The Buddha was born in 624 B.C., under the name Siddhatha Gotama. His parents were King Suddhodana and Queen Maha-Maya, making him a prince. At 16, Siddhatha married Princess Yasodhara, and 13 years later, they had a son named Rahula. When he was 29, Prince Siddhatha saw instances of sickness, old age, and death for the first time. He left his family and his palace life behind to discover a way to become enlightened and to end human suffering. After six years of practicing austerities and not reaching his goal, he decided to try a new way of attaining enlightenment through meditation and without having to sacrifice food. He was successful with this method, and upon achieving enlightenment, he became the Buddha, and taught for 45 years until his death in 544 B.C., at the age of 80. If you would like to know more, please continue reading to find an in-depth article about the Buddha's life and his teachings.

A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA
FROM A DHAMMA TALK GIVEN BY VENERABLE U SILANANDA
ON MARCH 6, 1987 DURING A BEGINNERS' RETREAT

(edited by Jessica Chung)

The Buddha was born on a full moon day in May of 624 B.C. The Buddha's parents were King Suddhodana and Queen Maha-Maya, so he was born as a prince. He was not yet called the Buddha at that time. He was given the name Siddhattha Gotama. Gotama was his clan name, and Siddhattha was his personal name. King Suddhodana and Queen Maha-Maya were reigning at that time in the kingdom of Kapilavatthu. on the border of Nepal. Perhaps in those days they thought these kingdoms were large, but under present conditions, they are the size of districts or a state in this country.

A few days after his birth, the king invited Brahmins to read the signs of the child and to give predictions. Seven of them said this boy would become either a universal monarch or a Buddha. One of them, the youngest of them said, "No, he will definitely become a Buddha." A person with such signs (they are called signs of a super man) will not stay in a household life. He will eventually leave household life and become a Buddha. This Brahmin's prediction was true.

An important incident occurred during the Buddha's infancy at the king's ploughing ceremony. People in those days were mostly farmers. In order to promote cultivation, the king had a ploughing ceremony every year. The king would take a plough and do ploughing for some time in a ceremonial way. Many people gathered to see the king and also the ministers plough.

At that time, the king left his infant son with the baby’s nurses under a tree. The nurses also wanted to go see the ploughing ceremony, however, so they left the prince under the tree. After some time, they remembered the baby and went back to him. When they went back, the baby was no longer lying down but was sitting and meditating.

It may seem impossible, but anything is possible for such very gifted people. Even in the West, there have been people who could compose very complicated music at the age of four. So the meditating is not impossible, even though the infant may not have been a year old at the time. If the king had to leave the child with nurses, it means the baby was not more than a year old.

When the prince did not see anyone around him, he just sat up and began to practice meditation, that is, breathing meditation. It is said in our books that he attained the first absorption, the first Jhana. He was in the first Jhana when the nurses came back. The nurses were surprised and reported what they saw to the king. When the king came and saw his son sitting in meditation, he bowed down to his son. This is an important incident because the remembrance of this incident was a turning point in the Bodhisattha's struggle for enlightenment in the forest.

Following the custom of that time, Siddhattha was married at the age of sixteen to Princess Yasodhara of the same age. He enjoyed the life of a prince for thirteen years, then in his 29th year, he saw four great signs. These signs were also important in his life. It is said in the books that these signs were shown by the gods. He saw them when going to a pleasure garden.

One day, when he went to the pleasure garden, he saw an old man. When he saw the old man, he asked the driver of his chariot what it was. The driver said it was an old man. It is said that the prince had never seen an old man before, so he asked if he would become old like this man. The driver said yes, that he would become old like that man. The prince was dissatisfied or disgusted with this, so he returned to the palace.

The next time he went out, he saw a sick man. He was sick and he could not carry his own weight. The same questions and answers followed. The third time, he saw a dead man. These three signs taught him the realities of life. Although life at the palace may be pleasurable, with little suffering, when he saw these three signs, he realized that there was so much suffering in the world, and that nobody could escape age, disease and death. So, he was not happy with his life at the palace. The fourth time he went out he saw a recluse or a monk, perhaps sitting under a tree, sitting there meditating. When he saw the monk, the prince was very pleased with him. He wanted to become a monk himself, so he decided to leave the palace. He decided to leave all behind so he could become a monk and practice meditation and find a way to end all suffering.

