User:Jondel/Buddha

=== Mara senses that Buddha is about to attain enlightenement and comes to distract him with his daughters.

In one scene Buddha declares his determination to reach enlightenment with the earth as a witness while touching the ground. ==== http://www.wisdom-books.com/FocusDetail.asp?FocusRef=14

The moment the world had been waiting for was at hand. Siddhartha now begun the great meditative trance from which he was to emerge on the full moon day of the month of Vesak as a Fully Enlightened One, a Buddha. Mara, who had been shadowing Siddhartha constantly throughout his spiritual quest, now trembled as he saw that if Siddhartha attained enlightenment he would forever be beyond his power. He realised he would have to shatter Siddhartha’s resolve and thus began an onslaught of threats, intimidation and temptation. It culminated in Mara summoning a terrifying horde of monsters of every conceivable description but even something as horrific as this still left Siddhartha unmoved, unperturbed. Instead he transformed the weapons which these monsters threw at him into lotus petals which exuded a lovely fragrance as they gently floated down to earth.

In desperation Mara challenged Siddhartha with a reign of fire, a deluge of burning blinding sheets, but in response to all this Siddhartha simply remained untouched and profoundly composed. Mara screamed at Siddhartha what right he had to sit on the sacred seat which had seen countless Buddhas enlightened in lives many aeons before him. Siddhartha calmly explained that he was there due to countless previous lives of practising generosity as well as the rest of the ten transcendental virtues. At this point Mara shrieked at Siddhartha what witness he had to back up such statements, to which Siddhartha reached down and touched the earth with his fingertips. “The earth is my witness,” he told Mara. At this point there was an immense booming and rumbling which made the earth shake. Mara’s host of monsters and Mara himself fled in panic, utterly defeated.

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== http://www.buddhismtoday.com/index/dialogue.htm

== http://www.buddhismtoday.com/index/dialogue.htm

Indeed, the Buddha was born a Hindu prince, and much of his teaching was aimed at a reform of the structure and complexities of Hinduism. For example, the Buddha, like another great Indian religious reformer, Gandhi, deplored the Hindu caste system.

The "historical Buddha" (the term "buddha" actually refers to an awakened or enlightened being) was born Siddhartha Gautama about 563 BC, near the border of Nepal. A wealthy prince, he lived in luxury, married happily, and had a son. Like many people of his class, he had been protected from viewing the harsher aspects of life. Legend has it that one day he went out from the palace and for the first time saw poverty, sickness, and death. Overwhelmed by these realities, he renounced his worldly position and became a wandering mendicant, seeking the meaning of life. After years of fasting, begging, and traveling, he sat down under a bodhi tree and sank into a deep meditation lasting 49 days. At last he achieved enlightenment, and Siddhartha became a buddha.

The answer he found after his contemplation was that to escape from suffering and misery, human beings must eliminate desire and attachment. In this world, he maintained, evil is caused by desire, which grows from ignorance caused by wrong thought and misdirected action. Thus, in order to achieve nirvana, an individual must extinguish desire by renouncing evil action and atoning for wrongs already done, either in this or in a previous life. Each life an individual passes through is another chance to escape the wheel. If he or she ignores opportunities for thinking and right action, in the next incarnation he or she will have to pay for past mistakes. The Five Precepts in Buddhist teaching resemble the Ten Commandments and prescribe guidelines for right living. They are: not to kill, steal, do sexual wrong, lie, or use any intoxicants. Thus, a devout Buddhist should be both a pacifist and a vegetarian.