Author Description

The man who came to be known as Buddha (an honorific meaning "Enlightened One" or "Awakened One") was born in the sixth century B.C., heir to a small kingdom in the Himalayan foothills of what is now Nepal. His name was Siddhartha Gotama. At the age of twenty-nine he experienced a deeply disturbing epiphany about suffering and death that led him to abandon his life of luxury and seek an ultimate answer in the forest. After six years of meditation and austerities, however, he realized he was no closer to Truth than when he'd begun. In desperation he sat beneath the now famous Bodhi tree and vowed not to get up until he was enlightened. It happened. Afterwards, he stood and walked a few steps from where he'd sat. He looked back and shook his head. He sat again in the spot beneath the tree and said, "This cannot be taught." For the next forty-five years, however, he traveled throughout northern India expounding the Dhamma-the Teaching, the Way. A large order of monks and nuns formed around him and hundreds or even thousands might gather for one of his talks. At the age of eighty he died peacefully in the town of Kusinara, surrounded by disciples. The Dhammapada ("aspects of the Dhamma") is widely regarded as the most succinct expression of Buddha's teaching found in the Pali Canon. In Theravedic Buddhist countries it is used in monasteries as a primer for novices, and by the general population as an essential guidebook for resolving the problems of daily life. It contains profound instructions for seekers of spiritual enlightenment, as well as basic principles for living a moral life free of suffering.