Buddha Shakyamuni - founder of Buddhism and formerly Prince Siddharta was born around the year 560 B.C. into a royal family. He was surrounded by wealth and beauty and had the most favorable conditions for prosperous spiritual development. The texts describe him as tall, strong with blue eyes. But who is he and what is so special about him?
For years, all the disturbing things that people suffer through were kept far away from the young Prince Siddharta Gautama, until, filled with curiosity, he left the palace for the first time at age 29. He met 3 men on three consecutive days. First, a pain-ridden, suffering sick man. Then a completely defective elderly man and finally a dead one. These were things he had never experienced or seen before. He realized in that moment that nothing was permanent, and such forms of suffering are inextricably linked in the lives of all sentient beings.
He wanted to find a solution to this fundamental suffering and then renounced worldly life. His princely life was overloaded with all the opulence one could wish for. Nevertheless, Shakyamuni would later recall that he had never really enjoyed this or been able to experience true happiness. He was aware that such pleasure was mere delusion. He set out to find a true philosophy that would unravel the meaning of life for all people.
For many years he subjected himself to ascetic disciplines, but he thought that it was impossible, to find liberation through such complete self-indulgence. Eventually he rejected these practices. And then, near the city of Gaya, he settled down under a fig tree and went into meditation for a long time. There he attained an awakening to the True Nature of life and all things. It is because of this awakening that he was called Buddha or "the Enlightened One." After his enlightenment, it is said, Shakyamuni remained under the tree for some time in joy at his liberation, but also worried by the knowledge of how difficult it would be to communicate to others what he had just realized. Finally, he nevertheless decided to do so, so that the way for liberation from suffering through birth and death would be open to all people.
Historically, he traveled all over India for nearly 40 years. He shared his enlightenment, defended peace, and taught everyone how to liberate their infinite potential. Shakyamuni taught that every person is inherently imbued with a pure state of life that perfectly embodies this eternal law "Dharma." This state of life concerns the most noble and essential quality that allows individuals to lead a worthy existence as human beings. He had established that demeaning "the Self," attachment to desires and destructive selfishness prevent this naturally pure state from emerging. Shakyamuni taught people how to break through such illusions so that they themselves would awaken to the sacred nature of their own lives in order to fully express their unique potential.
Shakyamuni also emphasized that awareness of the dignity of one's own life translates into respect for the dignity and value of another's life. His teaching is one of benevolence, referring to the act of caring for another. This benevolence is born of the awareness that the value of the other is equal to his own.
For the 40 years that followed his enlightenment, the Buddha taught a wide variety of people. Those who came to him fell into three main groups - just as people do today. Buddha gave them different teachings that can be categorized into different types of Buddhism.
"I teach because all beings want to experience happiness and avoid suffering. I teach about how things are."
The Buddha
