History of Buddhism – Days of Mindfulness Practice

Before the Buddha passing into Parinirvana
Buddhism was discovered by Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddha’s real name was Siddhartha Gautama. The word Buddha is a title, not a name in itself, meaning “one who is awake to reality” and given to Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha was born into the royal family, King Shuddhodan and Queen Mahamaya, of a small kingdom of the Sakya clan in Kapilavastu district of Nepal in India. He was born on the Full Moon of May in 624 BC in Lumbini Nepal with thirty two marks of a great man and prophesied that he would become either a great political leader ruling the four quarters of the earth in perfect justice or a world spiritual leader, Buddha. After eight days when he was born his mother died, his mother’s younger sister named Mahaprajapati Gotami raised him and was then a second wife of King Suddhodanan.

As a prince, Siddhartha received royal education, spiritual disciplines of the Hinduism by the Brahmins, trainings in martial art and the art of warfare. He surpassed all his peers in any activities such as wrestling, archery and so on, exhibited matchless prowess in every field of learning and soon outclassed his teachers in various domains of academic study and artistic expression. As an intelligent grown-up young prince, the king Suddhodana, preferring Prince Siddhartha to be a great king, therefore he raised his son in a great luxury and shielded him from knowing of the human suffering.

At the age of thirteen, Gautama was escorted by his charioteer, Channa, to visit outside of the palace. He encountered the four sights of aging, sickness, death, and a serene ascetic who had renounced the world and sought release from fear of death and suffering. The four encounters affected immensely Siddhartha’s state of mind, thus motivating him to seek for the reason of existence. The king got perturbed by whatever his son was going through. Therefore, he arranged Siddhartha’s marriage to a beautiful princess named Yasodhara at the age of sixteen. For nearly thirteen years of his happy marriage and luxurious life, his contemplative nature and boundless compassion did not permit him to spend his time in the pleasure enjoyment of the Royal palace. When Siddhartha was 29 years old, his son Rahula was just born, he decided to leave his wife, newly born son, family and palace on a silent night with his attendant Channa to seek for the ultimate truth.

Gautama studied under various teachers and followed their practices until he mastered them all. His first teacher was Alara Kalama who taught a form of meditation leading to a state of the realm of no materiality which no phenomenon exists outside of one's mind. Gautama reached this state but saw that this was not going to resolve suffering and the fundamental problem of birth and death, thus continuing his search. The next teacher was Udraka Ramaputra who taught him meditative absorption leading to "the state of neither perception nor non-perception". Again, Gautama reached this state and realized this was not the state he was looking for.
Next, he tried extreme ascetic practices at Uruvilva in North India, with five other ascetics who turned into his followers. In the end, Gautama nearly died of starvation. He realized that just wearing down his body did not generate new insights but rather led to weakness and self-destruction. When he decided to give up extreme asceticism, his five students left him.

After about six years of searching for the ultimate truth, he decided to follow his own path, the Middle Path, which showed the way to a balanced and harmonious life based on the practice of virtue, mindfulness meditation and the intensive analysis of all psycho-physical phenomena that finally led to full understanding of things as the way they really were, not the way of the two extremes: a life of pleasure and fasting. He sat down beneath a pipal tree (Bodhi Tree) in Bodhgaya near Benaras and vowed that "flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I should not rise from this spot until Enlightenment had been won". After forty-nine days of sitting under the Bodhi Tree, he finally attained Enlightenment on the night of the full moon in May at the age of 35 years old.

After seven weeks of enlightenment, the Buddha gave his first famous sermon, which is called “setting the wheel of the teaching in motion”, to the five ascetics, whom he had lived and followed the ascetic lifestyle, at the Deer Park in Sarnath. He explained to them The Four Noble Truth and Eightfold Path. They became his very first disciples and the Sangha began. From then on, he traveled through much of northern India and taught the way to Enlightenment to others and had numerous disciples who gained Enlightenment in their own right. They, in turn, taught others and in this way, an unbroken chain of teaching has continued, right down to the present day known as Buddhism.
The Buddha passed into parinirvana at the age of 80 years old on the full moon of May in 544 BC at Kushinara between two large Sala trees. Some of Buddha’s essential teachings during 45 years can be listed as followings: Laws of Karma, The Four Noble Truth, The Eightfold Path, the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-arising, the Characteristics of Existence, and Factors of Enlightenment etc. The Buddha once summarized his entire teachings into one sentence: “I teach about suffering and the way to end it.”

