opposite of pleasure, which was pain and self-mortification. Now Siddhartha considered a Middle Way between those two extremes.

He remembered an experience from his childhood when his mind had settled into a state of deep peace. He saw that the path of liberation was through the discipline of mind, and he realized that, instead of starvation, he needed nourishment to build up his strength for the effort. When he accepted a bowl of rice milk from a young girl, his companions assumed he had given up the quest, and they abandoned him.

The Enlightenment of the Buddha

Siddhartha sat beneath a sacred fig tree ( Ficus religiosa ), known ever after as the Bodhi Tree ( bodhi means "awakened"). It was there that he settled into meditation.

The struggle within Siddhartha's mind came to be mythologized as a great battle with Mara . The demon's name means "destruction" and represents the passions that snare and delude us. Mara brought vast armies of monsters to attack Siddhartha, who sat still and untouched. Mara's most beautiful daughter tried to seduce Siddhartha, but this effort also failed.

Finally, Mara claimed that the seat of enlightenment rightfully belonged to him. Mara's spiritual accomplishments were greater than Siddhartha's, the demon said. Mara's monstrous soldiers cried out together, "I am his witness!" Mara challenged Siddhartha, "Who will speak for you?"

Then Siddhartha reached out his right hand to touch the earth , and the earth itself roared, "I bear you witness!" Mara disappeared. As the morning star rose in the sky, Siddhartha Gautama realized enlightenment and became a buddha, which is defined as "a person who has achieved full enlightenment."

The Buddha as a Teacher

At first, the Buddha was reluctant to teach because what he had realized could not be communicated in words. Only through discipline and clarity of mind would delusions fall away and could one experience the Great Reality. Listeners without that direct experience would be stuck in conceptualizations and would surely misunderstand everything he said. Still, compassion persuaded him to make the attempt to transmit what he had realized.

After his enlightenment, he went to the Deer Park in Isipatana, located in what is now the province of Uttar Pradesh, India. There he found the five companions who had abandoned him and preached his first sermon to them.

This sermon has been preserved as the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and centers on the Four Noble Truths . Instead of teaching doctrines about enlightenment, the Buddha chose to prescribe a path of practice through which people can realize enlightenment for themselves.

The Buddha devoted himself to teaching and attracted hundreds of followers. Eventually, he became reconciled with his father, King Suddhodana. His wife, the devoted Yasodhara, became a nun and disciple. Rahula, his son, became a novice monk at the age of seven and spent the rest of his life with his father.

The Last Words of the Buddha

The Buddha traveled tirelessly through all areas of northern India and Nepal. He taught a diverse group of followers, all of whom were seeking the truth he had to offer.

At the age of 80, the Buddha entered Parinirvana , leaving his physical body behind. In his passing, he abandoned the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

Before his last breath, he spoke final words to his followers:

"Behold, O monks, this is my last advice to you. All compounded things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation."

The Buddha's body was cremated. His remains were placed in stupas —domed structures common in Buddhism—in many places, including China, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

The Buddha Has Inspired Millions

Some 2,500 years later, the Buddha's teachings remain significant for many people throughout the world. Buddhism continues to attract new followers and is one of the fastest-growing religions, though many do not refer to it as a religion  but as a spiritual path or a philosophy. An estimated 350 to 550 million people practice Buddhism today. 

• Twelve Buddhas
• The Demon Mara
• What Is a Sutra in Buddhism?
• An Overview of Bodhi Day
• Ten Famous Buddhas: Where They Came From; What They Represent
• Aspects and Tenets of Buddhism
• 'Siddhartha' Quotes From His Spiritual Journey
• The Five Remembrances
• The Buddhist Holiday of Magha Puja or Sangha Day
• What Is a Buddha? Who Was the Buddha?
• What Is an Arhat or Arahant in Buddhism?
• Ksanti Paramita: Perfection of Patience
• The Search for Original Buddhism
• The Agganna Sutta
• The Jataka Tale of the Selfless Hare

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Magazine | Feature

Who Is The Buddha?

The life story of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama

The Buddha, or Siddhartha Gautama, was born around 567 B.C.E., in a small kingdom just below the Himalayan foothills. His father was a chief of the Shakya clan. It is said that twelve years before his birth the brahmins prophesied that he would become either a universal monarch or a great sage. To prevent him from becoming an ascetic, his father kept him within the confines of the palace. Gautama grew up in princely luxury, shielded from the outside world, entertained by dancing girls, instructed by brahmins, and trained in archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, swimming, and running. When he came of age he married Gopa, who gave birth to a son. He had, as we might say today, everything.

And yet, it was not enough. Something—something as persistent as his own shadow—drew him into the world beyond the castle walls. There, in the streets of Kapilavastu, he encountered three simple things: a sick man , an old man , and a corpse being carried to the burning grounds. Nothing in his life of ease had prepared him for this experience. When his charioteer told him that all beings are subject to sickness, old age, and death, he could not rest.

As he returned to the palace, he passed a wandering ascetic walking peacefully along the road, wearing the robe and carrying the single bowl of a sadhu. He then resolved to leave the palace in search of the answer to the problem of suffering. After bidding his wife and child a silent farewell without waking them, he rode to the edge of the forest. There, he cut his long hair with his sword and exchanged his fine clothes for the simple robes of an ascetic.

Finding Liberation

With these actions Siddhartha Gautama joined a whole class of men who had dropped out of Indian society to find liberation. There were a variety of methods and teachers , and Gautama investigated many—atheists, materialists, idealists, and dialecticians. The deep forest and the teeming marketplace were alive with the sounds of thousands of arguments and opinions, unlike in our time.

