Shakyamuni Buddha is the historical founder of Buddhism, often referred to simply as "the Buddha." After 550 previous human rebirths Shakyamuni finally attained to becoming a bodhisattva ("a being destined to become a buddha".)

He and was born the son of King Suddhodana in 563 B.C. in India and was given the birth name Siddhartha.

Siddhartha made rapid progress in his formal eduction, occasionally even surprising his teachers.

At the age of sixteen he was married to Yashodhara who bore him a son Rahula.

Siddhartha encounters old age, illness, and death which are always linked one to the other.

He resolved to think about "deliverance." It appeared to him when he enountered a religious mendicant who, "with inward tranquility" went "without attachements, without hatred, begging for alms."

On his twenty-ninth birthday, at night, the Bodhisattva abandoned his wealthy family and secretly departed from the palace. Then he sent back his horse and all his belongings.

Prince Siddhartha assumed the life of the itinerant monk Gautama, accepting hospitality wherever he could find it.

For six years, turning to practices and disciplines of yoga and prolonged fasting, he wasted away and fell into a state of of extreme weakness.

But then he realized, that only people who avoid all kinds of excess will attain the goals they set for themselves.

He sought and finally attained complete perfect enlightenment. The remaining forty-five years of his life were spent teaching the Dharma (the buddhist teachings), that has been handed down to us today.

Shakyamuni Buddha delivered many thousand scriptures, among them the important Pure Land Sutras.

Buddha is not a name, it is a title. It means "Awakened One, Enlightened One". Buddha found the answer to why everything in the world is imperfect, why people suffer, and how to stop the suffering.

After his death, Shakyamuni Buddha was transformed into Nirvana and since then dwells in the state of perfect peace and infinite wisdom in the buddha-lands.