Where Christian religions preach that one must have ‘blind faith’ in the aspects of the doctrine that you may have trouble accepting, Buddhism teaches that you should ‘question everything’ until you find an answer that satisfies you.

Buddhism not only teaches tolerance, it practices it. It does not claim that other religions are false, it encourages you to make your own judgements. There is no hard sell, and no requirement for monks to ‘save’ a quota of souls.

Consider this anecdote, my personal favourite, used in old teachings of Zen Buddhism:

Two monks were walking by a river at daybreak in the early spring. Swollen with melted snow, the river coursed about its banks, immersing the local footbridge, the only crossing for miles in either direction, under two feet of water. A young woman in a tight full length silk dress stood by the riverbank, terrified by the rushing water.

Seeing the monks, she flashed them a look of pleading. The younger monk avoided eye contact, whilst without a word, the older monk scooped her up in his arms, held her aloft as he struggled across the submerged bridge, and set her down on the far bank.

The two monks then continued walking in silence until sunset, when the vows of their order allowed them to speak.

“How could you have picked up that woman?” spluttered the younger monk, his eyes blazing with anger. “You know very well we are forbidden from even thinking about a woman, let alone touching one. You sullied your honour, You are a disgrace to the whole order,” he said, shaking his fist at his companion.

“Venerable brother,” said the older monk, “I put that woman down on the other side of the river at sunrise; it is you who have been carrying her all day”…….

For primary source one turns to the Buddha’s own words as recorded in his discourses, to the word of his disciples, and to the Buddhist scriptures. Secondary sources were written several hundred years after the Buddha’s death, and often reflect the particular religious convictions of the writer.

To people who, as in the case of Hindus, believed in gods and goddesses, to the animists who believed in spirits, to the Buddhists who believed in celestial beings and the several abodes of heaven and hell, it was only natural to impute to the Buddha supernatural and god-like qualities. He could perform miracles, communicate with the gods, transport himself to heaven, and so on.

And yet there are facts: his birth, his renunciation, his studies with gurus, his period of asceticism, his long period of intense meditation leading to enlightenment, his forty-five years devoted to teaching disciples, his establishment of the Sangha (the world’s oldest monastic order), his discourses - these are some of the facts that we know of the Buddha’s life.

These facts speak to the mind, the legends to the heart. Together they form a glorious story of a man who twenty-five centuries after his death is revered by millions world wide, not just in Asia, but in ever-increasing numbers in the western world.

As was the custom of the day, when Maha Maya approached the time for delivery, she wanted to return to her parental home. On their way to Koliya, Maya and her courtiers found themselves in Lumpini Grove, where she suddenly went into labour and gave birth to a son, in what was said to be a painless delivery. She died seven days later, and her younger sister, Prajapati, also wife to King Suddhodana, took on the responsibility of bringing up the child.

Soon after the birth, a sage and prophet named Asita came to see the boy, an declared that he was destined to be either a great king or great spiritual leader. Suddhodana then named his son Siddartha,  meaning “he who has accomplished all his aims”, and to make sure that he would be a great king and not a great spiritual leader, he resolved to keep the boy always at home, in luxurious, palatial surroundings, with amusements and diversions to keep him happily occupied.

At the age of twenty-nine Siddartha Gotama ventured out of the palace grounds for the first time. As he rode forth into an unknown world, his eyes came upon four sights that were to change the course of his world: The first was a old man: his hair was grey, his back bent, teeth broken, supporting himself on a cane and trembling. The second was a sick man, body diseased and infected. The third sight was the corpse of a dead man; and the fourth a religious mendicant, a Brahmin monk who had left the world and adopted a homeless life in order to seek salvation.

Siddartha enquired of his charioteer, Channa, just what these sights were, and after he was told the meaning of old age, sickness and death, he knew what he must do.

Modern historians and scholars view these “four passing sights” as a way to impute supra mundane happenings to mundane events. The Buddha-to-be may be presumed to have had a sensitive nature, a probing mind, and extraordinary intelligence. By the age of twenty-nine he must have witnessed old age, sickness and death, despite the attempts by his father to insulate him, and he would have been so distressed by these manifestations of human suffering that he would have resolved to seek the cause and the cure.

So at the age of twenty-nine Prince Siddartha Gotama became a 'renunciate'. He left his world of luxury, foregoing his inheritance and his future ascension to the rulership of the Sakyar, bid (silent) farewell to his beautiful wife and child, his concubines and worldly pleasures, and went forth into the world to seek knowledge and truth.

He then summoned Channa and told him to saddle his favourite horse; stealthily departing from the palace, they reached the river Anoma, beyond the territory of the Koliya. Siddartha dismounted, exchanged his princely clothes and ornaments for the rags of a passer-by, and told Channa to return to the palace and inform his father and wife that he had gone forth into the homeless life.

Siddartha Gotama then cut off his hair and went alone into the forests seeking those ascetics and teachers who might help him in his search. The first of these was Alara Kalama, a renowned Brahmin monk who resided at present-day Rajgir. His teachings were based on the belief in an eternal soul without which there could be no salvation. This did not appear to the Buddha-to-be to be the truth, so he left Alara, and turned to another renowned Brahmin monk, Udraka  Ramaputra.

