Gautama Buddha

At his auspicious birth, seven Brahmin priests consulted by the king agreed that if the young prince would stay at home, he would become a universal king, unifying India; but if he left, he would become a Buddha and remove the veil of ignorance from the world. The eighth Brahmin declared that he would definitely become a Buddha, renouncing the world after seeing four signs - an old man, a diseased man, a dead man and a holy man. The king, concerned about losing his heir, sheltered his son from pain and suffering and surrounded him with every conceivable luxury - including three palaces and 40,000 dancing girls.

The turning point of Siddhartha's life occurred when he was twenty-nine as he set out on four journeys during which he encountered a decrepit old man leaning on a staff; a pitiful man wrecked with disease; a corpse; and finally a yellow robed monk with a shaved head and a begging bowl.

Moved with compassion by the first three signs, he realized that life was subject to old age, disease and death. The fourth sign signified to him the possibility of overcoming these conditions and inspired him to leave the world he knew in order to find a solution to suffering.

In the middle of the night the prince left his wife and newborn son and began the life of a wandering monk. He joined a group of five ascetics and for six years practiced severe austerities, which left him so weak that he nearly lost his life. Realizing the futility of asceticism the prince abandoned his austerities to seek his own path of enlightenment whereupon his five companions rejected him and deserted him.

One day a villager's daughter fed him a rich rice milk which gave him great strength. Following this meal he sat beneath a fig tree and vowed not to move until he had attained enlightenment. The tree became known as the Bo tree (short for Bodhi or enlightenment) and the place was later named the Immovable Spot.

While Gautama was in meditation, Mara, the Evil One, confronted him with temptations much in the same manner in which Jesus was tested by Satan during his fasting in the wilderness. Mara tempted him with beautiful dancing girls and voluptuous goddesses parading before him, followed by terrible demons assailing him with weapons of flaming rocks, boiling mud and utter darkness, but Gautama remained unmoved.

As a last resort, Mara challenged his right to be doing what he was doing. In response, Gautama used the earth-touching mudra. He tapped the earth, and the earth thundered her answer: "I bear you witness!" - whereupon Mara fled. Gautama spent the rest of the night in deep meditation, in samadhi, and finally reached his enlightenment. This took place on the day of the full moon in the month of May about the year 528 BC, when Gautama was thirty six.*

In his enlightened state Gautama had realized the Four Noble Truths, which became the foundation of his teaching:

1. The Noble Truth of suffering (all life is suffering);
2. The Noble Truth of the cause of suffering (suffering is caused by wrong desire which binds man to the wheel of death and rebirth);
3. The Noble Truth of the cessation of suffering (wrong desire can be overcome); and
4. The Noble Truth of the path which leads to the cessation of suffering. This path which leads to final liberation is the Eight-fold Path ,

After his enlightenment Gautama journeyed to Benares and delivered to his former five companions his first sermon, in which he revealed the key discoveries of his quest - the Four Nobel Truths, the Eightfold Path and the Middle Way. He accepted the five monks as the first members of his order. He established the "sangha (community) which soon numbered over twelve hundred devotees.

Huston Smith writes in his "Religions of Man: "Nearly half a century followed during which Buddha trudged the dusty paths of India until his hair was white, step infirm, and body naught but a burst drum, preaching the ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir of his message. He founded an order of monks, challenged the deadness of Brahmin society, and accepted in return the resentment, queries and bewilderment his words provoked.

"His daily routine was staggering. In addition to training monks, correcting breaches of discipline, and generally directing the affairs of the Order, he maintained an interminable schedule of public preaching, private counseling, advising the perplexed, encouraging the faithful, and comforting the distressed."

At the age of eighty, one of his devoted followers, Cunda the goldsmith, unknowingly served him a meal that contained poisoned mushrooms. Gautama became violently ill. Concerned that Cunda might feel responsible for his death, he compassionately asked Ananda, his main disciple, to tell Cunda that of all the meals he had eaten, only two stood out as special blessings -one was the meal served to him before his enlightenment, and the other was the food from Cunda which opened the gates to his transition. Gautama passed during the full moon of May, about 483 BC.