The Buddhas Life, Written for Sixth Graders

Note: This lesson was preceded by an activity designed to historically contextualize the Buddha's life.

A few months ago, I spent one week teaching a group of sixth graders about the origins of Buddhism in India.  I looked at a number of resources describing the Buddhas life, and judging them inadequate to my goals, decided to write my own version.  I broke Siddhartha's life into four stages and attempted to tell the story so that both the historical context and the spiritual meaning could be explored by twelve year olds.  

I accomplished this in part by describing spirituality as the sincere attempt to become as calm, as loving, and as wise as possible, and by framing the events in his life as either facilitating or not facilitating those goals.  I realize that in doing so, I have taken some historical liberties.  I felt the approach was justified because these goals do indeed reflect the goals of the bodhisattva path (the Buddhist devotion to helping all beings attain liberation), and because students can relate to the experience of and desire to be calm, loving, and wise.  I feel this frame brought the Buddha down to earth, out of the clouds of abstraction.  It created an opportunity for students to be deeply introspective, proving to me, once again, that students of all ages crave the chance to reflect deeply on life. 
 

The Buddhas Story

Part 1: As a prince, Siddhartha thinks he has all he could ever want.

The Buddha was born as a prince ruling over a tribe of warriors.  His name was Siddhartha.  Siddhartha’s mother had a dream while she was pregnant with him, and a priest interpreted it as meaning that her son would either come to rule the world, or would give up all worldly possessions and become the wisest of all men and a great spiritual teacher.   

When Siddhartha’s father heard this interpretation, he was worried.  He wanted his son to rule the world, not become a great spiritual teacher.  And so, he decided to teach Siddhartha to love material things.  Siddhartha’s father hoped that if he was raised to love things that his culture valued, such as fine horses and beautiful clothing, that Siddhartha would not choose to give these things up.  In fact, his father hoped that if Siddhartha came to love these things, he might try to rule the world in order to get more of them.

And so, Siddhartha grew up surrounded by riches, and was given anything he could possibly want.  When he became a teenager, Siddhartha was given the finest clothes, a fast chariot, and was surrounded by beautiful women.  As a man, he was given a beautiful wife.  Siddhartha was also a great athlete, and was given great respect.  He had everything a man could ever want.  Or did he?  

Part 2: Siddhartha confronts suffering, and realizes there is more to life than being rich, famous, and respected.  

One day Siddhartha was riding his Chariot through the city.  His father, in order to make sure that Siddhartha was always surrounded by pleasant things, ordered his soldiers to hide the old and sick people.  But one day, the soldiers missed an old man, and Siddhartha stopped to look at him.  On this day, Siddhartha realized that all people become old.  He realized that one day, he would become old, and could not enjoy many of the things he loved. 

On another ride, he saw a sick man, and realized that all people also become sick.  He wondered, what was the point of being rich if your body was in pain?  He wondered if he could enjoy all of his nice things if he was sick.  Could he be happy even if he was in pain?  Finally, on another ride, he saw a dead man lying on the road.  He began to think about what it means to die.  Can we be happy even if the people we love grow old and die?  Can we accept our own death? 

As Siddhartha started thinking about these things, he realized that life was about a lot more than just being rich... and even more than being famous and respected.  A rich, famous, and respected person could still suffer and be very unhappy.  How could a person find happiness in a life where we can't escape old age, sickness, and the deaths of those we love, and of our own selves?  Siddhartha was determined to find out.  Realizing that all of his wealth and power would not bring him happiness after all, he secretly left his kingdom one night, giving up his possessions and power, his family and identity. 

Part 3: Siddhartha searches for the deeper meaning of life. 

Siddhartha joined a large spiritual movement that rejected the growing influence of Brahmanism and the caste system.  Leaders in the movement taught that power and wealth often led to suffering, because they fooled people into thinking they had found happiness.  These leaders were ascetics, meaning that they had given up all the pleasures of the world, including taking pleasure in food, sex, respect, family, friendship, conversation, and other things that bring people joy.  

Why did ascetics make this painful choice?  They thought that, just as there is a huge outside universe to look at, there is also a huge universe inside of ourselves that is even more important to understand.  For them, caste did not matter, because all human beings were infinitely deep. They thought that, as long as we took pleasure in the outside world, we would not be able to see this infinite depth, this universe inside of ourselves.  They also thought that it would be hard to see the inside world if the outside world caused us pain.  According to them, both pleasure and pain were distractions that should be overcome.

Siddhartha joined a group of ascetics living in the middle of the forest.  They supported each other in trying to overcome this world and discover the universe inside of themselves.  They ate only enough to survive and wore only rags.  They learned to overcome emotional and physical pain, and to overcome all desires.  They even learned to stop their thoughts.  In this way they were totally undistracted by the outside world.

Part 4: Siddhartha rejects asceticism 

After six years of practicing, Siddhartha fainted from hunger.  A young woman found him while walking through the forest. Worried that he was going to die, she begged him to eat some rice.  At this time, Siddhartha realized that his path was too extreme.  It was so extreme he was killing himself.  He needed to walk what he would later call the middle path, of not taking too much and being greedy, but not taking too little and hurting oneself.  Understanding this, he accepted the rice. 

Siddhartha wondered if he was also being extreme and hurting himself in other ways.  Thinking about this, he realized that rather than forcing his mind to be silent and have no thoughts, he needed to pay attention to his thoughts, and to his feelings as well.  It was too extreme to totally ignore all of his thoughts and feelings: he decided he needed to be honest about them, to face them and see them clearly so that he could understand himself.

Siddhartha left his companions, and went to sit by himself under a tree, promising himself he would not move until he understood himself.  He vowed that he would sit still, and notice everything about his mind and his heart.  He vowed that he would find complete peace with everything about himself. 

Under this tree, now known as the Bodhi Tree, meaning “Tree of Wisdom”, Siddhartha came to a great realization that has influenced the lives of billions of people over 2,500 years.  Next, we will look at what he figured out.