BUDDHISM39realized that one day he would become
like these sights. He then encountered
a monk and was impressed by the man’s
peacefulness. Siddhartha decided to
renounce his life as a royal prince and
become like the monk.
Siddhartha left the palace, shaving his
head and wearing only monastic robes.
For six years, he met with monks and
practiced asceticism, trying to control his
bodily needs by nearly starving. Realizing
that asceticism was bringing the suffering
he was trying to avoid, Siddhartha devel-
oped the Middle Way, between overin-
dulgence and self-deprivation, by eating
only what was necessary. Finding a tree
to sit under, Siddhartha entered a deep
meditation in which he battled tempta-
tions and desires, emerging victorious
over them. At this time, Siddhartha
became the Buddha, the Enlightened One
or the Awakened One.
After attaining Enlightenment, the
Buddha began teaching people about the
Middle Way, suffering, and the alleviation
of suffering. The people that followed
him became the beginning of the sangha,
or community. The Buddha and the
sangha traveled out of Nepal into India
spreading the dharma, or teaching, and
gathering more followers.
When the Buddha’s father heard of
this, he sent some of his guards out to
bring the Buddha home, but upon hear-
ing the dharma, they became followers.
Soon, the Buddha’s wife and son joined
the sangha as well. His wife formed a
group of nuns following the Buddha.
When he was around 80 years old, the
Buddha fell ill. Before he died, he asked
his disciples if they had any unresolved
doubts or questions, which they did not.
He then told them not to follow any
leader, but rather to follow his teachings.
After he died, he was cremated and the
Buddhist tradition continued with his
followers.BUDDHISM. Buddhism emerged from
Hinduism, tracing its origin to Gautama
Sakyamuni, who lived in northern India
sometime between the sixth and fourth
centuries BCE and came to be known
as the Buddha (“Enlightened One”). His
teaching centers on the Four Noble
Truths; (1) life is full of suffering, pain,
and misery (dukka), (2) the origin of suf-
fering is in desire (tanha), (3) the extinc-
tion of suffering can be brought about
by the extinction of desire, and (4) the
way to extinguish desire is by following
the Noble Eightfold Path. The Eightfold
Path consists of right understanding,
right aspirations or attitudes, right speech,
right conduct, right livelihood, right
effort, mindfulness, and contemplation or
composure.
Early Buddhist teaching tended to
be non-theistic, underscoring instead
the absence of the self (anatta) and the
impermanence of life. In its earliest forms,
Buddhism did not have a developed
metaphysics (that is, a theory of the struc-
ture of reality, the nature of space, time,
and so on), but it did include belief