Buddhist beliefs
The birth of the buddha and his life of luxury
● A white elephant came to his mother in a dream, said he would be brown with perfect
wisdom and gave the buddha. He could immediately walk, lotus flowers bloomed,
and talk and said “this is my final life”
● His father was given the prophecy: a spiritual leader or a great powerful king
● He was shielded his whole life and was given a life of luxury
● “I was delicately nurtured”
Four sights
● He wanted to leave the castle at one point and when he did he saw, an old man, a
sick man, a dead man, and a holy man with no possessions but happy
● He immediately wanted to cure this and find an answer so he left his wife and life
● He cut his hair off and swapped his rich clothes for beggar clothes to ‘let go’
The buddhas life
● He entered a life of asceticism, extreme, and didn't eat until you could see his bones
and slept in the freezing cold with the animals with 5 other ascetics.
● During this he couldn't even think because of his hunger until he came to a river and
a girl offered him a bowl of rice, he ate it and could think
● “The practise of such austerities was not the path to enlightenment”
● He then went and meditated under the bodhi tree. On the night where he reached
enlightenment, mara the demon came: he sent his daughters to seduce him, to
attack him with an army,offered him his kingdom and tried to attack siddhartha but
the buddha stayed and became enlightened. Mara claimed no one else had seen this
and no one would believe them but the buddha called nature and it shook. He then
had the three watches of the night: learnt about his previous lives, the cycle of
samsara and kamma, learnt about suffering and how to overcome it
● Even though he was enlightened he stayed and told his wisdom and knowledge
The dhamma
● The Jataka tales tell about his life but so does the dhamma, its a book of all his
teachings
● The raft analogy: “my teaching is like a raft used to cross the river”
● Also one of the refugees “to the dhamma for refugee i go”
The concept of dependant arising
● Patticmascapuda teaches that everything relies on its surroundings, so who you
surround yourself with has a direct effect on you. When this is, that is
● The tibetan wheel of life illustrates it in relation to human life, death and rebirth (12
nidanas which show samsara)
● The wave analogy is that we’re a wave that is affected by the whole ocean around us
The birth of the buddha and his life of luxury
● A white elephant came to his mother in a dream, said he would be brown with perfect
wisdom and gave the buddha. He could immediately walk, lotus flowers bloomed,
and talk and said “this is my final life”
● His father was given the prophecy: a spiritual leader or a great powerful king
● He was shielded his whole life and was given a life of luxury
● “I was delicately nurtured”
Four sights
● He wanted to leave the castle at one point and when he did he saw, an old man, a
sick man, a dead man, and a holy man with no possessions but happy
● He immediately wanted to cure this and find an answer so he left his wife and life
● He cut his hair off and swapped his rich clothes for beggar clothes to ‘let go’
The buddhas life
● He entered a life of asceticism, extreme, and didn't eat until you could see his bones
and slept in the freezing cold with the animals with 5 other ascetics.
● During this he couldn't even think because of his hunger until he came to a river and
a girl offered him a bowl of rice, he ate it and could think
● “The practise of such austerities was not the path to enlightenment”
● He then went and meditated under the bodhi tree. On the night where he reached
enlightenment, mara the demon came: he sent his daughters to seduce him, to
attack him with an army,offered him his kingdom and tried to attack siddhartha but
the buddha stayed and became enlightened. Mara claimed no one else had seen this
and no one would believe them but the buddha called nature and it shook. He then
had the three watches of the night: learnt about his previous lives, the cycle of
samsara and kamma, learnt about suffering and how to overcome it
● Even though he was enlightened he stayed and told his wisdom and knowledge
The dhamma
● The Jataka tales tell about his life but so does the dhamma, its a book of all his
teachings
● The raft analogy: “my teaching is like a raft used to cross the river”
● Also one of the refugees “to the dhamma for refugee i go”
The concept of dependant arising
● Patticmascapuda teaches that everything relies on its surroundings, so who you
surround yourself with has a direct effect on you. When this is, that is
● The tibetan wheel of life illustrates it in relation to human life, death and rebirth (12
nidanas which show samsara)
● The wave analogy is that we’re a wave that is affected by the whole ocean around us
