The Buddha
IndianBuddhist
A prince who left his palace, sat under a tree, and woke up. Then he spent forty-five years teaching others how to do the same.
Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family in Lumbini, at the foot of the Himalayas. His father tried to shield him from suffering, but at twenty-nine he saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. He left everything. After six years of extreme austerity that nearly killed him, he sat beneath a fig tree at Bodh Gaya and resolved not to rise until he understood the nature of suffering. At dawn he saw it clearly. He spent the rest of his life walking the Gangetic plain, teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to anyone who would listen.
Places
Ideas
Words
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
Works
Life & Moments
Born as Siddhartha Gautama
Born into the Shakya clan in Lumbini, in the foothills of the Himalayas. His father was a chieftain or king of a small republic. Legend says that at his birth, a sage predicted he would become either a great ruler or a great teacher.
Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree
After years of asceticism that nearly killed him, Siddhartha sat beneath a fig tree at Bodh Gaya and resolved not to rise until he understood the nature of suffering. By dawn, he had attained what he called awakening. He was thirty-five.
First Sermon at Sarnath
At the Deer Park in Sarnath, the Buddha delivered his first teaching to five former companions who had abandoned him. He laid out the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way between indulgence and self-mortification. This moment is called the turning of the wheel of dharma.
