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Guantama Buddha's Story

Many, many centuries ago (563 BC), Shuddhodana, a great king and leader of the Shakyas people, married a fair young maiden called Mahamaya who gave him the most beautiful son who he named Siddhartha.  The birth was difficult and by the week’s end, Mahamaya died.  Shuddhodana appointed Mahamaya’s sister to take care of his son. 

One of the King’s sages noticed thirty-two special signs on the baby’s body, warning the King that the baby would become an enlightened ascetic, a Buddha, teaching many. 

But the King, determined to have his son rule his kingdom as his heir, took action to prevent the sage’s prediction from being realized.  He shut the real world out and confined his son to his three marbled palaces, one for each of the seasons.  Siddhartha was exposed only to the palace environment of beauty and pleasure. His time was filled with leisure, musicians, dancing maidens and delicious food. 

Yet he grew into a splendid young man, good in studies, kind, and handsome; he excelled in sports and the martial arts.  Though he was allowed many concubines, at age sixteen he married his beautiful young cousin Yashodhara.

But time was marching on, and Siddhartha, no longer a young man, grew curious about the world beyond the palace.  With his groom, Channa, he stole away at night.  The first night outside the palace he met a hoary old man; the second night he was exposed to a sick, leprous man; the third night out he witnessed a corpse being carried for cremation; the fourth night out he was confronted by a wandering holy man which we call a sadhu or renunciate.  Though the sadhu was dressed in rags, he wore a strange peace, which no one else had.

Siddhartha, traumatized by the deplorable human condition outside the palace, quickly matured, realizing that all human beings, including himself, were susceptible to sickness, old age and death.  With new clarity, he sought to overcome this pain and suffering for himself and others.  He kept recalling the renunciate and marveled at and was haunted by his deep tranquility.

Later in the night after his wife Yashodhara gave birth to a fine son, Rahula, Siddhartha ran off, having renounced his wealth, position, and family, to find an answer to human suffering.  Somehow he knew the answer lay with renunciation. 

At first, under several shramana teachers, he studied and learned meditation.  He then became an ascetic, living in the jungle, filled with wild animals.  He was naked and alone, sleeping on a bed of thorns.  He would hold his breath until he passed out.  He even starved himself until he lost all strength.  He continued to subject his body to extreme forms of deprivation.  After suffering for six years, he realized that all of this was only leading to more suffering and eventually, to death. 

Lost, he prayed to God, and soon remembered a child that he once saw meditating under an apple tree.  He would meditate! Sitting on a cushion of grass beneath the Bodhi tree, he meditated until he found his answer. 

While he meditated, Mara, god of the ego and body, also known as Satan, appeared before Siddhartha, tempting and alluring him away from his meditation.  Mara first used fear of death and the supernatural.  When that failed, he used sexual desire to distract him.  But Siddhartha held fast, and after many months of meditation, he entered the state of or enlightenment we call ‘samadhi’.  He also attained special powers called ‘dhyanas’. 

   With a clear and concentrated mind, Siddhartha soon practiced insight meditation and gained special, esoteric knowledge.  He learned of his former lives and the workings of karma and the cycles of life and death.  He learned that those with bad karma were reborn into miserable lives while those with good karma were reborn into happy lives.   He learned how to overcome desires and addictions, to gain freedom from the taints of his ignorance, sensual desire, and attachments to things and thoughts, even the desire for life.

He realized that he was not separate from you and me and the universe.  He realized that the ‘I’ or ‘Ego’ was an illusion created by Maya or Satan. 

Once he freed himself from all of his attachments and desires, he found an unlimited source of energy.

Following the night of May’s full moon, with the morning star arising, he saw the world for the first time, without illusion, as the ‘Awakened One’, as the ‘Buddha’. 

In a meditative state, God came to him and asked him to teach, to help people free themselves from suffering.  With deep compassion, he agreed.  The remainder of his life, forty-five years, he wandered through different kingdoms, teaching.  He even returned home to his family and taught them the path of freedom.  He established great teaching monasteries in many of the kingdoms.  He loved and respected all people.  He even allowed his aunt-mother, his wife and other women to enter the monasteries as nuns while the men entered as monks.  He helped the sick, washed and cared for them and encouraged his monks and nuns to also care for the sick.  As a role model, he taught by example. 

But after forty-five years of teaching and healing, he succumbed to illness, collapsing in a grove of blossoming shala trees where he died after choosing not to prolong his life using special powers.  His last words were: ‘Impermanent are all created things.  Strive on mindfully’.”

Created 6-4-95 by One Spirit Ministries aka God's Church , Rev. H. Heinz © Copyright , All Rights Reserved, December 26, 1995 by God's Church.  Last updated  06/15/2006.  We are an IRS approved 501(c)(3) church.  We are also affiliated with the World Federation of Practical Christianity (aka World Federation of Independent Unity Churches), Association of Inner and Interfaith Ministries, and friends with Association of Unity Churches, and other New Thought and Religious Science Churches, and other Metaphysics Ministries.