Buddha

Buddha, the A title meaning "awakened" or "enlightened." It is most commonly applied to Siddharta Gautama (c. 560–c. 480 B.C.E.), the person who founded the religion of BUDDHISM. Buddhist mythology actually identifi es many different Buddhas. Siddhartha Gautama is the historical Buddha, that is, the Buddha who has appeared in our world's history. In some traditions he is known as Sakyamuni, "sage of the Sakyas," because he was born in northeast India among a people known as the Sakyas. LIFE Buddhists believe that when people die, they are reborn (see SAMSARA). In keeping with this belief, they believe that Siddhartha Gautama had many births prior to the birth in which he became the Buddha. Texts known as jatakas, "birth stories," recount events from some of these prior births. Siddhartha's birth into our world was to be his last. It is said that he carefully chose the time and location of that birth, to a princely family in northeast India in the sixth century B.C.E. According to legend, his mother, Queen Maya, dreamed that four deities were carrying her bed to the Himalaya Mountains. They were followed by a white elephant. The white elephant circled the bed, then plunged his tusk into Maya's side. When she awoke, she discovered she was pregnant. During the sixth month of her pregnancy, Maya went to visit her cousin. Along the way, she stopped in a grove at Lumbini (today in Nepal). There she gave birth to Siddhartha prematurely. Astrologers who read the body marks predicted a double destiny for the baby: He would either conquer the world or renounce it. Siddhartha's father wanted to ensure that his son chose to conquer the world, so they protected him from the EVILS of the world and saw that his every wish was fulfi lled. As a result, Siddhartha lived the life of pleasure that many people only dream about, but in living that life, he found that it was insuffi cient. Siddhartha married and had a son. Then, at the age of 29, he made the fateful decision to explore the world outside his palaces. On successive trips he encountered four new "sights": an older person, a sick person, a decaying corpse, and a wandering ascetic. Siddhartha had fi nally confronted the realities of duhkha or suffering: old age, sickness, and death. He resolved to renounce his life of pleasure and search for the solution to these problems. First he tried various techniques of MEDITATION. He mastered the skills quickly but found that they did not provide the answers he was seeking. Then, for fi ve years he practiced various ascetic exercises, denying his body until he was so thin it was said one could feel his backbone through his abdomen. Close to death from these exercises, Siddhartha resolved to fi nd a middle way between indulgence and denial. After sitting for an extended period under the so-called bodhi-tree in Bodh Gaya (today in Bihar state, India), he spent an entire night in meditation. During that night he discovered the principles that govern the processes of rebirth (see KARMA) as well as the path to release from suffering (see NIRVANA). As morning dawned, he achieved enlightenment (bodhi) and became the Buddha. Out of compassion for the sufferings of all sentient, or conscious, beings and at the urging of a Hindu god, the Buddha remained in his human body to teach others the path he had discovered. He gave his fi rst sermons at the deer park in Sarnath (near BANARAS, India) to ascetics— persons who deprive themselves of luxuries for religious purposes—with whom he had been living. Hearing his teachings, they too quickly attained liberation (nirvana) and became the fi rst Buddhist ARHATS. During the remaining years of his life, the Buddha wandered widely over northeast India, teaching his path and ordaining followers—men at fi rst, later women, too—into the SANGHA, the order of wandering mendicants. At the age of 79 he ate some spoiled food offered by a lay (unordained) follower and died or, as Buddhists say, entered the ultimate nirvana (parinirvana) in Kushinagara (today Kasia, India). His closest followers decided to treat his body the way they would a royal corpse: They cremated the Buddha's remains and gave portions of his ashes to several kings. Portions of these remains were later enshrined in STUPAS throughout the Buddhist world. TEACHINGS Unlike MOSES, JESUS, and MUHAMMAD, the Buddha did not advocate the worship of any particular god. He did not deny that gods existed, but he thought that because gods are living beings, they, too, ultimately need to escape from suffering. (In the Buddhist view nothing is eternal, not even gods.) Like a compassionate physician, the Buddha diagnosed and prescribed the cure for the suffering that plagues all sentient existence. The Buddha's diagnosis and prescription are formulated most compactly in his FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS. The Buddha identifi ed the symptoms of our illness as duhkha, suffering, but suffering in the sense that ultimate satisfaction is unavailable in this life. The cause of duhkha is craving, longing, or desire, brought about by ignorance of reality. The disease, however, can be cured. The Buddha taught that duhkha disappears once one eliminates craving. But that requires an entire transformation of one's thought, practice, and perceptions, a transformation that results from practicing the Buddha's eightfold path. Several principles underlie the Buddha's teaching. One of them is "no-self" (Sanskrit, anatman). This principle denies that people have an eternal soul or an unchanging self or essence, such as one fi nds, for example, in the teachings of CHRISTIANITY and HINDUISM (see ATMAN). A related principle, "nopermanence" (Sanskrit, anitya), emphasizes that change characterizes all existence. A third principle, "co-dependent origination" (Sanskrit, pratityasamutpada), highlights the interrelatedness of all things. According to this teaching, everything is tied together in a complex net of causes, so that there can be no "fi rst cause" from which all beings derive. Many religions have worried about the origin of the universe or the fate of human beings after death (see COSMOGONY and AFTERLIFE IN WORLD RELIGIONS). The Buddha urged his followers to ignore these questions, not unlike the teachings of JUDAISM. In the image of his famous "Fire Sermon," human beings have awakened to fi nd themselves in a house on fi re. They should not worry about how the fi re started, nor should they be concerned with what they will do after the fi re has been extinguished. They should direct all their efforts to putting the fi re out. SIGNIFICANCE The Buddha is known as the Tathagata, Sanskrit for "the one who went that way." The historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, is important not because he revealed the messages of a god but because he discovered and taught the path that human beings can follow to attain release from suffering. He is most revered in the tradition of Buddhism known as Theravada, predominant in southeast Asia. A formula that Theravada often invokes signals the Buddha's importance: "I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the teachings [Sanskrit, DHARMA]. I take refuge in the monastic community [Sanskrit, sangha]." The other major tradition of Buddhism, predominant in east Asia, is Mahayana; it assigns the historical Buddha a somewhat lesser place. It reveres the Buddha Sakyamuni principally for having revealed the teachings and deeds of other Buddhas and BODHISATTVAS, such as AMIDA and AVALOKITESVARA, known in Chinese as Kuan Yin. ZEN BUDDHISM goes so far at to caution people against becoming overly attached to the person of the Buddha. (Recall that attachment and craving produce suffering.) A well-known KOAN or Zen riddle states: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."