The word Buddha is a title, not a name. It is derived from the Sanskrit: “Budh,” to know. It means “one who is awake” in the sense of having “woken up to reality.” This title was first given to a man named Siddartha Gautama, who lived 2,500 years ago in northern India.
Siddartha Gautama was son of the Rajah (ruler) of the Sakya tribe of Kapilavastu, Nepal. When he was about 35 years old Siddartha left the luxuries of his father’s court, his beautiful wife, and all earthly ambitions for the life of an ascetic. He saw in the contemplative life the perfect way to self-enlightenment.
For six years he struggled by the traditional methods of meditation and asceticism, to penetrate the cause of man’s “clinging to life.” His efforts were in vain. The more he contemplated his own mind, the more he found only his own effort to contemplate. The evening before his enlightenment, Siddartha gave up. He relaxed his diet and ate some nourishing food. At once he felt a profound change coming over him. He sat down under a bodhi tree, vowing not to rise until he had obtained “supreme awakening.”
According to Buddhist tradition, he sat through the night until a glimpse of the morning star suddenly provoked a state of perfect clarity and understanding. He experienced unexcelled, complete, awakening. For the next 40 years he taught the principles of his teaching, gaining many disciples and followers. He died at the age of about 80 in Kusinagara, Oudh.
Buddha’s teaching is summarized in the Four Noble Truths, the last of which affirms the existence of a path leading to deliverance from the universal human experience of suffering. The goal is Nirvana, which means “the blowing out” of the fires of all desires, and the absorption of the self into the infinite.
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