Buddha's Ascetic Life & Enlightenment (AQA GCSE Religious Studies A (8062))

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

The Buddha’s Ascetic Life

• Ascetics live a strict and simple lifestyle with few possessions

• Siddharta lived as an ascetic for six years to try to overcome the problem of suffering:

  • He lived as an ascetic because he was inspired by the holy man he had seen in the last of the Four Sights

• Living as an ascetic involved:

  • Living in dangerous forests

  • Sleeping on a bed of thorns

  • Eating so little that he became very thin and weak

• During this time, Siddharta studied with various holy men and learned to practice Meditation

Siddharta became dangerously thin while living an ascetic lifestyle

_{John Wigham , CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Siddharta became dangerously thin while living an ascetic lifestyle

Siddharta Turns Away from Ascetism

• During his six years of ascetic living, Siddharta learned discipline

• But he had still not found an answer to the problem of suffering:

• One day, Siddharta accepted a gift of a bowl of rice and milk from a cowgirl

• It restored his strength and he decided to stop living as an ascetic

• Siddhartha had now realised that neither a luxury lifestyle nor a life of self-denial was going to provide him with spiritual wisdom

• He would have to find a middle way between these extremes

The Buddha's Enlightenment

Siddharta’s Meditation

• Siddharta realised that neither a life of luxury nor strict self-denial was the right path to spiritual enlightenment

• He followed a third path, or “middle way” of Meditation

• Siddharta refused to stop meditating until he found enlightenment:

• As Siddharta meditated, traditional stories tell how the demon Mara appeared to him repeatedly

• Mara tried to distract him with tactics such as:

  • Sending his daughters to seduce Siddharta

  • Sending his armies to attack Siddharta

  • Offering Siddharta control of his kingdom

  • Questioning his right to sit at the seat of enlightenment

• Siddharta used his self-discipline to withstand all of these temptations

• He stayed focused on his meditation

_{CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

While Buddha meditated, the demon Mara tried to scare and distract him to stop him from achieving enlightenment

The Buddha’s Enlightenment

• Siddharta reached a stage of enlightenment with three important realisations

• This took place during different periods of the night, and so they are known as the three watches of the night

The Enlightenment

• After his enlightenment, Siddharta became known as the Buddha, which means “the enlightened one” or “the fully awakened one”

• He taught his spiritual wisdom first to The five ascetics, who were his first students

• He asked his followers to choose a middle way between the extremes of luxury and Asceticism

• His teaching became known as the Dhamma:

  • They guide Buddhists in the path they need to follow to reduce dukkha and gain enlightenment in their own lives