The word 'Buddha' is a title and not a name. It means 'one who is awake' in the sense of having 'woken up to reality'. It was first given to a man who was born as Siddhartha Gautama in Nepal 2,500 years ago. Scholars now place the date of his birth around 480BCE (BC). He did not claim to be a God and he has never been regarded as such by Buddhists. He was a human being who became Enlightened, understanding life in the deepest way possible. Buddhists believe he attained a state of being that goes beyond anything else in the world.

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of life. During the remaining 45 years of his life he travelled through much of northern India, spreading his teaching of the

The founder of Taoism was Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius. He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted life during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching

There are around 350 million Buddhists and a growing number of them are Westerners. They follow many different forms of Buddhism, but all traditions are characterized by non-violence, lack of dogma, tolerance of differences, and, usually, by the practice of meditation.

way to Enlightenment. The teaching is known in the East as the Buddha-dharma - 'the teaching of the Enlightened One'.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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