Udaka expounded on the effects of karma and the transmigration of souls, and although Siddartha believed in the doctrine of Karma - the concept of cause and effect that transcends individual lifetimes - he questioned the existence of an eternal soul. Nevertheless, through his studies with Udraka, as well as with Alar, he absorbed considerable knowledge of Brahmin-Hindu beliefs, some of which he retained in his own later teaching. He felt that even though they had taught him everything they knew and believed, they had left many of his questions unanswered, especially his questions about suffering, how it came about and how it could be eliminated. And so he continued his search elsewhere…

In the jungles of Uruvela, near present-day Bodhgaya, he came across five ascetics who were “keeping their senses in check, subduing  their passions, and practising severe penance”. For the next six years, in the company of the five ascetics, Siddartha applied himself to self-mortification and the most severe  penance. He ate so little that his body wasted away, to the point that when he put his hand on his abdomen he could feel his spine.

A local girl named Sujata saw the starving Siddartha and prepared a meal of special rice-milk and offered it to him in a golden bowl. Revived by Sujata’s rice-milk, he recalled the meditation he had experienced when he was seven years old and decided that he would now sit and meditate intensely, concentrating uninterruptedly on the nature of life, the nature of reality, the nature of self, and especially on the nature of suffering - its cause and its elimination. He walked to the nearby town of Bodhgaya and sat down under a Bodhi tree.

How long he meditated is not truly known. Some commentaries say seven days, some as many as forty-nine days. However long his meditation might have lasted he arose at last as the Buddha, the “Enlightened One”.

So great an event later inspired wonderful legends. The most famous concerns the re-appearance of Mara, the Evil One, who came to the future Buddha as he sat under the Bodhi tree, and summoned all his forces to attack him. Storms, hot rocks, burning coals, sand and mud were all hurled at the Buddha but with no effect. Then Mara summoned his daughters Desire, Discontent, and Passion, but their efforts were in vain.

And then, touching his finger to the ground before him, Gotama asked the earth to bear witness to his rightful struggle for enlightenment, whereupon the earth responded with a frightful roar, and the Earth Goddess created a monstrous flood drowning all of Mara’s demon legions.

As dawn was breaking on the day of the full moon of Visakha (the same day as his birth and eventual death) Gotama achieved full enlightenment. Later, the Buddha was to say that at the moment of his enlightenment, there arose in him the knowledge of his emancipation, the realization that the cycle of rebirth was ended for him. Ignorance was dispelled, and knowledge arose. Darkness was dispelled and light arose. And in the same discourse he said enlightenment comes similarly to anyone who is vigilant, strenuous and resolute in their practice of the Dharma.

The first Noble Truth is the existence of suffering: Birth is suffering, sickness is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, dejection and despair are suffering. Contact with unpleasant things, not getting what one wants are suffering. Suffering must be comprehended, and its cause given up.

The Second Noble Truth is that the cause of suffering is craving or desire. Craving for pleasures, wealth, power, even craving for rebirth, create eventual suffering because of inherent greed and lust.

The Third Noble Truth is that anyone can eliminate the cravings (and thereby, the suffering) on his own, without the need of gods and priests to direct our beings.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the path leading to cessation of suffering. Known as The Eightfold Path, it consists of: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Buddha taught these fundamentals of what was to become one of the world’s great religious philosophies - a way of life towards individual salvation, and a path that is today followed by countless millions.

For the next fifty years the Buddha travelled the length and breadth of what is now Northern India, teaching the Dharma to anyone willing to listen, from simple peasants to royalty, including his own family. He also instructed his monks to “teach”, not proselytize, out of Buddhist respect for all religions.

The spread of Buddhism for more than twenty-five hundred years has occurred because many millions of people have recognized in the Buddha’s teachings a truth intensely and personally meaningful to them, a path to their self enlightenment.

Ananda then asked what those disciples should do who had been accustomed to pay reverence to the Buddha when the Rainy Season had ended. The Buddha told him there were four places to which a faithful disciple might go, places that would rouse his devotion: LUMPINI GROVE, where the Buddha was born; BODHGAYA, where he attained enlightenment ; SARNATH, where he delivered his first discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of the Doctrine; and KUSINARA (Kashinagar), where he would soon attain complete nirvana.

On what was to be the last day of his life and still seriously ill, he stayed in the mango grove of a smith named Cunda, who prepared for him a meal accidentally contaminated with a bacteria, which made the Buddha dreadfully sick, causing violent pains. Through the force of mindfulness and meditation the Buddha was able to control the pains, and continued on to Kusinara with Ananda.

Proceeding to a quiet grove, the Buddha laid down for the last time, his head pointing to the north, and received devotees from the village. Asking the five hundred assembled monks if any of them had any doubts, misgivings, or questions about any matter of the Dharma, all were silent.

With his last breath, the Buddha addressed this final advise to his disciples: “Decay is inherent in all compound things. Work on your salvation with diligence”. Then, as the founder of one of the world’s great religions, the compassionate teacher who showed mankind how to escape suffering, entered nirvana, lotus blossoms fell from heaven and covered his body.