Buddhism

A teacher called Buddha founded Buddhism in India in about 500 B.C. The ball in the center of this sculpture represents Buddha, which means the "Enlightened One" or the "Awakened One". It is a path of spiritual development leading to the insight into the true nature of life. Buddhism has been a dominant religious, cultural and social force in most of Asia.

All Buddhists have faith in Buddha, his teachings called the Dharma and the religious community he founded called the Sangha. Buddha preached that an existence was a continuing cycle of death and rebirth. Each person's position and well being in life was determined by his or her behavior in previous lives.

The "Four Noble Truths", shown by the four pyramids in the sculpture, constitute Buddha's answer to his awakening:

Life is dukkha or out of joint
The cause of life's dislocation is tanha, the drive for private fulfillment
The disease can be cured by overcoming the egotistic drive for separate existence
The way of overcoming of self-seeking is through the "Eightfold Path", a treatment:

The Noble "Eightfold Path", as is evident in the sculpture from the eight paths leading to Buddha, are:

knowledge of the truth
the intention to resist evil
saying nothing to hurt others
respecting life, morality and poverty
holding a job that does not injure others
striving to free one's mind of evil
controlling ones feelings and thoughts
practicing proper forms of concentration

Nirvana is the word Buddha used to name life's goal as he saw it. Nirvana is the highest destiny of the human spirit and its literal meaning is extinction of the boundaries of the finite self. It is the state in which private desires have been completely consumed and everything that restricts the boundless life has died. Nirvana is bliss.

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