Siddhartha Gautama, "the Buddha"

Mar 13, 2022
12 min read

Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Deep, in a meditative state, Siddhartha contemplated his life and experiences.

He thought about the nature of suffering and fully recognized its power came from attachment.

Finally, in a moment of illumination, he understood that suffering was caused by the human insistence on permanent states of being in a world of impermanence.

Mark, J. J. (2020, September 23). Siddhartha Gautama. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Siddhartha_Gautama/

Title and Meaning

Siddhartha Gautama (better known as the Buddha, l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE) was, according to legend, a Hindu prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal and, in preaching his path to others, founded Buddhism in India in the 6th-5th centuries BCE.

The events of his life are largely legendary, but he is considered an actual historical figure and a younger contemporary of Mahavira (also known as Vardhamana, l. c. 599-527 BCE) who established the tenets of Jainism shortly before Siddhartha's time.

According to Buddhist texts:

A prophecy was given at Siddhartha's birth that he would become either a powerful king or great spiritual leader. His father, fearing he would become the latter if he were exposed to the suffering of the world, protected him from seeing or experiencing anything unpleasant or upsetting for the first 29 years of his life. One day (or over the course of a few) he slipped through his father's defenses and saw what Buddhists refer to as the Four Signs:

An aged man
A sick man
A dead man
A religious ascetic

Through these signs, he realized that he, too, could become sick, would grow old, would die, and would lose everything he loved. He understood that the life he was living guaranteed he would suffer and, further, that all of life was essentially defined by suffering from want or loss. He therefore followed the example of the religious ascetic, tried different teachers and disciplines, and finally attained enlightenment through his own means and became known as the Buddha (“awakened” or “enlightened” one).

Afterwards, he preached his “middle way” of detachment from sense objects and renunciation of ignorance and illusion through his Four Noble Truths, the Wheel of Becoming, and the Eightfold Path to enlightenment. After his death, his disciples preserved and developed his teachings until they were spread from India to other countries by the Mauryan king Ashoka the Great (r. 268-232 BCE). From the time of Ashoka on, Buddhism has continued to flourish and, presently, is one of the major world religions.

Ascetic Life & Enlightenment

Buddha head at Wat Mahathat

Alex Kovacheva (CC BY-NC-SA)

Siddhartha at first sought out the famous teacher Arada Kalama with whom he studied until he had mastered all Kamala knew, but the “attainment of nothingness” he gained did nothing to free him from suffering. He then became a student of the master Udraka Ramaputra who taught him how to suppress his desires and attain a state “neither conscious nor unconscious”, but this did not satisfy him as it, also, did not address the problem of suffering. He subjected himself to the harshest ascetic disciplines, most likely following a Jain model, eventually eating only a grain of rice a day, but, still, he could not find what he was looking for.

In one version of his story, at this point he stumbles into a river, barely strong enough to keep his head above water, and receives direction from a voice on the wind. In the more popular version, he is found in the woods by a milkmaid named Sujata, who mistakes him for a tree spirit because he is so emaciated, and offers him some rice milk. The milk revives him, and he ends his asceticism and goes to nearby village of Bodh Gaya where he seats himself on a bed of grass beneath a Bodhi tree and vows to remain there until he understands the means of living without suffering.

Deep in a meditative state, Siddhartha contemplated his life and experiences. He thought about the nature of suffering and fully recognized its power came from attachment. Finally, in a moment of illumination, he understood that suffering was caused by the human insistence on permanent states of being in a world of impermanence. Everything one was, everything one thought one owned, everything one wanted to gain, was in a constant state of flux. One suffered because one was ignorant of the fact that life itself was change, and one could cease suffering by recognizing that, since this was so, attachment to anything in the belief it would last was a serious error which only trapped one in an endless cycle of craving, striving, rebirth, and death. His illumination was complete, and Siddhartha Gautama was now the Buddha, the enlightened one.

And so the Wheel turns...

There is no escape from the Wheel of Life, there's no escape from suffering.

Listen to me Siddharta: I am Mara, Lord of Hell.

I know what i'm talking about, but i got to admire your determination.

You've been sitting there for weeks, hoping that the solution to life's problems will drop into your lap like a wrapthake.

Give up now and save yourself the effort - wiser men than you have tried and failed to find an answer.

