Enlightenment (Buddhism)
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In Buddhism, enlightenment is when a buddhist finds the truth about life. Buddhists find this during meditation (or deep thought). The Buddha finally reached his goal of enlightenment after meditating for forty days under his bodi tree. This idea came to him after the ascetic ways of the Shramana teachers had failed to work for him and he remembered sitting under a tree as a child.During this time he learnt of his past lives, saw the past lives of other people (Siddhartha Gautama became enlightened and was called the Buddha (the enlightened one). Buddha sought enlightenment after on a trip from the palace where he lived he saw a poor man, an old man, a corpse and finally a sadu (holy man). This made the Buddha realise that material good mean little since we all die eventually and although this sadu had almost nothing he was still content. He then left the palace (on the day his son was born) and went to seek the Shramana teachers. In other words, Buddha was a type of God.
