The Buddha
- Siddhartha Gautama was a prince in ancient India (born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal). He lived a life of luxury until he saw the Four Sights: an old man, a sick man, a dead body and a holy man.
- He left home to find the answer to suffering. After years of searching, he meditated under the Bodhi tree and reached enlightenment, becoming the Buddha ("the awakened one").
- Buddhists don't worship a creator God. They follow the Buddha's teachings.
The Four Noble Truths
- Dukkha: life involves suffering and dissatisfaction.
- Samudaya: suffering is caused by craving (tanha).
- Nirodha: suffering can end.
- Magga: the way to end suffering is the Eightfold Path, which includes right understanding, right speech, right action and right mindfulness.
- The end of suffering is nirvana (nibbana).
Living as a Buddhist
- The Three Jewels (Three Refuges): the Buddha, the Dhamma (his teaching) and the Sangha (the Buddhist community).
- The Five Precepts: not harming living beings, not taking what isn't given, no sexual misconduct, no false speech, and no intoxicants that cloud the mind.
- Meditation trains the mind to be calm and aware. Wesak celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death.
- The Three Marks of Existence: everything changes (anicca), there is no fixed self (anatta), and suffering (dukkha).
Key terms
- Enlightenment
- Understanding the true nature of reality.
- Dukkha
- Suffering or dissatisfaction.
- Tanha
- Craving, the cause of suffering.
- Nirvana
- The end of suffering.
- Eightfold Path
- The Buddhist way to end suffering.
- Sangha
- The Buddhist community.
- Five Precepts
- Five guidelines for how Buddhists should live.
- Anicca
- The belief that everything changes.