And you will fail too Siddharta!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVKK-WVW2uw

Tenets & Teachings

Although he could now live his life in contentment and do as he pleased, he chose instead to teach others the path of liberation from ignorance and desire and assist them in ending their suffering.

He preached his first sermon at the Deer Park at Sarnath at which he introduced his audience to his

Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths are:

Life is suffering (there is suffering)
The cause of suffering is craving (the root and cause of suffering is our desires)
The end of suffering comes with an end to craving (the solution to our suffering then is to release ourselves from our desires)
There is a path which leads one away from craving and suffering (that lead us to our realease from our desires)

The fourth truth directs one toward the Eightfold Path, which serves as a guide to live one's life without the kind of attachment that guarantees suffering:

Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

By recognizing the Four Noble Truths and following the precepts of the Eightfold Path, one is freed from the Wheel of Becoming which is a symbolic illustration of existence. In the hub of the wheel sit ignorance, craving, and aversion (*) (See Mara's 3 daughters) which drive it. Between the hub and the rim of the wheel are six states of existence: human, animal, ghosts, demons, deities, and hell-beings. Along the rim of the wheel are depicted the conditions which cause suffering such as body-mind, consciousness, feeling, thirst, grasping among many others which bind one to the wheel and cause one to suffer.

One can still enjoy all aspects of life in pursuing the buddhist path, only with the recognition that these things cannot last.

In recognizing the Four Noble Truths and following the Eightfold Path, one will still experience loss, feel pain, know disappointment but it will not be the same as the experience of duhkha, translated as “suffering” which is unending because it is fueled by the soul's ignorance of the nature of life and of itself. One can still enjoy all aspects of life in pursuing the Buddhist path, only with the recognition that these things cannot last, it is not in their nature to last, because nothing in life is permanent.

Buddhists compare this realization to the end of a dinner party. When the meal is done, one thanks one's host for the pleasant time and goes home; one does not fall to the floor crying and lamenting the evening's end. The nature of the dinner party is that it has a beginning and an ending, it is not a permanent state, and neither is anything else in life. Instead of mourning the loss of something that one could never hope to have held onto, one should appreciate what one has experienced for what it is – and let it go when it is over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLv-NrqyvvWvfsvjDc3NM5_DRYdCzgNZym&v=lnQuIGxteGI

10 Life Lessons we can learn from the Buddha

Practice the Middle-way (have a life between luxury and extreme poverty: free oneself from one's desires - when we acquit a happiness with getting what we desire, we will never be happy, and we will suffer every day.)
Adopt the Right view (of things. We can always choose, not be affected by what is happening around us, but to use what we have around us towards our own grow - we can be happy if we become proactive, not reactive to what is happening to us.)
Create good Karma (to avoid having a bad karma, we have to align our actions to positive attitudes and intentions, to be clean in our thoughts and feelings. Our intentions will lead to our actions and they can have great consequences in our life. We need to work on ourselves in the present in order to build a better future for ourselves. Nothing is written in stone, our past does not define us, but what we did yesterday or do today can shape our present and our future.)
Live everyday like it is your last (Buddha said: «Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow death comes.» If we learn to see that, everyday can be our last, we will live ardently each day, making peace with everyone, doing what we can do today, and sleep peacefully at night knowing that we lived our day to the fullest. This allows you to step away from the past and future and live in the present moment, to be where you are right now. Choose wisely.)
Great things are the results of small good habits (It takes18-254 days of constant exercise and practice to develop a new habbit: the first step is to become more aware of your habits so you can develop strategies to change them. It doesn't matter if you fail sometimes. That is part of learning. Always watch for your failures and become aware of them (Error Samsara Illusion Sin).)
Show your wisdom in silence (The Buddha tells us:«Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices; those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever's not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet.» The more you learn, the more you are exposed to what you don't know. Those who are wise know to listen, because they acknowledge that there are things that they don't know.)
If in a conflict, choose compassion («Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased.» The cycle of violence, of hatred, of abuse, of revenge can never be stopped with hatred. Non-violence is a way to protect yourself from even greater evils.)
Choose friends for quality over quantity («Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life.» It is better to seek fellowship with nobel men than to associate with evil companions. Life is not a solitary journey. Good friends are those who lead you to goodness, to virtue, to good habits, and not those who let you go astray, those who push you to vices, those who don't support and care for you truly neither about themselves.)
Be generous («Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.» Generosity and helping each other can create great change in the world; the ripple effect of kindness. A gesture of compassion can be passed on to another person. A lot of things can spring forth from that simple act of kindness. Buddha, however, first asks us to take care of ourselves - you cannot give what you do not have. It is important to take care of yourself, to live healthily, to give yourself time for meditation, to ask for support from other people, because only then you can give the strenght and love you have within you.)
You can be a Buddha too («You yourself must strive. The Buddhas only point the way.» We can also be enlightened - but only if we choose to live out these buddhism teachings daily. Right now we may feel like life is hopeless. But change starts with us. We should take control of our lives and not leave it up to fate or the heavens. Struggle well and do not give up easily. Each of the noble Eightfold Path is something we can start cultivating more by the habits we build. This is a guide to achieve liberation from the life of suffering, or Nirvana.)

