Life of Siddhartha Gautama and Birth of Buddha

Today is a great day for the entire world culture. Today, May 27, Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born. On the same day, but many years later, he'd had the enlightenment, and then Gautama Buddha came to the world to become a founder of one of the great religions. The same day the Buddha, completing his earthly affairs, departed this vale of sorrow and plunged into the eternal bliss of nirvana.

Siddhārtha Gautama, the son of the king of Shakya, was born on the territory of modern Nepal. Legend has it that night the king’s wife, Queen Maha Maya, had a dream in which a white elephant with 6 tusks entered her body from aside. After the baby had been born, seer Asita discovered 32 signs of a great man on his body (the wheel sign between the eyebrows as well as on the palms and on the feet; a protuberance on the top of his head, membranes between the fingers and so on). Having considered these signs the seer declared that the newly born child would become either an outstanding ruler or a renowned saint. The boy was named Siddhārtha Gautama (the word ‘Siddhārtha’ approximately equals ‘he who achieves his aim’).

The King wished to bring up his child so that in the future he could become a distinguished king. Nothing, in the King’s opinion, should make the Prince choose a different path or think about the meaning of life and Man’s sufferings. The Prince lived in a luxurious palace completely safe and protected from the world around him. He lived a quiet, careless life. There was nothing he could wish as all his wishes were granted.

But one day a 29 year old Siddhārtha Gautama went hunting. The hunt radically changed the course of his life.

Having left the palace he saw ‘four subjects’: an old cripple, a sick person, a funeral procession and a sage buried in meditating. The images helped him to understand that people were mortal, subject to illnesses and sufferings. He also came to realize that in this life only the person who chose enlightenment as a way of life could be happy.

At the age of 29 Prince Siddhārtha left the palace, his family, a life of luxury to become a monk. He spent this period of his life as a pupil in asceticism and spiritual search. He indulged into severe self-torture and self-mortification. But hunger and prayers didn’t help him enlighten: he couldn’t get to know the truth neither when he head been a noble prince nor when he became a monk.

So Siddhārtha sat down in the meditation pose under a bo, or bodhi, a tree which in the Buddhist tradition got the name of ‘the Tree of Awakening’ and swore an oath not to change the pose until he gets enlightened and lost himself in meditation.

An evil demon Mara tried to frighten him with hordes of demons and seduce him with the help of his beautiful daughters. But Siddhārtha remained firm and Mara retreated.

Deeper and deeper did Siddhārtha get absorbed in meditation and gradually he came to understand Four Noble Truths: about suffering and its causes, about getting over suffering and the way that leads to it.

The inviolable tranquility of nirvana shed its light over the prince. He got in to the state of trance (Samadhi) and his consciousness became like the calm ocean when the unruffled surface of the water reflects everything around it.

At this moment Siddhārtha Gautama, the Prince of the Shakya clan, disappeared to give way to Buddha, the Enlightened.

Meet the all-seeing Buddha in 3D model of Swayambhunath Stupa!

                                                                                

Comments

[Tom Tayner]

tnx for the interesting article =)

[Marshall]

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