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- Introduction to Bald hum
Buddhism originated in India five centuries before Christ. The founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakya tribe, was born around 563 bc in North India (at a place now inside the border of present-day Nepal). He was a Hindu prince who lived his young life in luxury inside the walls of his father's palace. When he eventually ventured out of the palace he saw human suffer�ing for the first time and was profoundly troubled by the misery around him. One night he left the palace to become a wandering ascetic. For six years he searched for the cause of suffering. Finally after forty-nine days of meditation under the celebrated Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya, and after resisting all worldly temptations, he achieved "Enlightenment" and was thereafter known as Bud�dha or the "Enlightened One." For the next forty-five years, he followed his "Middle Way":
Buddhism preached Four Noble Truths:
1 Everything is suffering: birth, old age, sickness and death; contact with what one dislikes, separation from what one desires, not obtaining what one wishes.
2 Causes of suffering: desire for what is void of reality, for pleasure, for existence.
3 The suppression of desire and the end of suffering.
4 The means by which to end suffering. By following the Eightfold Path, suffering would be eliminated. It consists of right speech, right livelihood, right action, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right opinion and right intention.
Buddhism believes in rebirth and maintains that individual life was one of a series in which life was conditioned by the moral value of deeds (called Karma) performed in a previous existence.
Buddha died around 483 bc having achieved Nirvana, the ultimate goal of all Buddhist aspiration. In the centuries after his death, Buddhism spread throughout central, south and east Asia and developed into a great many schools with their own particular philosophical emphasis. The two main branches of Buddhism are the traditions of Hinayana and Mahayana. Buddhism presented itself as a philosophical and moral attitude toward life and death rather than a rigid religious system. Wherever it spread in Asia it never adopted a repudiating attitude to local cultures and faiths. It simply assimilated aspects of the native religion. In this way Buddhism remained a dynamic force for centuries, resulting in the development of a great complex�7
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