The Buddha who lived 2,600 years ago was not a god. He was an ordinary person, named Siddhartha Gautama, whose teachings on enlightenment and the end of suffering became the basis of Buddhism. Buddha is not a name, but a title. It is a Sanskrit word that means a person who is awake. What a buddha is awake to is the true nature of reality. Most of the time, when someone says the Buddha, it’s in reference to the historical person who founded Buddhism.

 

Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini, Nepal, in about 567 BCE. He was the son of a king, raised in sheltered opulence. He married and had a son. Prince Siddhartha was twenty-nine years old when his life changed. In carriage rides outside his palaces he first saw a sick person, then an old man, then a corpse. This shook him to the core of his being; he realised that his privileged status would not protect him from sickness, old age, and death. When he saw a spiritual seeker, the urge to seek peace of mind arose in him.

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The prince renounced his worldly life and began a spiritual quest. He sought teachers and practiced asceticism, such as extreme, prolonged fasts. It was believed that depriving the body was the way to elevate the mind and that the door to wisdom was found at the edge of death. However, after six years of this, the prince felt only frustration. Eventually, he realised that the path to peace was through mental discipline. At a place called Bodhgaya, in the modern Indian state of Bihar, Siddhartha sat in meditation beneath a ficus tree, the Bodhi tree, until he awakened, or realised enlightenment. From that time on, he would be known as the Buddha.

 

Shakyamuni Buddhai mantra in Sanskrit:

Oṃ Muni Muni Mahāmuni Sākyamuni Svāhā