Gautama finally settled down to work with two teachers. From Arada Kalama, who had three hundred disciples, he learned how to discipline his mind to enter the sphere of nothingness. But even though Arada Kalama asked him to remain and teach as an equal, he recognized that this was not liberation, and left. Next Siddhartha learned how to enter the concentration of mind which is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness from Udraka Ramaputra. But neither was this liberation and Siddhartha left his second teacher.

For six years Siddhartha along with five companions practiced austerities and concentration. He drove himself mercilessly, eating only a single grain of rice a day, pitting mind against body. His ribs stuck through his wasted flesh and he seemed more dead than alive.

The Middle Path

His five companions left him after he made the decision to take more substantial food and to abandon asceticism. Then, Siddhartha entered a village in search of food.  There, a woman named Sujata offered him a dish of milk and a separate vessel of honey. His strength returned, Siddhartha washed himself in the Nairanjana River, and then set off to the Bodhi tree. He spread a mat of kusha grass underneath, crossed his legs and sat.

He sat, having listened to all the teachers, studied all the sacred texts and tried all the methods. Now there was nothing to rely on, no one to turn to, nowhere to go. He sat solid and unmoving and determined as a mountain, until finally, after six days, his eye opened on the rising morning star, so it is said, and he realized that what he had been looking for had never been lost, neither to him nor to anyone else. Therefore there was nothing to attain, and no longer any struggle to attain it.

“Wonder of wonders,” he is reported to have said, “this very enlightenment is the nature of all beings, and yet they are unhappy for lack of it.” So it was that Siddhartha Gautama woke up at the age of thirty-five, and became the Buddha, the Awakened One, known as Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakyas.

For seven weeks he enjoyed the freedom and tranquillity of liberation. At first he had no inclination to speak about his realization. He felt would be too difficult for most people to understand. But when, according to legend, Brahma, chief of the three thousand worlds, requested that the Awakened One teach, since there were those “whose eyes were only a little clouded over,” the Buddha agreed.

The First Noble Truth

Shakyamuni’s two former teachers, Udraka and Arada Kalama, had both died only a few days earlier, and so he sought the five ascetics who had left him. When they saw him approaching the Deer Park in Benares they decided to ignore him, since he had broken his vows. Yet they found something so radiant about his presence that they rose, prepared a seat, bathed his feet and listened as the Buddha turned the wheel of the dharma, the teachings, for the first time.

Related: What are The Four Noble Truths?

The First Noble Truth of the Buddha stated that all life, all existence, is characterized by duhkha.  The Sanskrit word meaning suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness. Even moments of happiness have a way of turning into pain when we hold onto them, or, once they have passed into memory, they twist the present as the mind makes an inevitable, hopeless attempt to recreate the past. The teaching of the Buddha is based on direct insight into the nature of existence. Ir is a radical critique of wishful thinking and the myriad tactics of escapism—whether through political utopianism, psychological therapeutics, simple hedonism, or (and it is this which primarily distinguishes Buddhism from most of the world’s religions) the theistic salvation of mysticism.

Suffering is true

Duhkha is Noble, and it is true. It is a foundation, a stepping stone, to be comprehended fully, not to be escaped from or explained. The experience of duhkha, of the working of one’s mind, leads to the Second Noble Truth, the origin of suffering, traditionally described as craving, thirsting for pleasure, but also and more fundamentally a thirst for continued existence, as well as nonexistence. Examination of the nature of this thirst leads to the heart of the Second Noble Truth, the idea of the “self,” or “I,” with all its desires, hopes, and fears, and it is only when this self is comprehended and seen to be insubstantial that the Third Noble Truth, the cessation of suffering, is realized.

The first sangha

The five ascetics who listened to the Buddha ‘s first discourse in the Deer Park became the nucleus of a community, a sangha , of men (women were to enter later) who followed the way the Buddha had described in his Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path. These bhikshus , or monks, lived simply, owning a bowl, a robe, a needle, a water strainer, and a razor, since they shaved their heads as a sign of having left home. They traveled around northeastern India, practicing meditation alone or in small groups, begging for their meals.

Related: The Noble Eightfold Path

The Buddha’s teaching, however, was not only for the monastic community. Shakyamuni had instructed them to bring it to all: “Go ye, O bhikshus, for the gain of the many, the welfare of the many, in compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain, for the welfare of gods and men.”

For the next forty-nine years Shakyamuni walked through the villages and towns of India, speaking in the vernacular, using common figures of speech that everyone could understand. He taught a villager to practice mindfulness while drawing water from a well, and when a distraught mother asked him to heal the dead child she carried in her arms, he did not perform a miracle, but instead instructed her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one had ever died. She returned from her search without the seed, but with the knowledge that death is universal.

Death and Impermanence

As the Buddha’s fame spread, kings and other wealthy patrons donated parks and gardens for retreats.  The Buddha accepted these, but he continued to live as he had ever since his twenty-ninth year: as a wandering sadhu, begging his own meal, spending his days in meditation. Only now there was one difference. Almost every day, after his noon meal, the Buddha taught. None of these discourses, or the questions and answers that followed, were recorded during the Buddha’s lifetime.

The Buddha died in the town of Kushinagara, at the age of eighty, having eaten a meal of pork or mushrooms. Some of the assembled monks were despondent, but the Buddha, lying on his side, with his head resting on his right hand, reminded them that everything is impermanent, and advised them to take refuge in themselves and the dharma—the teaching. He asked for questions a last time. There were none. Then he spoke his final words: “Now then, bhikshus, I address you: all compound things are subject to decay; strive diligently.”

