THE BUDDHA.

 

The Buddha was a man born approximately 2500 years ago in ancient India. He set the wheel of truth turning through his realizations and teachings of The Four Noble Truths.
Gotama Buddha broke through the cultural norms of his times and realized a truth that still applies to this day. It is said that it took six years for Buddha to fully awaken. A part of awakening is overcoming your inner demons. This is what Buddha accomplished.

Awakening

What this means is that Buddha worked hard at becoming enlightened, or awakened to truth. It did not come easy. It was not revealed to him by a mystical means. He learned from various teachers of his day. He tried asceticism which was a form of neglect. He also realized that extremes of wealth did not bring contentedness either. In fact, these things contributed to the problem.

Using Experience To Garner Wisdom

He awakened through an experiential process. In this manner Buddha realized that The Middle Way, or approach is a good way to find inner and outer peace in a confusing world. That too much, or too little of anything is probably not that good. That somewhere in-between there is the right amount. The right amount of anything in life in order to move along your path to a better place, to move towards enlightenment!
Buddha explains the middle way to Sona, one of his followers with the story of how to best tune a stringed instrument such that it works best to produce the sound it was meant to produce.
"Sona, when the strings of your instrument are too loose is the sound good?"
"No Lord, the sound is not good."
"When the strings are too tight is the sound good?"
"No Lord, it is not good."
"Then, with the strings tuned in the middle how is the sound?"
"Just right, Lord."
-The Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya, Sixes 6.55

The Tathagata

He is now known as the Buddha, but the word Buddha refers to anyone who has awakened in the true spiritual sense. The word Buddha does not exist in the Pali Canon and the Buddha never referred to himself as Buddha.
He referred to himself as the Tathagata, meaning 'thus gone' or 'thus come'. Tathagata basically refers to the fact that the man, Siddhatta Gotama, had awakened. That he realized the truth of existence and realized full enlightenment through the shedding of false beliefs and having no illusions obscuring his senses.

The Three Characteristics

Buddha said there are three characteristics that are important in understanding life and ultimately awakening. These are the truths of impermanance, suffering, and not-self, sometimes people will say no-self. Also, people will argue over the difference. If there is one!
Impermanance is obvious, in that all things, absolutely everything, including you, me, and everyone we know and don't know, will arise and pass away. This refers to all things in existence being subject to this same truth no matter what these things are.
The Buddha was also referring to the fact that even our mind is constantly in a state of change or flux. That it too, is not permanent. That we should not get carried away with any one thought, urge, feeling, or emotion as it will arise and then pass away. The Buddha felt this understanding of impermanance had to be embodied in order to awaken.
Suffering is the next characteristic. I prefer unease, dis-ease, or any number of words that scholars are now using instead of suffering. It's fairly easy to understand this in the right context. Have you ever felt fear, anxiety, panic, confusion or any of their components?
If you look close enough at your own life or the life of those you know you will see the unease, sometimes powerful, sometimes near imperceptible, that pervades all life. This unease can and does exist even during joyous times. This characteristic exists as anxiety, panic, depression, fear, etc. This is what the Buddha realized.
Not-Self is the third characteristic that the Buddha realized and taught. Many people think this means that we don't really exist, that we are illusions or something of that matter. The truth is we do exist and we do have a self!
I believe what the Buddha was referring to is that the self, that inner essence, is often layered with misconceptions of who and what we are. That, we are not what we think we are in most cases. That once we remove misconceptions about ourselves or simply unbind we are something other than we previously knew as ourselves.
The Buddha continues with the link below and what he taught regarding our minds and our thoughts. THICH CHAN TANH.( SRAMANERIKA.( NOVICE-NUN ).VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUNS.( GOLDEN LOTUS MONASTERY).30/7/2012.NAM MO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).