GOTAMA BUDDHA

Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else's ability or with the thought, "This monk is our teacher," When you know in yourselves: "These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness," then you should practice and abide in them.

From the Kalama Sutta (trans. Nanamoli Thera)

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Siddhartha Gotama, born into the ruling elite of a North Indian oligarchy, was traumatized by his encounters with sickness, aging and death. He abandoned his privileged life to confront these three realities at the root of all anxiety.

Today, psychologists and even physiologists know that attempts to distract ourselves from our mortality can lead to obsessive disorders that may drive anxiety underground but also undermine our mental and physical well-being. With its non-intellectual, empirical approach, the Buddhist method coaches us to face the facts of life. With practice our illusions gradually fall away and we become free to live life to the full.

Gotama called his method Mindfulness – a way of reaching inside to confront illusion and stress. He spent forty-five years teaching, constantly undermining his students’ beliefs and encouraging them to explore their own inner space with non-judgmental watchfulness. What he taught was neither philosophy nor religion, but exploration. At his death he refused to appoint a successor and told his followers, “Seek no refuge in others.” In spite of that, many schools of Buddhism have evolved, all claiming to be Gotama’s legitimate heir.

GOTAMA BUDDHA
was born in Northern
India about
2,500 years ago