The first rainy season after the Buddha’s parinirvana , it is said that five hundred elders gathered at a mountain cave near Rajagriha, where they held the First Council. Ananda, who had been the Buddha’s attendant, repeated all the discourses, or sutras , he had heard, and Upali recited the two hundred fifty monastic rules, the Vinaya , while Mahakashyapa recited the Abhidharma , the compendium of Buddhist psychology and metaphysics.  These three collections, which were written on palm leaves a few centuries later and known as the Tripitaka (literally “three baskets”), became the basis for all subsequent versions of the Buddhist canon.

Adapted from How the Swans Came to the Lake (Shambhala Publications).

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History of Buddhism and the Life of Buddha Essay

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History of Buddhism and the life of Buddha

Basic teachings of buddhism, the uniqueness of theravada buddhism.

Buddhism originated from the northern part of India in 5 th BC. It was founded by Buddha Shakyamuni in 624 BC, while he was working and living in Lumbini (Eckel, 2010). Buddhism is an Asiatic religion that has managed to spread across various parts of the globe. Buddhism has three major divisions in South East Asia, North Asia, and Japan. Buddhists consider Buddha as their religious leader. Over the years, Buddhism has developed a number of concepts that play a crucial role in explaining its teachings.

A good example is the concept of karma, which argues that people’s destiny depends on the nature and effect of their actions (Eckel, 2010). Research has also established that there are various types of Buddhism practiced by people across the world.

One of the common types of this religion is Theravada Buddhism, which emphasizes on personal salvation through individual efforts (Eckel, 2010). It is one of the most conservative forms of Buddhism. Theravada Buddhism adheres to Pali scriptures and the non-theistic ideal of self-purification to nirvana. It is very dominant in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia (Eckel, 2010).

The life of Buddha was characterized by loyal treatment. He was born in a loyal family called Shakya to Queen Mayadevi and King Shuddhodana. His second name, Shakyamuni, means the “Able One.” This meaning influenced him to start Buddhism because he believed he had the ability to provide people with the right spiritual guidance (Eckel, 2010).

Buddha’s mother believed that her son’s religious duties were prophesied to her when she was pregnant. She believed that Buddha was already anointed to become a spiritual leader, as evidenced by the fact that she did not experience any pain during his birth. The birth of Buddha was a big delight to elders in his community, as they felt that it was a fulfillment of everyone’s dreams (Eckel, 2010).

As a result of various life experiences, Buddha became more enlightened by learning the value of meditation and various ways of influencing people. Buddha took the opportunity of being a member of the loyal family to influence the development of Buddhism. He was already in an influential position; thus, getting followers was not a hard task. One of the factors that contributed to the speedy development of Buddhism was its inspirational teachings (Eckel, 2010).

Buddhism is a religion represented by many groups, especially in Asia. The groups acknowledge a range of principles that idolize Buddha. Buddha teaches that life is characterized by various forms of suffering caused by different human aspirations. Suffering often ends when people stop pursuing their desires (Eckel, 2010). This means that the good and bad things that people experience in life result from the nature of desires pursued.

People who pursue positive and inspirational desires tend to have a fulfilling life, while those who go after misinformed desires endure a lot of pain (Eckel, 2010). Additionally, Buddha teaches that the enlightenment obtained through acceptable conduct, wisdom, and meditation often releases one from various desires, as well as suffering and rebirth (Eckel, 2010).

According to the basic teachings of Buddhism, people should consider the effects of their actions (Eckel, 2010). Theravada Buddhism teaches that people should make individual efforts to ensure that they play their part towards achieving the common good (Eckel, 2010).

With over 100 million followers across the world, Theravada Buddhism is definitely unique compared to other schools of Buddhism. Due to its huge presence in southern Asia, this doctrine is also known among its adherents as Southern Buddhism (Eckel, 2010). One of the most unique elements of Theravada Buddhism is its highly conservative nature. Up to date, it still adheres to the customary teachings introduced by the Buddha.

In addition, they also hold the teachings of earlier elders in high regard, as they form the basis of its numerous teachings. Another element that makes Theravada Buddhism be unique is the practical nature of its teachings (Eckel, 2010). Unlike the other Buddhism schools, teachings of Theravada are realizable owing to the fact that they deal with just the concept of suffering. According to the teachings, people should strive towards liberating themselves from suffering associated with various life challenges.

The basic principles of Theravada Buddhism also make it different from other types of religion (Eckel, 2010). There are three principles that guide the conduct of the numerous adherents of Theravada Buddhism, namely wisdom, morality, and mental training. According to this type of Buddhism, it is immoral for people to tolerate acts such as abortion and euthanasia, as they compromise the value of life.

Followers of Theravada Buddhism understand the need to utilize knowledge and experience with common sense and insight (Eckel, 2010). In addition, the theory of mental development encourages people to adopt a culture of meditation, as it helps one to deal with distress, disappointments, and find happiness. Unlike all the other types of Buddhism, Theravada focuses a lot on the need for people to understand the nature of things and the importance of appreciation (Eckel, 2010).

Eckel, M.D. (2010). Buddhism . New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

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IvyPanda . 2020. "History of Buddhism and the Life of Buddha." May 5, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-buddhism-and-the-life-of-buddha/.

1. IvyPanda . "History of Buddhism and the Life of Buddha." May 5, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-buddhism-and-the-life-of-buddha/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "History of Buddhism and the Life of Buddha." May 5, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-of-buddhism-and-the-life-of-buddha/.

