Buddhism
"Buddhism begins with a man. In his later years, when India was afire with his message, people came to him asking what he was. Not 'Who are you?' but 'What are you?' 'Are you god?' they asked. 'No.' 'An angel?' 'No.' 'A saint?' 'No.' 'Then, what are you?' Buddha answered, 'I am awake.' His answer became his title, for this is what Buddha means. The Sanskrit root budh means to awake and to know. While the rest of humanity was dreaming the dream we call the waking human state, one of their number roused himself. Buddhism begins with a man who woke up."("Buddhism" The Worlds Religions p.60) Buddha was born a prince named Siddhartha Gautama in a small kingdom in what is now Nepal in 563b.c.e. Gautama's birth is described as a miraculous event, his birth being the result of his mother's impregnation by a sacred white elephant that touched her left side with a lotus flower. The scriptures claim that when Gautama was born "immeasurable light spread through ten thousand worlds; the blind recovering their sight, as if from desire to see his glory" ("What Man Believes" Evans p.141) Shortly after his birth, his father consulted with a number of astrologers, all of whom declared that the newborn prince would become a great king and that
The Buddha's path was one of strict meditation, in which one seeks Nirvana. Before allowing the prince to ride in his chariot, Shuddhodana ordered the streets to be cleared of the sick or the infirm, that the prince not be allowed to see any of the corpses or the world renouncers. The third truth reveals that the end of suffering will come when craving ceases. Finally the fourth truth explains that the end to these cravings comes through an eightfold path. After Gautama's death, his disciples passed along his message by oral tradition. His teachings never focused on any reliance on God, or gods. Among these astrologers, there was one who declared that if the prince were to see a sick person, an old person, a corpse, and a world-renouncing ascetic, he would become dissatisfied with life and become a wandering monk in order to seek final peace. They are made one with the sea of nothingness, and all their desires are quenched. Though they have differing views, they all agree with the core of the Buddhist message, "Seek in the impersonal for the eternal man, and having sought him out, look inward- thou art Buddha" ("What Man Believes" Evans p. The first sacred truth is that all the world is sorrow and suffering. That very night Siddhartha did the unthinkable. Siddhartha left the palace and started to practice meditation with many teachers, but none could show him a path leading to the end of suffering. His teachings also stressed avoidance of ill will, lusting, incorrect talk, and destruction of any living thing. Rather than rejecting any form of a god, his teachings are indifferent to traditional gods, thus making his teachings more universal. These sections include Theravada, Mahayana, and Tantric Buddhism.
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