Buddhism

Buddhism began with Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Shakya clan who renounced his royal upbringing after encountering old age, sickness, and death, and eventually attained enlightenment (bodhi) through meditation, becoming "the Buddha" (the Awakened One). His core teaching, delivered first in a sermon at Sarnath, centers on the Four Noble Truths: that suffering (dukkha) is a universal feature of existence, that it arises from craving and attachment, that it can cease, and that the Eightfold Path is the way to end it. Over roughly 2,500 years it spread from India across Asia, developing into several major branches — Theravada (dominant in Southeast Asia), Mahayana (dominant in East Asia), and Vajrayana (dominant in Tibet) — that differ meaningfully in scripture, practice, and doctrine while sharing this common root.

In the 20th century, teachers including Thich Nhat Hanh (already a dedicated category in this library's book collection) played a major role in bringing an accessible, practice-oriented form of Buddhism — particularly mindfulness meditation — to a broad Western audience, distinct from but continuous with the tradition's much older monastic and philosophical lineages.