An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Buddhism
It is known that the Buddha lived for 80 years and most probably from 
c484– c404 BCE.
27
 Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince of the Sakya 
clan in Kapilavastu, in modern Nepal. Because of a prophecy at his 
birth that he would either become an emperor or a holy man, his father, 
in order to avoid the latter, ensured that he remained in the palace, 
protected from the realities of life. He was surrounded by luxury and had 
a beautiful wife and a son. However, aged about 30, he left the palace 
with his charioteer to explore the outside world. He discovered the ‘Four 
Signs’: he saw an old man, a sick man and a corpse and learned that age, 
sickness and death were a normal part of everyone’s life. He then saw a 
sannyasin or holy man and it was explained that this man was searching 
for a way to understand and overcome these states. 
This changed his life. As a result, in what became known as the Great 
Renunciation, Siddhartha left his wife, child and family to go out into the 
world to seek the wisdom to overcome age, sickness and death. After 
much fruitless exploration and years of ascetic practice he sat down under 
a fig tree, vowing to remain until he gained Enlightenment. 
There, he had a profound experience of insight into the nature of life, 
death and human suffering and what is needed to overcome this. Thus he 

---

Religious and Spiritual Experience
32
became the Buddha, One who is Enlightened or Awake and the tree 
became known as the Bodhi Tree (Tree of Enlightenment). Siddhartha 
had awoken to the human predicament, to an awareness of the roots of 
human suffering, which lie in enslavement to greed, hatred and delusion. 
It is said that Mara, a representation of evil, attempted to thwart Gauta-
ma’s efforts but was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Buddha’s first sermon was preached in the Deer Park in Banaras 
(Benares), to a group of friends, who had accompanied him on his ascetic 
search. This was later referred to as the first turning of the Wheel of the 
Dharma, and marked the beginning of his teaching life, which lasted 
about forty years. He taught the Four Noble Truths: 
The reality of suffering in life; 
The cause – selfish desire; 
The possibility of overcoming this; 
The means, through the Noble Eightfold Path: 
right views, right thoughts, right speech, right action, right livelihood, 
right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
Gautama is regarded as one of a series of Buddhas or enlightened 
beings to appear on the earth. He is the Buddha for our age, but another, 
Maitreya, is expected, and many have existed before in previous ages.
Buddhists follow the Buddha’s teachings, whether in the Mahayama, 
Theravada or Vajrayana schools, which have given rise to other move-
ments such as Zen and Pure Land Buddhism in Japan. When Buddhism 
spread to China, two philosophies or spiritual movements already held 
sway, Daoism or Taoism and Confucianism. Little is known for certain 
about the founders of these traditions, although there is no shortage of 
legends.