What is the history behind Buddha?

Answer 1

Buddha was earlier called Siddhartha a prince of a great kingdom having a beautiful wife and lovely child.

He had all comforts and luxuries, but one day when he saw an ill person, an old person and a dead body, he was moved on the pitiable condition of human

so he left his palace and sat in jungle and did hard penance for many years...and finally he saw the truth

His teachings are what buddhism is

non-violence
detachment
peace and love

Answer 2

A Buddha is someone who reaches full enlightenment. The word Buddha is simply a title that means 'The Awakened One'.
I think you are referring to Siddhartha Gautama, though he is not considered the only Buddha. He was a spiritual teacher in Ancient India and is the founder of Buddhism.

Answer 3

Basic Beliefs and Practices

The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the "four noble truths" : existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trishna); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana; and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the "eightfold path" of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance.

Experience is analyzed into five aggregates (skandhas). The first, form (rupa), refers to material existence; the following four, sensations (vedana), perceptions (samjna), psychic constructs (samskara), and consciousness (vijnana), refer to psychological processes. The central Buddhist teaching of non-self (anatman) asserts that in the five aggregates no independently existent, immutable self, or soul, can be found. All phenomena arise in interrelation and in dependence on causes and conditions, and thus are subject to inevitable decay and cessation. The casual conditions are defined in a 12-membered chain called dependent origination (pratityasamutpada) whose links are: ignorance, predisposition, consciousness, name-form, the senses, contact, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, old age, and death, whence again ignorance.

With this distinctive view of cause and effect, Buddhism accepts the pan-Indian presupposition of samsara, in which living beings are trapped in a continual cycle of birth-and-death, with the momentum to rebirth provided by one's previous physical and mental actions (see karma). The release from this cycle of rebirth and suffering is the total transcendence called nirvana.

From the beginning, meditation and observance of moral precepts were the foundation of Buddhist practice. The five basic moral precepts, undertaken by members of monastic orders and the laity, are to refrain from taking life, stealing, acting unchastely, speaking falsely, and drinking intoxicants. Members of monastic orders also take five additional precepts: to refrain from eating at improper times, from viewing secular entertainments, from using garlands, perfumes, and other bodily adornments, from sleeping in high and wide beds, and from receiving money. Their lives are further regulated by a large number of rules known as the Pratimoksa. The monastic order (sangha) is venerated as one of the "three jewels," along with the dharma, or religious teaching, and the Buddha. Lay practices such as the worship of stupas (burial mounds containing relics) predate Buddhism and gave rise to later ritualistic and devotional practices.

Answer 4

He was a great spiritual leader/saint, maybe even a prophet, but as time passed by, through word of mouth and political advantages for certain people, his stories became exaggerated and was given divinity; e.g. like Hinduism, Judaism, or Christianity.

Answer 5

I'm just curious how many people who cut and pasted huge blocks of text above actually read them? Hmm...

Anyways, I've placed below a link on the basics of Buddhism. You can find that and more information on Buddhanet.net

Good luck on your journey :)

Answer 6

buddha was an actual person and now they look to him as a spiritual entity.

Answer 7

Was he not the past living human kind who write kitchen's ghost stories on planet earth?
Observe how living human kind pray and burn tons of joss stick in idol worshiping the dead who was past living human kind and not worshiping God on planet earth?
Observe how living human kind all ended up in throwing pots and pans over the kitchen's ghost stories in bashing up one another on planet earth.

Answer 8

Try here:

http://www.mahasiusa.org/bdwin1-4.html

Answer 9

He was some fat guy that used to run a laundrymat

Answer 10

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/his.html
http://festivals.iloveindia.com/buddha-purnima/lord-buddha.html
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/his.html