The Life of The Buddha

• Born as Siddhartha Gautama into the royal Shakya clan, traditionally in 563 BCE, in Lumbini, modern-day Nepal.
• A prophecy at his birth spoke of how he might become either a universal monarch or a great teacher . His father, King Suddhodana, desired him to become a great king, thus isolated him from the harsh realities of the world.

Prince Siddhartha’s Sheltered Life

• Siddhartha was raised with every luxury amidst great affluence and married a princess named Yasodhara . They had a son, Rahula.
• Despite his comfortable and privileged life, Siddhartha was dissatisfied, seeking the answer to the problem of human suffering .

The Four Sights

• Stepping out of his palace for the first time, Siddhartha encountered the Four Sights : an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a monk.
• The sights revealed the truth about aspects of life such as ageing, illness, death, and asceticism , making him realise that suffering is an inherent part of human existence.

Siddhartha’s Renunciation

• Siddhartha decided to leave his old life of luxury and begin a spiritual quest for enlightenment . This marked his “Great Going Forth” at the age of 29.
• He participated in numerous practises, such as asceticism and yogic meditation, and even studied under different spiritual teachers but found none of these methods satisfactory.

Enlightenment

• Siddhartha sat in meditation under the Bodhi tree and vowed not to rise until he had found the truth.
• After a long period of deep meditation, Siddhartha attained a transformative experience and became enlightened, thus earning him the title of “The Buddha” , or “The Enlightened One”. He discovered the Middle Way , a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

The Buddha’s Teachings - Dhamma and Vinaya

• After achieving enlightenment, the Buddha decided to share his realisation with others.
• He began teaching the Dhamma (his teachings) and established the Sangha (the monastic order), and the rules for this monastic life are known as Vinaya .
• His first discourse to his five former companions at Deer Park became known as the “First Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma” , where he presented the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path .

The Buddha’s Parinirvana

• After 45 years of teaching and travelling, at the age of 80, the Buddha entered Parinirvana , the final death from which an enlightened being does not return.
• His last words are reported to have been: “All conditioned things are subject to decay. Strive diligently for your liberation”.

Remember, although historical accuracy about the Buddha’s life events is subject to debate, their metaphorical meanings hold significant importance in Buddhist thought and practise. Review each phase of his life, considering its relevance to the Buddhist teachings and values, and relate it to larger Buddhist concepts such as Dukkha (suffering), Anicca (impermanence), Anatta (non-self), and Nirvana (liberation).

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Life of Gautama Buddha and his Teachings

Buddha, the light of Asia, was one of the greatest men of all times. Great was his teaching which the mightiest religion of humanity became.

The name, of Gautama Buddha has enriched the history of India more than any other name.

The founder of the largest religion on earth, he was the only man in history to be regarded as God by a larger part of mankind.

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Gautama was born in the Kshatriya Sakya clan of the state of Kapilavastu, situated in the Tarain region of modern Nepal. The exact place of his birth was the garden of Lumbini-Grama near the city of Kapilavastu. At a much later date, Emperor Asoka Maurya erected the famous Rummindei pillar at that place to make it ever memorable. Lumbini is now known as Rummindei or Rupandehi.

Gautama was the son of the Sakya chief of Kapilavastu, Suddhodana. His mother was Maya Devi who died seven days after the birth of her son. The child thereupon was nursed by his step-mother and mother’s sister, Mahaprajapati Gautaini. According to her name, the child was named as Gautama. The family also belonged to the Gautama gotra. Another name of Gautama was Siddhartha.

The exact dates of the birth and death of Gautama Buddha are not yet definitely known to history, though it is known for certain that he lived a life of 80 years. There are two theories about these dates, supported by # arguments. According to a calculation derived from the Sinhalese tradition, Buddha was born in 623 B.C. and died in 543 B.C. at the age of eighty. These dates are supported by some historical evidences. But, by another calculation derived from the established dates of Asoka’s life, the dates of Buddha are seen to be different from the above noted dates.

According to this calculation, the coronation of Asoka took place 218 years after the death of Buddha. The established dates of Asoka show that he came to the throne in 273 B.C. and was coroneted after four years in 269 B.C. If Buddha had died 218 year before Asoka’s coronation, the date of Buddha’s death falls in 487 B.C. and his date of birth thus comes to 567 B.C.

These dates are supported by another historical evidence of great value. At Canton, a dot was put on a record for each year after the death of Buddha.

This was continued till the year 489 A.D. The total number of the Canton Dots is seen to be 975. When the number of the years of the Christian Era, namely, 489 is taken out from the total number of dots, that is, 975, it brings the number to 486. Thus, according to the calculation from the famous Canton Dots, the date of the death of Buddha falls in 486 or 487 B.C.

Thus, from view point of Asoka’s coronation date and the Canton Dots, the year of birth of Buddha may be taken as 566 or 567 B.C. and the year of death as 486 or 487 B.C.

Early life:

Much of the life of Buddha is shrouded in mystery. But much of it also appears clearer from the Buddhist sources. It is said that from his childhood young Gautama showed signs of detachment towards the worldly life. Yet as a khyatriya prince he was given the customary training in the use of arms and weapons, in riding horse and driving chariot.

Father Suddhodana paid enough attention to keep the mind of his son engaged in the stately activities. The palace of Kapilavastu also presented enough of pleasures and luxuries for enjoyment. But, Gautama was seen to have possessed no attraction for the so-called happiness of life. Everything appeared rather painful to him.

