Buddhism
"Awakened One" (Buddha): Prince
Siddhartha
Gautama, who would one day be known as the Buddha,
began his life as a
prince in a kingdom in ancient India.
Prince Gautama (Buddha) was born
about 553
BCE. He had parents who loved him, many servants to
wait on him, the
finest clothes, and a different palace for each
season of the year.
Yet, he found his world full of suffering. It upset
him that painful
old age, sickness, and death were all part of life
in this world.
One day, he met a monk. He was
amazed that
this monk could find calm and peace in a world
filled with such
sufferings. That day he made a very difficult
decision. He decided to
leave his wealth, his comfort, his wife, and his
newborn son, to become
a monk.
For the next six years he traveled
throughout India. But the answers he found were not
enough. One day,
while sitting under a fig tree, an understanding
came to him. This
understanding was a way to end suffering. That was
the day Prince
Siddhartha Gautama began to earn a new title, the
Buddha, which means
"Awakened One".
Four Noble
Truths: His journey to
find the meaning of life
had concluded. The Buddha realized that life is
ruled by Four Noble
Truths:
-
Life is filled with suffering
-
Suffering is caused by people's
wants.
-
Suffering can be ended if
people stop
wanting things, like more pleasure or more
power.
-
To stop wanting things, people
must
follow 8 basic laws, called the Eightfold Path.
Eightfold
Path: In
brief, these are the laws of the Eightfold Path:
-
To know the truth
-
To intend to resist evil
-
To not say anything to hurt
others
-
To respect life, property, and
morality
-
To work at a job that does not
injure
others
-
To try to free one's mind from
evil
-
To be in control of one's
feelings and
thoughts
-
To practice appropriate forms
of
concentration
The Middle
Way: The Eightfold
Path was designed to guide people
without making life too strict or too easy. The
Middle Way is the name
Buddhists call lives guided by the laws of the
Eightfold Path.
Buddha spent the rest of his life
traveling around India and sharing his message with
everyone. He had
many followers, who lived according to his Four
Noble Truths. Some of
his followers became Buddhist monks. They gave up
all they owned and
depended on other followers and kind hearted people
to give them food.
Their message was one of love.
After the Buddha's death in 483
BCE,
Buddhism spread rapidly throughout Southern and
Eastern Asia.
Proverbs:
Buddhists
everywhere live by Buddha's teachings, which were
written down as
proverbs. Here are two of Buddha's proverbs, from an
ancient Buddha
text, written in about 100 BCE (Over
2000 years ago!)
As a solid
rock
is not shaken by the wind,
even so the wise are not ruffled by praise or
blame.
Hatreds
never
cease by hatred in this world;
by love alone they cease.
This is an ancient law.
The
Laughing
Buddha: Have you ever
seen a ceramic or carved
representation (a statue) of the Buddha, perhaps in
a Chinese
restaurant, or for sale in a store, or in your home
or garden? Have you
ever wondered why the Buddha is laughing?
The laughing Buddha reminds us that
to be
happy we need to have a loving heart. A big heart
gives you tolerance.
It helps you to greet each day with joy and all
people with gladness.
It helps you to tolerate a great many things with a
big happy smile
that reaches your eyes and your heart.
Buddha says that the best way to
solve a
problem we might have with someone else is to have a
warm and loving
heart. By not being resentful, by not bearing
grudges, only then are we
able to smile like the Buddha - only then can we be
truly happy.
The Goal -
To
Become The Greatest Person in the World: Buddhism
teaches
that being the greatest is an absolute achievement
free of
comparison. What does that mean? It means that to be
the greatest is
not an achievement that can be attained through
competition. You can't
win greatness - but you can achieve it. That means
everyone can be the
greatest.
Here's an example: For a healthy
ant to
successfully carry one grain of rice is a great
achievement. For a
healthy horse to successfully carry one grain of
rice is not all that
terrific. The ant has put his best effort into his
job. It has
fulfilled its purpose as an ant. When this truth is
achieved, the ant
is no longer just an ant. The ant has moved into the
realm of Truth -
it has become the greatest ant in the world.
Buddhism teaches that a person is
successful not because he or she is better than
someone else, and not
because they received a higher grade on a test or
won a Gold Medal at
the Olympics, or beat out other ants to see who
could carry the biggest
and heaviest grain of rice. True achievement does
not come from
competition or comparison. A person (or an ant, or a
horse) is
successful because he or she has given their best
within their means.
For this reason, every single person can become the
greatest person in
the world, all at the same time.
The Growth
of
Buddhism: Buddhism
values love, wisdom,
goodness, calm, and self-control. Buddhists believe
that The Buddha and
his teachings should be honored, that people should
try to end
suffering, that they should follow the Eightfold
Path. In T'ang times,
people thought of Buddhism as a chart of behavior
that they could
follow to lead them to a life beyond the grave.
Today, Buddhism is a major world
religion. There are over 330 million Buddhists in
the world.
Modified
by Mr. Sullivan
Clip
Art Credit: Phillip Martin
Have a great year!
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