Buddhism Authority

• The Buddha


  Siddharta Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, also known as the "awakened one" or "enlightened one"
• Siddharta Gautama


  • Born a prince around 500 BCE in southern Nepal
  • His parents were King Suddhodana and Queen Maya
  • The name Siddharta means "perfect fulfillment"
• Sources of information about the Buddha's life


  • Legends and miraculous events
  • Written hundreds of years after his death
• Siddharta's birth was extraordinary, expressing important spiritual truths for Buddhists
• Siddharta's life of luxury

  He grew up in a palace surrounded by luxury, with three mansions, a canopy always held over him, musicians and dancers to entertain him, and the finest clothes, food, and education
• Siddharta's father


  • Prepared Siddharta as a child to become a king, not a holy man
  • Tried to make Siddharta's life so luxurious that he would want to remain in the palace
• Despite being spoiled, Siddharta was said to be a good, kind person
• The Four Sights


  Siddharta saw an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a holy man, which made him realize that life is full of suffering and he needed to seek enlightenment
• Siddharta's "Letting Go" or Renunciation


  1. He left his wife and newborn son

  2. Abandoned his possessions

  3. Cut off his long hair

  4. Swapped his rich clothes for a poor man's robes
• Asceticism


  Living a strict and simple lifestyle with few possessions, such as living in dangerous forests, sleeping on a bed of thorns, and eating very little
• Siddharta became dangerously thin while living an ascetic lifestyle
• Siddharta realized that neither a life of luxury nor strict self-denial was the right path to spiritual enlightenment
• Siddharta's Meditation


  He followed a "middle way" of meditation, refusing to stop until he found enlightenment
• Tactics used by the demon Mara to distract Siddharta during meditation


  • Sending his daughters to seduce Siddharta
  • Sending his armies to attack Siddharta
  • Offering Siddharta control of his kingdom
  • Questioning Siddharta's right to sit at the seat of enlightenment
• The Buddha's Enlightenment


  1. Siddharta gained knowledge of his previous lives

  2. Understood the repeating cycle of life, death, and rebirth

  3. Understood why suffering happens and how to overcome it
• The Dhamma


  The teachings of the Buddha that guide Buddhists in the path to reduce suffering and gain enlightenment
• The Four Noble Truths


  The first teachings the Buddha gave to his first followers, the five ascetics, explaining why people suffer and how they can end suffering
• The Four Noble Truths

  Are compared to the analogy of illness and finding a cure: the Buddha is the doctor, the first noble truth is establishing the illness, the second noble truth is finding the cause of the illness, the third noble truth is finding the cure, and the fourth noble truth is prescribing the treatment
• Four Noble Truths


  The Buddha's teachings that explain why people suffer and how they can end suffering
• The Four Noble Truths


  1. The existence of suffering (first noble truth)

  2. The cause of suffering (second noble truth)

  3. The end of suffering (third noble truth)

  4. The path to the end of suffering (fourth noble truth)
• The Four Noble Truths are compared to


  Illness and finding a cure
• The First Noble Truth


  The existence of suffering (dukkha)
• The seven types of suffering

  • Four types of physical suffering
  • Three types of mental suffering
• Buddha taught that happiness exists, but it is impermanent and not an ultimate solution to overcome suffering
• The Second Noble Truth


  The cause of suffering is craving (tanha)
• The three types of craving (tanha)

  • Sensory craving
  • Craving for being
  • Craving for non-being
• The Three Poisons


  Greed, hatred, ignorance
• Nibbana


  The extinction of the Three Poisons, a state of complete enlightenment, peace and happiness
• The Fourth Noble Truth


  The cure for suffering is the Eightfold Path
• The Eightfold Path


  • Right view
  • Right resolve
  • Right speech
  • Right conduct
  • Right livelihood
  • Right effort
  • Right mindfulness
  • Right concentration
• The Threefold Way

  Ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi), wisdom (panna)
• ”No further rebirths have I to endure for this is my last body. Now I shall destroy and pluck out by the roots the sorrow that is caused by birth and death”
• “This is the last birth. There is now no more coming to be”
• “If one is born one would undergo the process of ageing, sickness, death and all kinds of suffering”
• The Buddha’s life as an ascetic involved him rejecting anything that would give him pleasure; he fasted for long periods of time, living in dangerous forests that were too hot in the day and too cold in the night, and slept on a bed of thorns.
• Buddhas life as an ascetic Q


  “I will perform the uttermost penance“
• Ascetic Q


  “He perceived that penance was not the way to enlightenment“
• “No further rebirths have I to endure for this is my last body.  Now I shall destroy and pluck out by the roots the sorrow that is caused by birth and death.“
• “if one is born one would undergo the process of ageing, sickness, death and all kinds of suffering“
• “not until I attain the supreme Enlightenment will I give up this seat of meditation“