When he was sixteen, he got married to Yosodhara, also named as Subhadraka, Gopa or Bimba. Marriage was yet another bond for the thoughtful prince. For several years thereafter Gautama enjoyed the usual pleasures and comforts of the palace like other youthful princes elsewhere.

Four great signs:

At last, he came across four scenes of man’s existence which left a deep impression on his thought. One day, as his charioteer, Chhanna, took the prince through the streets of Kapilavastu, Gautama saw on old man, bent with age, and having wrinkled face, and presenting a pathetic appearance. He came to understand that the miseries of the old age were natural in life.

Subsequently, when be saw another man, suffering from disease with extreme pain, he was told by the charioteer that sickness and disease were like the companions of life. The third scene was yet more shocking, when the prince came across the sight of a dead man, being carried by his sorrowful relatives, weeping and lamenting. He came to know that man had no escape from death which was inevitable.

Regarding the futility of life which ends in death, prince Gautama is said to have thought about the indifferences of living man towards that absolute reality.

One day the following feeling came to his mind:

“How senseless the man appears to me

whose neighbour ill and old and dead.

He sees and yet holds fast

to the good things of this

life and is not thrilled with anxiety.

It is as if a tree divested of all flower and fruit

must fall or be pulled down – unaffected remaining the

neighbouring trees.”

While overtaken by distressing thoughts of old age, disease and death, Gautama came across yet another scene. It was the sight of a sannyasi who had renounced everything and was walking alone without any sign of worries or anxieties on his happy face.

These four experiences of prince Gautama had been described as the Four Great Signs. They proved like a turning point in his life, causing him to think seriously on the meaning of human existence. While a change of mind was thus taking place, Gautama was blessed with a son at the age of 29. To him, it was yet another bond to tie him to worldly life.

Great Renunciation:

Without waiting further, Gautama decided to renounce the world. So, at the age of 29, in the silent hours of a dark night, he came out of the palace, leaving behind his sleeping wife and the son, as well as his old father, and accompanied by his faithful charioteer Chhanna, disappeared into darkness “from a home to a homeless life”. This event in Gautama’s life is famous as the Great Renunciation.

At the boundary of the Sakya territory, Gautama asked Chhanna (or Chauna) to return to Kapilavastu and tell his father “not to make efforts to find his whereabouts, because he had now accepted, once and for all, the homeless way of life of a wandering monk”. When the most devoted charioteer insisted that he should stay with the prince, Gautama persuaded him to go back saying that “man is born alone and he must pass away alone. And in aloneness the whole truth of life was hidden”. Gautama wanted to search the truth alone.

The prince proceeded to Rajagriha and tried to satisfy his inner hunger at the feet of two learned saints named Alara and Udraka. For some time there after he tried to seek guidance from various wise teachers, but got no satisfaction. Thereupon he decided to subject his body to extreme physical pain. Going to dense forests, far from human beings, he practised hard penance. For six years he was thus wandering from place to place in the quest of answers to his doubts. At Uruvilwa near Gaya, he practised the most severe penance by reducing his body almost to bones and skins. That, too did not bring any result.

Enlightenment:

So, finally, there at Uruvilwa, after taking a bath in river Niranjana, he sat down under a pipal tree with the supreme resolve: “I will not leave this place till I attain that peace of mind which I have been trying for all these years”. As he sat in deep meditation, there at last came to him the great knowledge from the ‘Great Unknown’. Prince Gautama Siddhartha got the Enlightenment and became the Buddha or the Enlightened One. He also came to be known as Tathagata or one who attained the Truth and the Sakya-Muni or the Sage of the Sakyas. Buddha was then 35 years in age.

The Pipal Tree under which he got enlightenment became famous as the Bodhi Tree, and the place came to be known as Bodh Gaya.

The truth which Buddha got was the “Truth underlying life as a whole, namely, Life is full of Suffering, Desire is the cause of Suffering, Suffering ends at the destruction of Desire and Desire is destroyed by Right Living.”

It is worth noting here the words of Buddha at this moment as contained in the Buddhist texts:

“This Truth will not be easy to understand by beings that are lost in lust and hatred. Given to lust, surrounded with thick darkness, they will not see what goes against the current of their thoughts. This Truth is abstruse, profound, difficult to perceive, and very subtle”.

“When I pondered over this matter, my mind became inclined to remain quiet and not to preach the Truth to anyone.

“Then something happened. Two merchants from Orissa and travelling on the road with their wagons observed me seated under a tree. They offered me food in the form of rice-cakes and lumps of honey in a stone-bowl. They gave their names as Tapassu and Bliallika”.

“They evinced great interest and asked questions which I answered. To my great surprise, I found them very receptive. I felt sure that they understood the essence of the new teaching. And on their insistence I agreed to accept them as my disciples. They became my first lay disciples. They told me that they would propagate the truth themselves as best they could and also through their many travelling merchant friends”.

“This proved to be a great event. It brought about a change in my resolve not to propagate the truth. My encounter with the two travelling merchants convinced me that there were men in the world who could understand the truth”.

Dharma Chakra Pravartana:

After deciding to preach the truth, Buddha proceeded from Bodh Gaya to the Deer Park in Sarnath where he gave his first sermons to five Brahmins. This event is famous as the Dharma Chakra Pravartana or the Turning of the Wheel of Law. Thus began the mission of Buddha as a preacher. There also began the rise of the Buddhist Order of Monks or the Buddhist Sangha.

