Buddhism, The Path Of Illumination: Esoteric Teachings

The Buddha, whose name was Siddharta Gautama, lived in northern India in the sixth century. The Buddha was born, during the journey that was to lead the Queen Maya, wife of the head of the Sakya clan, the noble warrior Suddhodana, to give birth to the first child in the paternal house, according to the tradition of the time. But tradition has it that the young woman never reached the house and gave birth in a grove, giving birth to the one who will become the Buddha. Before embarking on his spiritual quest, the Buddha lived in ease near his father's palace, following the education necessary to one day become king of a region that roughly corresponds to present-day Nepal. Shortly before he was thirty, Prince Siddhartha met people who were experiencing sickness, old age and death, remaining very impressed and upset. In the same way he was deeply admired by the serenity shown by a wise hermit. By maturing these experiences, Prince Siddharthahe realized the precariousness and the temporariness of his state of ease and abandoned his home and his family, in search of a definitive solution to the great sufferings of the world.