Siddhartha Gautama

This is a picture of Queen Maya. The elephant nex (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1186/1472538602_3d81e8b09b.jpg)

One day, Queen Maya wanted a child because she and King Suddhodana had none of their own. Then one night, there was a full moon and the queen dreamt of four devas. In the dream, the devas carried her to a lake, to rest on a soft bed. Then a white elephant, carrying a lotus flower, went around her three times and then disappeared into her. Then the next day she told King Suddhodana and he told a wise man. The wise man explained to them that the queen was going to give birth to a prince. Siddhartha was born under a tree in a beautiful park called Lumbini Garden. He was born in the Lumbini Garden because the queen wanted to give birth of Siddhartha at her parent’s house, but then they stopped to rest in the garden. But then soon after the baby was born, Queen Maya died. So her younger sister, Pajapati Gotami, who was also married to the king, took care of Siddhartha as if he was really her own son. When Siddhartha was only a few days old, a holy man prophesied that he would either be a military conqueror or a spiritual leader/teacher. The king preferred the first one, so he raised Siddhartha in great luxury and shielded him from knowledge of religion and human suffering. When he was young, he saved a life of a swan that had gotten wounded from his cousin, Devadatta. He also enjoyed meditating under trees in their palace.

When Siddhartha was 16, he married a beautiful princess. Her name was Princess Yasodhara, who was also 16. They lived for nearly 13 years together in royal luxury. He was protected from all the problems of the world by the palace gates. Inside the gates were happiness and laughter. At the end, Siddhartha had a child of their own. They had named him Rahula.

This is a picture of Siddhartha leaving the palce (http://mech.ioe.edu.np/pragati/Gautama%20Siddhattha%20Buddha_files/buddhawife.jpg)

One day, Siddhartha wanted to take a look at the outside world and see what it was like. So, King Suddhodana told the people of the city to make it look nice and decorated, and ordered all the beggars to stay inside until the prince was gone. When Siddhartha was outside the palace, he saw four sights, which are now known as The Four Sights. They were an old man, a sick man, a dead body, and a monk who was happy and calm. When he saw the monk he wanted to see if he could find a way to solve all the other problems. So that night he said good-bye to his wife and son, but did not wake them up. He left on his white horse, Kanthaka, and with his faithful servant, Channa. Then Siddhartha came off his horse, cut his long hair with his sword, took all his jewelry and clothes off, put on monk robes and took a beggar bowl. Then he told Channa to go back to the palace with Kanthaka and all the luxuries.

Siddhartha was looking for spiritual teachers and found the best teachers known in meditation, so he went and studied with them. After some time, Siddhartha had learned all that he could learn from them. So he went off to find the truth on his own. He and the five spiritual teachers went to a small town called Uruvela and found more holy men. They believed that if they put their bodies through physical hardship, they would understand the truth. Siddhartha did all that until he was just bones and one layer of skin. Then one day, he heard music and learned that you do not put yourself through physical hardship to know the truth. You have to respect yourself too. But then he fainted in the river when he was bathing himself, but a young lady saw him and helped him, then gave him some food to eat. The five men saw him accept the food and thought he had given up, so they left him. Siddhartha had not given up yet and remembered when he was a child he would sit under the rose-apple tree and meditate. So then he sat under a big Bohdi tree and started meditating. He sat under the tree for forty-nine days, but he still ate daily. Mara, the evil one tried to lead him out of his meditation by sending selfish thoughts into his head, and sending visions of his beautiful daughters to him but nothing worked. So Mara just gave up. Nothing could lead Siddhartha out of his enlightenment path. The Buddha’s goodness protected him from the selfish effects. When he was enlightened, he found out how people could end the suffering. He discovered that the cause of the suffering was greed, selfishness, and stupidity. If the people who were suffering would eliminate those, they would be happy. When Siddhartha was enlightened, he was only thirty-five years old. There after, the tree he was sitting under, the Bohdi tree, was called the Tree of Enlightenment.

He had finally been enlightened after six years of trying and he found out how to end suffering. But does the rest of the world know that? Well they should because Siddhartha passed on many of his teachings and Buddhism is still spreading around the world. Siddhartha died at age 80 in his home town. He told his followers to burn him when he died and they did.