Gautama Buddha - Introducing Buddha

Contents

Many Introducing Graphic Guides are now available in ebook format - including the titles below. Check in at introducingbooks.com/ebooks/ to keep up to date with more titles as they are published in ebook format.

9781848317567 - Introducing Psychology

9781848317574 - Introducing Quantum Theory

9781848317581 - Introducing Philosophy

9781848317598 - Introducing Freud
*not available in North America

9781848317604 - Introducing Postmodernism

9781848317611 - Introducing Logic

9781848317628 - Introducing Nietzsche

9781848317635 - Introducing Marxism

9781848317642 - Introducing Particle Physics

9781848317659 - Introducing Capitalism

9781848317666 - Introducing Chaos

9781848317673 - Introducing Ethics

9781848317697 - Introducing Foucault

9781848317703 - Introducing Relativity

9781848317710 - Introducing Linguistics

9781848317727 - Introducing Time

9781848317734 - Introducing Statistics

9781848317741 - Introducing Islam

9781848317758 - Introducing Continental Philosophy

9781848317765 - Introducing Slavoj Zizek

9781848317772 - Introducing Stephen Hawking

9781848317789 - Introducing Economics

9781848317796 - Introducing Melanie Klein

9781848317802 - Introducing Critical Theory

9781848317819 - Introducing Genetics

9781848317826 - Introducing Feminism

9781848317833 - Introducing Fractals

There is much misunderstanding about who or what the Buddha was. The word Buddha literally means awakened one.

Eastern traditions recognize that there have been many buddhas in the past and will be many buddhas in the future.

Nevertheless, there was a historical figure, whose family name was Siddhartha Gautama, and who has become known as the Buddha for this age. He was also known as Sakyamuni Buddha, the sage of the Sakyas. The life and teachings of the historical Buddha are a milestone in human understanding, but the Buddha himself was an ordinary man with no claims to divine origin. Belief in a creator God has no part in the Buddhist religion.

In the Buddhist lineage, knowledge is not handed down like an antique. One teacher experiences the truth of the teachings and hands it down as inspiration to his students. That inspiration wakens the student who passes it on further. The teachings are seen as always up to date, they are not thought of as ancient wisdom.