Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) on His Birthday

Reading about the biography of Buddha is like enjoying a fairy tale story for me. Siddhartha Gautama or Buddha is a wonderful famous person that I think everyone should read and learn some lessons of life for whatever religion you have believed in. I am a Catholic, but while I was preparing for this unit, I have learnt some great things from Buddhism, I would like to confess. Based on the biography, Siddhartha Gautama, which was known as Buddha, was a prince of a kingdom in India who left his wealth to see the suffer of people around him.

Siddhartha Gautama is the founder of Buddhism. His teaching of life has been spread for a long time across the world since then. Although Buddhism was born in Asia, it has started to influence some people in the western culture as well. Therefore, It is great to do some studies on Buddhism so that we can see some great culture and teaching about different religions.

The birthday of Buddha is trusted to be represented by the rising of the brightest full moon of the year. It is celebrated historically on April 8 563BC, but the tradition always refer to the brightest full moon of the year rising.

His teaching of life has been spread for a long time across the world since then. Although Buddhism was born in Asia, it has started to influence some people in the western culture as well. Therefore, It is great to do some studies on Buddhism so that we can see some great culture and teaching about different religions.

Book References:

Great Movies

There are some great movies to introduce the Life of Buddha and Buddhism we can get from Youtube for free.

The Legend of Buddha is a cartoon version to show the story of Buddha. It is narrated in English:

Here is the BBC documentary of TheLife of Buddha with subtitle and coment:

This movies is a documentary that has more comments than the BBC version.

Website Resources:

http://www.buddhanet.net, a very vast site to learn about Buddhism

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/ebooks.htm, a list of pdf files suitable for primary and secondary general buddhism studies

http://www.buddhanet.net/ftp12.htm, a long list of deeper studies of Buddhism

Free Notebooking Pages about Buddha Studies

For more great April birthday lessons and ideas head on over to iHomeschoolnetwork