January 7th 2009

So where and how did Buddhism originate? Many people know that a boy named Siddhartha Gautama was born about five hundred years before Christ in an area that is now the border between Nepal and India. We may also know that he led a sheltered life, and when he first saw old age, disease and death he was appalled. Leaving his home and family he became a wanderer and eventually sat down under a tree and came up with Buddhism.
But precursers of Buddhism all ready existed. There were earlier wonderers. Two of the teachers that Siddhartha met in his wanderings taught him to meditate into either a state of nothingness or something like it. Siddhartha realized that this didn't really solve anything, so he wandered on and tried extreme deprivation of food and comfort. This also did not solve the problem of suffering. He then realized that balance and harmony in life was the right way. The middle way. As he thought more about the cycle of birth and death, he realized that 'all things are devoid of unchanging selfhood'. He realized that suffering amounts to nothing. Soon he was delegating his teachings to some of his followers who spread the word further. It is strange to think that this difficult teaching could have caught on, but as well as teaching this philosophy, the Buddha also explained how a way of living could lead to nirvana.

Enough.