When he went back to the palace, the birth of his son was reported to him. The son, later named Rahula, was born in the l3th year of his marriage, that is, when Siddhattha was 29. But the prince was not happy at the good news of the birth of his son. The first thing he said upon hearing of the birth was, “A bondage has been born.” He thought, “It is another bondage for me. I will not be able to get out if I stay any longer. A son is a strong bondage.”

The Pali word for bondage is “Rahu.” Rahu is also the name of a demon who was believed to cause what we now call eclipses by taking hold of the moon for a time. Siddhattha's father named the infant Rahula. He asked the men what the prince said when he heard of his son's birth. They reported that the prince had said Rahu has been born. Therefore, the grandfather gave the name Rahula to the grandson.

So a son had been born to him, but he was not happy. On that very night, he left all. He left his parents. He left his son. He left his wife. He left his country. He left everything. It is called the great renunciation. This great renunciation took place on the full moon of July in 595 B.C. with only one man, the driver of the chariot. They rode all night on a horse until they reached a river. After reaching the river, the Bodhisatta changed himself into a monk or recluse and sent the driver back to the city.

After becoming a recluse, he tried to find a way to get out of this suffering. He approached one teacher. That teacher was able to teach him a very high form of absorption, or Jhana. He was soon able to get that Jhana, but he found it could not lead to freedom from suffering. So, he left that teacher and went to another teacher who was able to teach him a step higher. But that Jhana was also found to be defective because it also would not lead him to final deliverance from suffering. So, he left the second teacher.

He was on his own after that. He practiced many types of meditation practices popular at that time. Mostly in those days the recluses thought that if you inflicted pain on your physical body, you would be able to dry up the defilements in your mind. Austerities were the popular practice of that time, so the Bodhisatta practiced these austerities for six years. He himself, after becoming the Buddha, related what he had practiced. Sometimes, he stopped breathing and felt great pain in the body and the head. Also, he thought going for food was a waste of time. He reduced eating little by little until he was eating only about a handful of pea soup each day. Sometimes, he did not eat even that much. He became very thin, and his skin became black. For six years he practiced these austerities, but he did not get any nearer to his goal.

One day he thought to himself, "I have been practicing this for so many years, and nobody can have practiced more than I have either in the past, in the future, or at the present time. Perhaps I am not practicing the right way." So he reviewed his practice and had some doubts about the correctness of his practice. Then he remembered when he was a child, and the time he practiced breathing meditation and entered Jhana. He remembered how it was so peaceful, how it was so calm at that time, how he was so happy at that time. He remembered this and thought that might be the right way. Later on, he decided it was the right way, and he would practice this kind of meditation. But at that time, his body was very weak. He was just skin and bones, so he decided to eat food again.

At that time, there were five recluses attending upon him with the expectation that he would become the Buddha and that they would gain the benefits from his Buddhahood. These five recluses were the Brahmins that had predicted he would become the Buddha. They were disgusted with him when he decided to eat again, because they thought taking food was a luxury, so they left the Buddha-to-be and went to another place.? Siddhattha was left alone, but he was not depressed. He began taking food. When he gained enough strength to practice meditation again, he approached what is now known as the Bodhi Tree. He went to the tree and sat down under it and practiced meditation. Bodhi means “enlightenment.” It is called the Bodhi Tree because the Buddha became enlightened under that tree.

After approaching the Bodhi Tree, he sat down and made a resolution: “I will not break this sitting until I become the Buddha.” He made a great firm resolution. He practiced breathing meditation again. He reached first Jhana. Then he reached second Jhana, third Jhana, and fourth Jhana. He also reached the other Jhanas in succession. There are eight or nine Jhanas.

During the first watch of the night, he gained the supernormal knowledge of remembering his past lives. During that time, he could remember all his past lives. Then he carried on meditating. During the second watch of the night, some time around midnight, he gained another kind of supernormal knowledge by which he could see beings dying in one life and being reborn in another life. He saw beings dying here and being reborn there, and he saw when this being did good things in this life and was reborn in a better life, or when this being did bad things in this life and was reborn in hell. He saw all these deaths and births as if it were with his own eyes. That supernormal knowledge he attained during the second watch of the night. During the third or last watch of the night, from 2:00am to 6:00am, he reflected upon the Doctrine of Dependent Origination, that everything is caused by something. Nothing comes out of nothing. Everything is relative. So he reflected on the Doctrine of Dependent Origination back and forth, again and again.

