Outside reading (3): Skylar Minick

I chose a reading about Buddhism that I found online because In my Art History class we were talking about the religion and I did not know much about it before and wanted to learn more. Siddhartha Gautama was a Hindu prince before he became buddha. At his birth he received a prophecy that he would either become a great king or a religious leader and his father did not want the latter. Because his father was so worried about him becoming a religious leader he tried to shield Siddhartha from all of life's sufferings. When Siddhartha finally broke free for a little bit he saw four signs which were a sick man, an aged man, a dead man, and a religious ascetic. These four signs made him realize all of those things would be him one day which drove him to the conclusion that all of life is suffering. This suffering could be from want or from loss. After his epiphany he decided he wanted to follow in the path of the religious ascetic. He studied under many religious mentors then eventually became enlightened on his own. He then began to preach his four noble truths and the eightfold path to enlightenment. the four noble truths were the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. And the eightfold path to enlightenment was the path to nirvana with eight steps, right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.