For long 45 years Buddha travelled with his disciples to preach his doctrines. He visited many places including Kapilavastu where his own son Rahul was taken to the new faith and became a monk. As Buddha moved, princes and people alike felt attracted towards his teachings.

At places like Benares, Uruvilva and Rajagriha, hundreds of people became his disciples. At Shravasti, Kapilavastu, Vaisali and Magadha, Buddha’s message spread among myriads of men. Among his famous disciples, the names of Sariputta, Moggalayana, Sanjuya, Rahula (Buddha’s own son), Aniruddha, Ananda, Upali and Sudatta occupy permanent places in Buddhist history. A new wave of religious thinking soon swept over the country.

Describing his daily life as a preacher, historian Oldenberg writes:

“In the days when his reputation stood at its highest point, and his name was named throughout India among the foremost names, one might day by day see that man, before whom kings bowed themselves, walking about, begging alms, bowl in hand, through streets and alleys, from house to house and without uttering any request, with downcast look, stand silently waiting until a morsel of food was thrown into his bowl”.

Buddha died at the age of 80 at a place named Kusinagar in the present day Gorakhpur district of modern Uttar Pradesh. Till the last moment of his life he was a wandering preacher. At the very moment of death, he gave the following instruction to his faithful disciple Ananda:

“Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves”.

While uttering these words, he closed his eyes. The Nirvana of Buddha took place in the year 486 B.C. The Great Decease of Buddha is known as the Parinirvana.

It was Buddha’s renunciation, his search for truth, his valuable discoveries regarding the earthly sufferings of man, his earnest endeavour for liberation of man from the bondage of desires, and his ultimate advice for a nobler and better life for salvation, made deep appeals to human mind. The story of his life has ever remained a source of spiritual inspiration to millions. In a world of sufferings, he suffered himself to know the means of eternal happiness. And, he lived to teach man the meaninglessness of worldly affairs.

Buddha’s own life was a life of supreme dedication. At a time when his fame was at its height, and when his name was on the lips of millions of men all over India, and when monarchs bowed before him in veneration, he was himself moving with a begging bowl in hand for a morsel of food just for survival. That is how lived the greatest Indian ever born and the founder of world’s largest religion.

Teachings of Buddha :

The religion of Buddha is famous as Buddhism. The followers of that religion are known as Buddhists. In his teachings, Buddha showed a new path. In his religious mission, he did not give value to the so-called sacred rites and rituals. Instead, he showed the way for a life of ethics and spirituality. He preached in simple language and to the common people. His doctrines were simple as well as practical for adoption.

He preached against the extreme means of worldly life which led to man’s self indulgence, pleasures and unending desires. At the same time, he did not prescribe for the common man extreme hardship of ascetic life by physical punishment and self torture. His was the noble ‘Middle Path’ which was possible for every man to follow. Between the two extremes of pleasures and penance, he showed the path of a really virtuous life.

The following main doctrines constitute the substance of his teachings:

The Four Noble Truths or the Arya Satya :

In his enlightenment, Buddha discovered the real causes of the miseries of human existence. He also discovered the way to escape from those miseries which followed endlessly in the wheel of Karma, birth and rebirth. These discoveries were called the Four Noble Truths.

The first truth was the Truth of Pain or Sorrow. “Birth is pain, old age is pain, sickness is pain, death is pain.” felt Buddha. Everything in the world was transient, sorrowful and full of pain. The existence of this sorrow was in the nature of life.

The second truth, according to Buddha, was the Truth of the Cause of Pain or Sorrow. This cause was the Desire. The desire or the Trishna was the lust and the thirst for all worldly things. It was the root of all evils leading to pain.

The third truth was the Truth to end the Pain or Sorrow. This end or cessation of pain was possible by ending desires. Elimination of desires was to lead to the end of sorrows. Perfect bliss was to follow the end of the sorrows. It was like the end of life and death. It was the real freedom or emancipation.

The fourth truth was the Truth to End the Desires. This was possible by a noble way to attain the real bliss without desires. Extreme penance was not necessary for this, while extreme pleasure was unnecessary by all means. Avoiding both, it was the noble middle path which was the right way to end the Desires. This path was to lead to the real state of freedom or emancipation. Buddha described this path as the Arya Astangika Marga or the Noble Eight-fold, path. This Path was the real path to end the cycle of Karma and the rebirth.

The Noble Eight-fold Path :

Buddha gave eight principles to follow as his noble eight-fold path. They were: the Right Vision, Right Aims, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Efforts, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation.

By right vision or views, Buddha meant that man should realise how sorrowful was this world for man’s greeds, desires and selfishness. Man should, therefore, rise above for a new vision for his own happiness and for the happiness of all. By right aims or aspirations, man should not run behind his power and wealth, and should not run for passion, pleasures and enjoyment. Instead, he should aim at loving other fellow men and giving them happiness. By right speech, man should give up falsehood, lies, criticism of others and quarrels which spoil the peace of others and of the society.

Instead, man should be truthful in his words and friendly and kind in his talks. By right action or conduct, man should avoid violence and killing, give up harmful acts like theft, and stealing, and instead could work for the good of all in a virtuous way. By right livelihood, Buddha advised man to live by harmless means, not by selling or taking wine or butchering animals for himself or others.

Instead, he should live an honest and simple life for peace within and peace outside. By right effort or exertion, Buddha meant a correct discipline in mind and action not for any evil thought or practice, but for a proper exercise towards all that was good. Man was asked to give up evil designs from his thought and to develop nobler feelings for better efforts.