After that, he practiced Vipassana meditation. At about dawn, he became the Buddha. He became the fully self-enlightened one. That was in his 35th year. At the age of 29, he left the palace and did the great renunciation. He struggled for six years in the forest to become the Buddha, so at the age of 35 he became the Buddha, the fully enlightened one. That was on the full moon day of May in 589 B.C. The place where he gained enlightenment can be seen today. It is in Bodh Gaya in India. There is now a meditation center there.

Under the Bodhi Tree he gained full enlightenment and became the Buddha. The word 'Buddha' is not his personal name. It is a name like the President. The Buddha means “the enlightened one” or “the awakened one.” It is a title, not a personal name. After becoming the Buddha, he was known as Gotama-Buddha. His personal name was not used after that. He was either called the Buddha or Gotama-Buddha.

After becoming the Buddha, he spent seven weeks under or near the Bodhi Tree. In the eighth week, he went to where his five former disciples were living to teach them. He went to them and two months after his enlightenment, he gave his first sermon, the sermon of turning the wheel of Dhamma, or turning the wheel of Truth. The Buddha taught day and night for 45 years. On the full moon of May in 544 B.C., at the age of 80, he passed away. That is a very brief account of his life. There are books written on the life of the Buddha. I think you can find some of the titles in these leaflets.

Now let us study some of the characteristics of the Buddha. The Buddha’s qualities or attributes are said to be immeasurable, so we cannot describe all of his qualities, but here we will give some of them.

Number one: he was a human being. He was not God with a capital G, not a god, not a prophet. He was 100% a human being. He was born as a human being. He lived as a human being. He died as a human being. Since he had the body of a human being, he had to suffer the pains of human beings. He had the pains of the physical body. Sometimes he had headaches. Sometimes he had backaches. Sometimes he had illness or sickness. He was not free from these things. Buddha was not a god nor a prophet or a representative of any god. He was a human being. But by his own human effort he became the extraordinary human being, the Buddha. Although he was a human being, he was not an ordinary human being. He was an extraordinary human being. He became the Buddha by his own effort. Nobody made him into a Buddha. He had to go through the practice of meditation. That is only in this last life. In order to accumulate what we call ParamIs, perfections, he had to spend countless rebirths or countless lives. So to become a Buddha is not an easy thing. Not many people aspire to Buddhahood for this reason. One must give up many things and accumulate these perfections. It is not easy.

The Buddha was fully self-enlightened and possessed total purity of mind. What is enlightenment? It can mean different things to different people. According to our scriptures, enlightenment means realizing the Four Noble Truths, seeing Nibbana and eradicating mental defilements. That is what is called enlightenment. If we say a person is enlightened, he must have seen the Four Noble Truths clearly through direct experience. He must have seen Nibbana. And he must have eradicated the mental defilements.

There are four stages of enlightenment. When a person has reached the first stage of enlightenment, he must have eradicated some of the mental defilements. When he reaches the second stage, he eradicates some more. When he reaches the third stage, he eradicates some more. And when he reaches the fourth stage, no defilements will remain with him. After a person reaches the fourth stage of enlightenment, his mind becomes totally pure. No mental defilements can be found in his mind. The same is true for the Buddha but there is some difference. When we say a person is fully enlightened, then he possesses total purity of mind. No attachment, no greed, no hatred, no delusion, no pride, no envy arise. All impurities of mind are totally destroyed. Likewise, the Buddha was not capable of being attached to anything. He was not capable of greed, anger, pride, and so on.

When I said this once, a man told me, "Then the Buddha would be abnormal." I told him, "Yes, maybe, but I think the Buddha was supernormal, not abnormal." If you see a beautiful thing, then you must have attachment to it. You must enjoy it. You must be happy with it. And if there is provocation, you must be angry. That is normal for ordinary people. If you don't do that, you are supposed to be abnormal. Supernormal is being above normal. The Buddha had total purity of mind. It is very difficult to get to that stage. Compare it with yourselves. When you drive and someone cuts in front of you or something like that, you will be angry.

The Buddha possessed omniscience. That is very important. Omniscience is knowing everything. With its help, he knew exactly what to teach, how to teach and when to teach so that listeners became enlightened. That is why he was so successful when he taught beings or people. He could go into the minds of the listeners and find out what kind of temperament a person had, what were his likes and dislikes. Buddha also knew whether a person was mature enough to gain enlightenment or not. If he was not mature yet, the Buddha would not teach him. He would wait for a time when his mental faculties were mature and knew exactly what to teach.

