Questions for you to think about:

What did Siddhattha see from the people with old age and sickness?

What was found out by Siddhattha after he saw the people in suffering and the death of human beings?

Why did Siddhattha say, “the whole world is a dream?”

What was the Middle Way that Siddhattha found out?

What did the daughters of five Aggregates do to Siddhathha?

What was the last image that Siddhattha fight against before he became Buddha—The enlightened one.

What is Buddha’s path of liberation?

Key terms related to the story of Buddha and handouts:

Dhamma: Buddha’s teaching, knowledge. It means “characteristic quality” of truthfulness.

The Dhammapada: “saying of Dhamma.” It is the Pali version of one of the most popular texts of Buddhist canon. It belongs to the Theravada school of the Buddhist tradition.

The Five Aggregates: the Aggregate of Matter, the Aggregate of Sensations, the Aggregate of Perceptions, the Aggregate of Mental Formations, and the Aggregate of Consciousness.

Perception…mental states: the pure event of seeing, hearing, smelling, etc. an object is “perception”; the concurrent rise of attachment, hate, anger, desire, etc. with regard to it is the mental states.

Mara: Mara stands for all that is antithetical to the religious enterprise. Variously represented as an evil being of great power out to wreck the religious life of persons, as the defiling forces of the psyche, the five aggregates of which the psycho-physical personality is made up, the influences of past karma, and somewhat differently, Death itself. Also called King of Death, End-maker.

Yellow robe: the dress of the monk, symbolic of renunciation of worldly pursuits.

Passion: greed and all expressions of sensual desire. It is the first of the three unwholesome “roots”

The Deathless: Nibbana (SKt. Nirvana), the final goal of the Buddhist religious quest. It is psychologically represented as the extinction of greed, hate, and delusion, supreme happiness, etc. and metaphysically as Immortal, Undecaying, Unmade, Unconditioned, etc.

Bhikkhu: literally one who begs (for alms), that is a mendicant monk. At the time of the Buddha, it was customary for members of religious orders to live on alms provided by the lay society, who regarded it as a duty of support the religious.

Kamma (SKt. Karma): volitional action, cause and effect. Literally, it means action, deed.