Gautama Buddha- Book Excerpt
Gautama Buddha
Born 563 B.C.
Died 483 B.C. (Approximate Dates)
Buddha was born a privileged prince named Siddhartha Gautama in Nepal. He lived a luxurious life with his wife, Princess Yasodhara, till the age of twenty-nine, when he realized he’d never stepped foot outside the palace gates and might actually like to take a look around. Seeing poverty and death for the first time, he began to wonder not only how the other half lives, but how to attain a state beyond birth, death, or even desire. (If it were me, I would have run back inside to the grand buffet.)
Leaving the palace behind, he dabbled for six years in meditation, extreme asceticism, and self-mortification, rejecting them all for moderation. After one particular stint of mind-blowing contemplation under a tree, he attained Enlightenment, and became known simply as the Buddha. His spiritual awakening gave him brilliant insight into the nature and cause of human suffering, and a knowledge of how to become happy. The Buddha’s goal, then, was to teach his new philosophy to the masses — or at least a few good men along the road.
The aim of Buddhism is to attain true enlightenment, or nirvana: a peaceful state where the individual is free from desire and self-consciousness. Passed down by oral tradition for hundreds of years after his death, Buddha (whose name literally means “enlightened one” or “awakened one”) had a message of love as the eternal rule, common sense, and focusing the mind on the present moment. For the last fifty years of his life, Buddha spread the word through out India to pretty much anyone who would listen: nobles, outcasts, common folk, and leaders of other