By right mindfulness or awareness, Buddha wanted man to be conscious of the unrealities of his existence, unrealities of the body and the bodily pleasures, the meaninglessness of the worldly bonds and attachments. Instead, he was to search for the real happiness beyond the flesh and material existence which had no substance. Finally, by right meditation or contemplation, Buddha wanted man to concentrate his mind on the real truth of existence. It was necessary for the discipline and training of the mind towards the higher goal.

The Noble Eight-fold Path was thus a code of conduct for every man. It became the basis of Buddhism as a religion. It was a religion for social happiness of all. Buddhism has been rightly described as ‘the most social of religions’.

Buddha taught the householders:

“Honouring mother and father, cherishing of child and wife,

And a peaceful occupation: This is the best good omen.

Giving of alms and righteous life, to cherish kith and kin,

Doing deeds that bring no blame: This is the best good omen.

Ceasing and abstaining from sin, to shun intoxicating drinks,

Not neglecting religious duties: This is the best good omen”.

The Path which Buddha showed was a practical path to follow. This path was meant for the common people as the lay disciples of the faith. For the Buddhist monks there were other strict regulations like celibacy which were not binding on the lay followers.

Non-violence and Morality :

Buddha was the prophet of non-violence. “Let not one kill any living being”, he said. Ultimately, the philosophy of non-violence became a cardinal principle of Buddhism. The Buddhists rejected animal sacrifice and killing of animals in every form. Non-violence also called for kindness towards all creatures. It denied man to hate man. “Let a man overcome anger by kindness, evil by good….Never in the world hatred ceases by harted. Hatred ceases by love”, said Buddha.

Social morality was given the highest priority in Buddhist thought. “Let not one take what is not given to him; let not one speak falsely, let not one drink intoxicating drinks; let not one be unchaste”, were Buddha’s guidelines for moral living.

Buddha did not preach the Fatherhood of God. Instead, he preached the Brotherhood of Men. His religion thus rested on ethics, morality and virtue. It rejected worships, rituals and rites. It has thus no respect for the priestly class and the so-called high-born. Buddha opened the doors of his Sangha to all men.

He asked his followers to preach the Noble Path by advising them: “Go into all lands and preach this gospel. Tell them that the poor and the lowly, the rich and the high, are all one, and that all castes unite in this religion as do the rivers in the sea”.

Karma and Rebirth :

In the Buddhist thought, the doctrine of Karma and rebirth was given great prominence. It was the Karma of the creature which caused its transmigration. Man’s action in life could be bad or good. For Karma, he was destined to suffer when reborn in form of any living creature. The chain of birth, death and rebirth was thus endless. To Buddha, the supreme purpose of consciousness was to attain liberation from that endless chain of misery.

In view of the danger of Karma, Buddha left a serene message to men to understand the value of a good life and of good actions.

“Happy the solitude of the peaceful; who knows and beholds truth

“Happy is he who stands firmly unmoved, who holds himself in check at all times.

“Happy he whose every sorrow, Whose every wish is at an end.

“The conquest of the stubbornness of the egoity is truly the supreme happiness”.

In his search for that ultimate liberation, Buddha brought the concept of Nirvana. Nirvana was the eternal salvation from the misery of existence. To enjoy the bliss of Nirvana, he advised man to follow the Middle Path or the Noble Eight-fold Path of a purer life. It should be a life of no possessions, no desires and no worldly attachment. It should also be a life of compassion, goodness and kindness.

As Buddha said:

“When one sees sorrow, suffering or misery as the first and the most fundamental Truth underlying human existence, while one is walking on the ‘Middle Path’, one also becomes aware of the fact that, there is only misery and no one miserable ; there is only action and no doer of action.

This awareness, friends, is the indication of the fact that when one has started to walk on the Middle Path one becomes aware that it leads to Nirvana or liberation from all bondage. And, when one now looks at the world around him, one sees that most men feel miserable and are driven to do this, that or any other thing to be free from misery.

This doer, with which men identify themselves, is the generator of all misery. The doer is the ego. But to one who is walking on the Middle Path, there is only misery and not the miserable, there is action and not the doer of action”.

To Buddha, “the Eight-fold Path would bring the realisation that everything was transitory, full of misery and unreal. The sense of nothingness would take away the sense of ‘I-ness’ or ‘me’, and destroy the ego. It would bring a state of happiness, far above selfish desires and worldly attachment. That would liberate the man from his self-consciousness and from rebirth. With desires gone and with the annihilation of the self, the Nirvana comes as the final liberation from all pains, and the pain of worldly existence once for all.”

Thus, the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eight-fold Path and the realisation of Nirvana were the basic fundamentals of Buddha’s teachings.

Spread of Buddhism :

A messiah of the poor and the down trodden, Buddha believed in equality of status and freedom for all. He wanted to improve the existing pattern rather than replace it with a new one.

The ethics and morality which Buddha propounded as the true religion of mankind created a deep impression on the Indian mind. Both the learned and the common men saw in Buddha’s teachings a remarkable way of life for true happiness. During his life, as he preached, his words attracted princes and the poor alike. A new mental ferment was marked, with far reaching consequences.

Soon after the death of Buddha, the First Buddhist Council was held at Rajagriha where 500 Buddhist monks gathered from different Sanghas. The Council adopted the sayings of Buddha as the canonical texts for future guidance of men. They were divided into two parts, namely, the Vinaya Pitaka and the Dhamma Pitaka. Mahakassapa, the President of the council, and two other disciples of Buddha named Upali and Ananda conducted the works of the Council and guided the Sangha.