There are different people with different temperaments. That is why the Buddha's teachings are so varied. Sometimes he called one thing “an aggregate.” Sometimes he called the same thing “a sense base.” Sometimes he called it “an element” and so on. That was because some people were accustomed to the word “aggregate,” so for them, the Buddha used a word they could understand easily. Others may not have been familiar with the word “aggregate” but were familiar with the word “sense base” or something similar, so the Buddha would use the term that a particular person was familiar with. That is why we have many categories in the teachings of the Buddha. The same thing may have many different names. So the Buddha knew exactly what to teach, how to teach and when to teach. That is why he was so successful in his teaching.

The Buddha allowed freedom of thought and freedom of investigation, even of his own teachings. He said, "Do not take something to be true simply because you hear it from someone or something, or because it was carried down through tradition, or simply because it accords with your religious books, or simply because it was said by a person or people for whom you have respect, or because it is your teacher or monk." The Buddha said, "Investigate it and try it. If it seems to be good, accept it and practice it. If it doesn't seem good to you, discard it." He said something like that. So the Buddha allowed freedom of thought and freedom of investigation of his own teachings. You can have doubt about anything. But you should try to remove this doubt by reading books, by discussing with other people, or, the best way, by practicing it and trying to find out for yourself whether a thing is true or not. That means the Buddha's teachings are not to be taken just on faith. Although faith is an important factor or an important faculty in Buddhism, one must rely on one's own practice, on one's own judgment to arrive at the truth of anything.

The Buddha taught self-reliance and self-responsibility. We cannot rely on even the Buddha to become enlightened. We have to rely on ourselves. Even though there are teachers, there are Buddhas, if we do not practice, we cannot get anything from their teaching. We must rely on ourselves. We must be responsible for ourselves. Whatever we get from this life, good or bad, is the result of what we did in the past. So we are responsible for our happiness here or our suffering here. Nobody makes us suffer here. Nobody makes us happy here. We ourselves make that. ?A teacher cannot practice meditation for the student and the student cannot practice for the teacher. A teacher must practice for himself. The student also must practice for himself. Only we ourselves, and not other people, can eradicate or destroy the mental defilements in our own minds, simply because they are in our own minds. We must rely on ourselves, and we do not have to rely on anyone else.

The Buddha was only a teacher. As such, he showed us the way to enlightenment. We must make the effort to achieve the goal ourselves. This is more or less the same as self-reliance and self-responsibility. We look to the Buddha as our teacher, as a guide, not as some authority or power that would give us something we want. We cannot ask the Buddha to give us enlightenment, to give us happiness, to give us whatever we want. We have to strive ourselves to achieve our goal. Buddha taught us, gave us instructions. If we follow these instructions, if we practice what he taught, we will be able to achieve our goal, the goal of final deliverance from suffering. These are some of the characteristics of the Buddha. There are many more. In connection with the Buddha, we should understand the Dhamma and also the Saggha. Let us try to understand something about the Dhamma.

What is Dhamma? Everybody says the teachings of the Buddha are the Dhamma. When Buddhists say, "I go for refuge in the Dhamma or I take refuge in the Dhamma", what do they mean? His teachings are comprised of what he realized upon enlightenment and what he taught to beings. What he realized upon enlightenment means that at the moment of enlightenment there arises in any person a particular kind of consciousness. That kind of consciousness is very powerful. and can eradicate mental defilements altogether. That type of consciousness only lasts for a moment, a very, very brief moment. a billionth of a second, maybe. Immediately following that consciousness are two moments of a different type of consciousness. The first we call path and the other two we call fruition because path is something like the cause and fruition is something like the result. There is path consciousness and then come moments of fruition consciousness.

Since there are four stages of enlightenment, we get eight types of consciousness. There are path and fruition consciousnesses for the first stage, second stage, third stage, and the fourth stage, so altogether we get eight types of consciousness. When we say enlightenment or realization of truth we mean one of these pairs of consciousness. These consciousnesses take Nibbana, the destruction of defilements and the cessation of suffering, as an object. So we now we have nine altogether - eight types of consciousness plus Nibbana.

Then when we say. "I go to the Dhamma for refuge", we also mean the teachings given to us by the Buddha, which are to be found in the Buddhist scriptures. By the Dhamma, we mean the eight types of consciousness which constitute realization of truth, their object, which is Nibbana, and the teachings given to us by the Buddha. There are altogether ten kinds of Dhamma. When we say Dhamma, we mean not only his teachings found in the scriptures but also what he realized at the moment of enlightenment. Everybody who practices meditation can realize this Dhamma.

