Buddha

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Religious leader, founder of Buddhism, born at Lumbini in Nepal, and raised in his father's palace at Kapilavastu. At the age of 29 he left his wife and son and a life of luxury, to resolve the problems of existence. After six years of austerity he realized that asceticism, like overindulgence, was futile, and chose the Middle Way of meditation. He became enlightened under a bo, or bodhi, tree near Bodhgaya in Bihar, India. He began teaching at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and founded the Sangha, or order of monks. He spent the rest of his life travelling around northern India, and died at Kusinagara. He is not a god.

The Buddha's teaching is summarized as the Four Noble Truths: the fact of frustration or suffering; that suffering has a cause; that it can be ended; and that it can be ended by following the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration – eventually arriving at nirvana, the extinction of all craving for things of the senses and release from the cycle of rebirth.

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