The Second Buddhist Council met one hundred years after the death of Buddha at Vaisali under the patronage of the king of Magadha. The Third Buddhist Council was held at Pataliputra during the reign of Asoka. It was presided over by Moggaliputta Tissa. The Fourth Buddhist Council was held in Kashmir under the guidance of Vasumitra and Asvaghosha during the time of Kanishka. It was the last Buddhist Council.

The religion of Buddha spread as a popular religion. The simple and practical tenets of the faith carried appeal to the mass mind. It was preached in the simple language of the people, the Pali, The equality of men, as upheld by the Buddhists, brought the lowly and the downtrodden to its fold. No ceremonies and costly rituals were necessary.

There was also no need for priests. The tireless efforts of the Buddhist Sanghas, and the missionary zeal of the monks and preachers carried the gospels of Buddha to every corner of the country.

But, it was the conversion of Emperor Asoka after his Kalinga War which gave Buddhism a new dimension. Under the patronage of that monarch, grounds were prepared for the spread of Buddhism far and wide. Inside India and outside India’s frontiers, the spread of the religion became rapid. In course of time Buddhism became the religion of the Asian humanity and Buddha became the Light of Asia.

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This collection features three works made over fifteen years, but Roberts takes listeners on a journey that spans thousands. Roberts’ relationship to her mother, and their individual relationships with Kuan Yin, the Lady Buddha, are at the center of these works. Sonically, they flourish with playful sound design that uses voices like instruments. Each weaves tape and theater to immerse listeners in the complicated bond between a Taiwanese mother and her American daughter. Together they offer a window into the experience of a multicultural family, well before these experiences had a home on public media. Listening to these for the first time, I thought about why we have public media. Bill Siemering’s 1970 essay “National Public Radio’s Purposes” framed public airwaves as a place that would “preserve and transmit the cultural past” and “broadcast the work of contemporary artists.” But that cultural past was relatively homogeneous and at some point, delivery of the news became paramount. This left little funding and opportunity for cultural endeavors, and listeners were the poorer for it. So these memoirs feel like beacons of possibility to me. What we might get to hear if we consistently fund artistic endeavors. Enjoy, and donate to your local public radio station.

Memoirs by Dmae Lo Roberts Selects

• Society & Culture
• 5.0 • 2 Ratings

Listen on Apple Podcasts Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

• APR 23, 2024

Mei Mei, A Daughter's Song (1989)

"Mei Mei" chronicles D. Roberts and her mother, Chu-Yin, as they travel to Taiwan together. Roberts seeks an opportunity to grow closer with her mother, but the trip ends with them not speaking. First produced in 1989, Roberts’ documentary is highly personal and was groundbreaking for its time--weaving interviews and dramatizations to tell the story of a conflicted daughter and her mother who suffered abuse, starvation and the horrors of World War Two. Mei Mei is Chinese for "little sister", a term of endearment for any younger girl, but one denied Chu-Yin, who was sold twice as a child to families that abused her physically and emotionally. Using interviews and dramatizations, Roberts investigates her mother’s experience. “This isn’t about me,” Roberts says at the top. “I don’t hate her,” she says at the end. This dissonance plays throughout the work, with Roberts’ narration delivered brashly and matched only by her mother’s impatient responses to probing questions she’s answered before. But after revealing her mother’s several suicide attempts, Roberts’ tone breaks and she embraces their fiery relationship. The sound of Mei Mei has been carried forward by contemporary audio documentary, inspiring an approach to sound design that underpins projects like The Heart and Radiolab. The blend of nonfiction interview and dramatizations - once passé - has returned and been central to recent projects like Magnificent Jerk. But even more broadly, Roberts' work remains a foundational piece of memoir, using sound to transport the listener into another’s life and the most personal and intimate relationship between parent and child. Awards: 1989 Peabody Award

Memorial (2003)

In Memorial, the simplest piece of this trio, Roberts uses a textured blend of narration and voicemail messages to document her mother’s decline and death. Coming off Mei Mei and Lady Buddha, listeners are well-acquainted with their tense dynamic, with Chu-Yin’s abusive childhood and her later inability to assimilate into American culture. We are already immersed in Roberts’ wry perspective, her atheism with purpose, and her desire to truly know her mother. Fourteen years since listeners were introduced to Chu-Yin, we’re present at her death. We accompany Roberts as she evolves into the role of caretaker. We hear her mother’s tone soften and their relationship take a different form. Memorial is a beautiful exploration of the loss of a voice in your life.

The Journey of the Lady Buddha (1998)

Nine years after Mei Mei, D. Roberts documents her search for a better understanding of her mother’s worship of Kuan Yin, an Asian Buddhist goddess of compassion and mercy. We heard of Kuan Yin in Mei Mei, as a divine intervention that saves her mother during a suicide attempt. In The Journey of Lady Buddha, we go deeper. We learn about 33 iterations of Kuan Yin that are embraced by Asian women of a certain generation. Roberts dramatizes the most popular parable of Kuan Yin, in which a princess gouges out her eyes to save her abusive and controlling father. The princess transforms into Kuan Yin after releasing all hatred, and ascends to enlightenment with her body restored in multitudes. Roberts hears these stories and considers her own strained relationship to religion, and how that has affected her connection to her mother and grandmother. We speak of gegu, the Chinese practice of a child using its own flesh to nourish a dying parent. Roberts jokes “good thing Ma’s life doesn’t depend on gegu!” This playful banter between interview, narration, and dramatization is Roberts’ signature style, and it gives this piece a theatrical flare that captures the fantastic essence of both her deity and her mother. Awards: Heart of America

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