After the Buddha passing into Parinirvana
The First Council
The first council of Buddhism Sangha was organized a few months after Buddha attained Mahaparinirvana. It was held in Rajagaha, with the aim of developing an agreement on his teachings. However, the teachings of Buddha were not written down even then.

The Second Council
The second council took place around 100 years after the Mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha. The aim of the council, held at Vesali, was to settle a conflict over the nature of the arahant (or Buddhist saint) and monastic discipline, which had arisen between Mahasanghika majority (Great Assembly) of eastern India and Sthavira minority (the Elders) of the west.

The Era of Asoka the Great
Asoka, the first Buddhist Emperor, was the ruler of the Magadhan Empire. Initially a ruler obsessed with the aim of expanding his empire, he changed after witnessing the brutal carnage at the battle of Kalinga. This event led him towards Buddhism and he built his empire into a Buddhist state, a first of its kind. He laid the foundation of numerous stupas and spread the teachings of Lord Buddha throughout the world.

The Third Council
The third council of Buddhism Sangha was held under Emperor Asoka, in Pataliputra. The reason for the council was deterioration in the standards of the monks. The consequence of the council was exclusion of numerous bogus monks from the Sangha.

Spread of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
Emperor Asoka sent his son, Mahindra, to Sri Lanka to spread Buddhism in the state. He succeeded in converting the King of Sri Lanka to Buddhism and soon, Buddhism became the state religion of the country.

The Fourth Council
The Fourth Council took place in Sri Lanka, in the Aloka Cave near the village of Matale. It was in this council that decision was taken to write the teachings of Lord Buddha for the first time. The entire writing was collected in three baskets and given the name of Tipitaka or the Pali Canon. It comprises of three Pitakas, namely Vinaya Pitaka (the rules for the monks and nuns), the Sutta Pitaka (Buddha's discourses) and the Abhidhamma Pitaka (philosophical and psychological systemization of the Buddha’s teachings). Another Fourth Buddhist Council (Sarvastivada tradition) was held around 100 CE at Jalandhar or in Kashmir. It is said to have been convened by the Kushana king, Kanishka,

Mahayana Buddhism and New Scriptures
Mahayana Buddhism emerged and grew between 150 BCE and 100 CE. With the rise of this sect, new sutras emerged. The most significant ones are the Lotus Sutra, the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra.

Tantra
The period between the third and seventh century CE saw the establishment of a new form of Buddhism, which emerged out of the Mahayana sect. This form came to be known as Tantra, Mantrayana, and Vajrayana. Tantras emphasized on the bodhisattva ideal and empathy for all beings. At the same time, it also laid stress on drawing of mandalas or 'magic' circles, symbolic hand gestures known as mudras, the recitation of phrases known as mantras and visualizations. It was also believed that one needs an experienced teacher or guru to learn the teachings of Lord Buddha.

Current Status of Buddhism
Today, Buddhism has spread to almost all the countries in the world, with the population of Buddhists estimated to be around 350 million. Out of these, almost half the number practice Mahayana tradition. The largest population of Buddhist is in China, while Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar have the highest proportion of Buddhists in their population. The religion is also becoming widespread in America, Australia and United Kingdom.

Buddhism is a path of spiritual development that helps people in finding the true nature of life. Buddhism emphasizes on experiencing, rather than teaching or learning and considers meditation as the means to enlightenment. The teachings of Buddha reveal a step-by-step path to lasting happiness. By following this path, anyone can gradually transform his or her mind from its present confused and self-centered state to the blissful mind of a Buddha. The followers of Buddhism do not worship any God but rather follow the noble eightfold path to lead to a meaningful existence.