Let us look at some of his teachings. We cannot go through all of his teachings in a day or many days. The first of his teachings is the Four Noble Truths. He taught the Four Noble Truths in his first sermon to the five monks and throughout his 45-year ministry. Among these Four Noble Truths is the Noble Eightfold Path or Noble Way. It has eight factors - right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. When we say the Four Noble Truths, we include the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Buddha also taught Samsara. Samsara means “round of rebirths.” The Buddha said this life is not the only life we have. We have had many lives, countless lives in the past, and we will have many lives in the future if we do not become Arahants in this life. The beings travel along from one life to another in this Samsara.

The Buddha taught the law of Kamma and rebirth. Good Kamma gives good results. Bad Kamma gives bad results. Because of this Kamma, there is rebirth. When the Buddha taught the law of Kamma, he taught it from his own experience. He had personally seen it for himself. During the middle watch of the night of his enlightenment, he had seen beings dying in one life and being reborn in another. He saw this law of Kamma clearly through direct experience. The law of Kamma taught by the Buddha was not based on logic, not based on speculation, but based on real understanding.

He taught Dependent Origination. This actually is part of the law of Kamma. In Dependent Origination, it is taught that because there is ignorance, there are good and bad actions. Because there are good and bad actions, there is rebirth in the next life. When there is rebirth, there is mind and body, and so on. Dependent Origination teaches us that everything is dependent upon some other thing. There is nothing which is absolute. There is nothing which we can call a first cause because this dependency goes on and on and we cannot arrive at a first cause. Everything is relative according to the teaching of Dependent Origination. It is a very important teaching in Buddhism.

He taught Abhidhamma. Abhidhamma is the study of mind, the study of matter, the study of everything, actually. It is like psychology because it explains the mind by itself and then with reference to the concomitants, and then with reference to the material properties. It also explains how things are related, or in what ways one thing is related to another. Abhidhamma is a very interesting subject, but it is not so easy to understand. A knowledge of Abhidhamma is very helpful in the practice of meditation, especially Vipassana meditation. And Vipassana meditation can help you understand Abhidhamma more thoroughly. The Abhidhamma and meditation help each other.

What is taught in Abhidhamma can be seen for one's self only through the practice of meditation. Maybe not everything can be seen by an ordinary person, but many of the teachings in the Abhidhamma can be seen by people who practice meditation.

The Buddha showed us the way to purification of mind. He clearly mapped out something like a blueprint for the spiritual development of people. The first part of the spiritual blueprint is Sila. That is purity of bodily and verbal actions. That means taking precepts and keeping them. Sometimes it is called virtue. Sometimes it is called moral purity or moral precepts. It is keeping our bodily and verbal actions pure. Sila controls bodily and verbal actions, but not necessarily mental actions.

For example, you may be thinking of killing a being, but so long as you do not kill with your body or with your speech, you are not breaking that rule. Simply by thinking you cannot break the rule of not killing, or of not stealing and so on. So Sila controls the bodily and verbal actions and helps us purify them. The second part of the spiritual development is Samadhi, or concentration. We have mental defilements almost all of the time. Samadhi helps us to get rid of these mental defilements or to keep them away from our minds. Samadhi takes care of mental actions. When you practice Samadhi, you have to control your thoughts. You are not to think unwholesome thoughts. You are not to allow unwholesome thoughts to come to you.

The third part of spiritual development is Pajja, or wisdom. Purity of wisdom is gained through concentration and penetration into the nature of things. Pajja here means Pajja through Vipassana. When you practice Vipassana, you penetrate into the nature of things. You come to see the true nature of things. That is Pajja.

Pajja cannot come to us without Samadhi. And without Sila, we cannot get Samadhi. These three must be practiced, one after the other. Without Sila, there can be no Samadhi. Without Samadhi, there can be no Pajja. Step by step instructions were given by the Buddha to achieve these qualities.

Sila is achieved by taking precepts and keeping them. Samadhi and Pajja are achieved through meditation. When you want Samadhi, you practice meditation. When you want Pajja, you practice Vipassana meditation. We will talk about meditation in detail later on.

There is a verse in the Dhammapada which states in brief the teachings of the Buddha. Those teachings are not to do any evil, cultivate what is good and purify your mind. Those are the teachings of the Buddha.