Course Home

Syllabus & Assignments

Resources

Lectures

Buddhism

"Buddha" is not a name, it is a title meaning the "enlightened one," "awakened one".

Buddha is not the Buddhist god. He is just the revered teacher and founder of Buddhism.

Who was the Buddha?
The man who would become The Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakya clan of the Kshatriya caste in NE India. He was born a Hindu, a prince of Noble lineage. He is also called Sakyamuni - ("Sage of the Sakya Clan") and Gautama Buddha.

Prezi:: The Life of Buddha

When and where did he live?
Born in 563 BCE, died 483 BCE during the Upanishadic transitional period of Hinduism (a contemporary of Mahavira [founder of Jainism]).
The texts of the religion tell of a miraculous conception (he was conceived in a dream) and accounts of wonders attending his birth (he walked and talked immediately after the painless birth in a beautiful garden).

The Birth of Buddha (clip from the feature film Little Buddha):

His early life:
Two possible destinies were predicted for the child by a seer who came to visit shortly after he was born: Siddhartha was to become either a great teacher or a great ruler.

His father was determined to raise Siddhartha to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a great ruler. As such, Siddhartha was sheltered from the evils of the world and raised in great luxury.

The "Four Sights":
But Siddhartha saw the famous "four sights" which left him wondering about life:

• an old man, withered with age

• a sick man, in pain and misery 

• a dead man

• and a Monk, who seemed contented

The first three were suffering but the monk was not suffering. These sights were to make a deep impact on the prince.

Siddhartha explores the world and observes suffering (clip from the feature film Little Buddha):

The householder:
As a young man, Siddhartha married and had a son, as expected of him.

Renunciation and yogic practice:
But at the age of 29 he took vows of renunciation, left his home and his family to become a wandering monk in search of enlightenment and contentment.

For six years Siddhartha went from one guru to another, learning different philosophies, practicing various yogic techniques including extreme asceticism (which came to be associated with Jainism which was also developing at this same time in NE India).

But none of these paths satisfied his spiritual quest and so, after six years he took off on his own, rejecting both the life of luxury he'd been raised in as well as ascetic withdrawal and self-denial. His was to be the "Middle Way".

Siddhartha the renunciant discovers the Middle Way (clip from the feature film Little Buddha):

Enlightenment - A Buddha is born . . .:
As the story goes, Siddhartha sat under a tree, refusing to move or do anything until he achieved the enlightenment he sought. He sat thusly in meditation, resisted tempting visions of beautiful women and delectable foods, until, after (some stories say) 40 days, he became enlightened, seeing and understanding the truth of all existence.

Siddhartha achieves Enlightenment (clip from the feature film Little Buddha):

longer version

He had thus become the Buddha - the "Awakened One" and the tree become known as the "Bodhi Tree". Bodhi (the root word of "Buddha") means wisdom.

. . . and becomes a teacher:
Gautama Buddha spent the remaining 45 years of his life teaching to others the Truth he’d found.

Scenes from the life of Buddha (recap from the feature film Little Buddha):

Another Recap

 Read an account of the life of the Buddha (from Buddhist sources):

• PowerPoint presentation

• From A Pictorial Biography of Sakyamuni Buddha

• From The Teaching of Buddha (read chapter 1, part 1)

Learn more about the life and teachings of Buddha from the 2010 PBS documentary: The Buddha (you can watch the entire 2 hour show in a series of clips online and explore other resources as well)