Historical Background

Origin

Siddhartha was born in Lumbini (in modern-day Nepal) during a time of social and religious transformation. The dominant religion in India at the time was Hinduism (Sanatan Dharma, “Eternal Order”) but a number of thinkers of the period had begun to question its validity and the authority of the Vedas (the Hindu scriptures) as well as the practices of the priests.

On a practical level, critics of orthodox Hinduism claimed that the religion was not meeting the needs of the people. The Vedas were said to have been received directly from the universe and could not be questioned, but these scriptures were all in Sanskrit, a language the people could not understand, and were interpreted by the priests to encourage acceptance of one's place in life – no matter how difficult or impoverished – while they themselves continued to live well from temple donations.

On a theological level, people began to question the entire construct of Hinduism. Hinduism taught that there was a supreme being, Brahman, who had not only created the universe but was the universe itself. Brahman had established the divine order, maintained this order, and had delivered the Vedas to enable human beings to participate in this order with understanding and clarity.

It was understood that the human soul was immortal and that the goal of life was to perform one's karma (action) in accordance with one's dharma (duty) in order to break free from the cycle of rebirth and death (samsara) and attain union with the oversoul (atman). It was also understood that the soul would be incarnated in physical bodies multiple times, over and over, until one finally attained this liberation.

The Hindu priests of the time defended the faith, which included the caste system, as part of the divine order but, as new ideas began to circulate, more people questioned whether that order was divine at all when all it seemed to offer was endless rounds of suffering. Scholar John M. Koller comments:

From a religious perspective, new ways of faith and practice challenged the established Vedic religion. The main concern dominating religious thought and practice at the time of the Buddha was the problem of suffering and death. Fear of death was an especially acute problem, because death was seen as an unending series of deaths and rebirths. Although the Buddha's solution to the problem was unique, most religious seekers at this time were engaged in the search for a way to obtain freedom from suffering and repeated death.

Many schools of thought arose at this time in response to this need. Those which supported orthodox Hindu thought were known as astika (“there exists”), and those which rejected the Vedas and the Hindu construct were known as nastika (“there does not exist”). Among the nastika schools which survived the time and developed were Charvaka, Jainism, and Buddhism.

Conclusion

Buddha called his teaching the Dharma which means “cosmic law” in this case (not “duty” as in Hinduism) as it is based entirely on the concept of undeniable consequences for one's thoughts which form one's reality and dictate one's actions. As the Buddhist text Dhammapada puts it:

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

The individual is ultimately responsible for his or her level of suffering because, at any point, one can choose not to engage in the kinds of attachments and thought processes which cause suffering. Buddha would continue to teach his message for the rest of his life before dying at Kushinagar where, according to Buddhists, he attained nirvana and was released from the cycle of rebirth and death after being served a meal by one Cunda, a student, who some scholars claim may have poisoned him, perhaps accidentally.

Before dying of dysentery, he requested his remains be placed in a stupa at a crossroads, but his disciples divided them between themselves and had them interred in eight (or ten) stupas corresponding to important sites in Buddha's life.

When Ashoka the Great embraced Buddhism, he had the relics disinterred and then reinterred in 84,000 stupas across India. He then sent missionaries to other countries to spread Buddha's message where it was received so well that Buddhism became more popular in countries like Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, and Korea than it was in India - a situation which, actually, is ongoing – and Buddhist thought developed further after that. Today, the efforts of Siddhartha Gautama are appreciated worldwide by those who have embraced his message and still follow his example of appreciating, without clinging, to the beauty of life.

Siddhartha Gautama, "the Buddha"