Buddha was the title given to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. The majority of Buddhists believe that there have been, and will be in the future, many other Buddhas. Some even claim that Jesus Christ was a Buddha.

The absolute aim of Buddhist worship and its practice is following and preserving the teaching of the Buddha, Siddartha Guatama. This doesn't mean just following his teachings, but also manifesting their beliefs in everyday life.

The Life of Siddhartha

Guatama's mother, Mahamaya, queen of the kingdom of Sakyas, had a dream. In it, a beautiful silver elephant entered her womb through her side. Priests interpreted the dream and predicted the birth of a son who would be a Buddha. Ten lunar months later, the queen had to take a journey and gave birth in an enclosed park.

A haunting prediction at the time of his birth said that her son would become a king, but the same prediction said that he would give up his kingdom if he came face to face with human misery. To lessen the possibility of his son witnessing suffering, the father shielded him from sickness and death. Whenever Guatama left the palace in his chariot, his aids were instructed to clear the roads of four sights: dead people, aged people, diseased people, and ascetic monks. Siddhartha lived with his family in the seclusion and luxury of the palace and was provided with riches and comfort. His father had his son's life mapped out for him: he'd become a warrior and a great king. But Siddhartha had thoughts of his own.

The turning point came when Siddhartha went outside the palace with his charioteer. On the first trip, he saw an elderly, ill man tottering along. The next day he repeated the trip; this time saw a sick man on the ground, suffering and obviously very ill. When he went out on the third day, he saw a corpse. He was shocked by what he saw and asked his charioteer to explain what had he had seen. The charioteer told him the meaning of the sights. After the trip, Guatama returned to the palace and meditated about what he had seen.

He continued to search for some kind of meaning. On the fourth trip with his charioteer, he saw an old man with a shaven head wearing a yellow robe. The man possessed a calm, serene appearance. Siddhartha asked the charioteer who he was. The charioteer told him he was a holy man, an ascetic who had attained complete enlightenment and thus freedom from care. In the placid image of this mendicant Guatama saw his own destiny. He was so impressed that he started a pattern of fasting and self-mortification, as if such activities would show him the way to enlightenment. It was at this time that his son was born. He named him Rahula, which means “fetter” or “bond.”

The Great Renunciation

Siddhartha then made what is known as the Great Renunciation, a journey every bit as momentous as it sounds. He decided to give up being a prince to become a wandering ascetic. He was twenty-nine years old when he saddled his horse and left in the middle of the night; he didn't want to wake his wife or son. He figured he would return to them one day. He rode south to Gotama, where there were centers of spiritual learning.

Siddhartha arrived at a wooded area near a village called Uruvela. A river was at hand to provide water and he could beg for food in the village. He tried a familiar spiritual discipline known as mortification of the body. He began by eating less food. His fasting became so extreme that he once subsisted on six grains of rice per day, becoming so thin that he could hold his stomach in and touch his backbone.

In the final analysis, asceticism as a philosophy, as a way of life, did not provide Siddhartha with the enlightenment he sought. He had taken renunciation of pleasure to such an extreme that he pursued anything and everything that was unpleasant. In addition, the fasting debilitated him, making him unfit for his pursuit of spiritual progress.