(Bodhi) One other night that Gautama sat beneath the bodhi tree, he purified his mind of all evil thoughts and attained Enlightenment at the age of thirty-five, thus earning the title Buddha, or Enlightened One. For the remainder of his eighty years, the Buddha preached the dharma in an effort to help other people also reach Enlightenment. The Buddha objectively examined the phenomena of life. Studying effects and tracing their causes, he produced a science of living which ranks with any other science known to man. He described life to be one and indivisible. Man, he declared, can become Buddha, Enlightened, by the principle of Enlightenment within. This process is to simply become what you are, to develop to the fully innate Buddha-Mind by destroying the ignorance, sin, and evils of human nature. According to the Buddha, all forms of life can be shown to have three characteristics in common; impermanence, suffering, and an absence of a permanent soul which separates itself from other forms of life. The Buddha also pointed out that nothing is the same from moment to moment. Everyone and everything are constantly changing. There is no rest within the universe, only a ceaseless becoming and never-ending change. .
Buddhism denies that man has an immortal soul. The Enlightenment which dwells in life does not belong to only one form. Man is always changing and entirely mortal. Buddhism is a natural religion. It violates neither the mind nor the body. The Buddha became aware that men are born and die according to their good or evil actions, according to their self-created Karma--the consequences of good or evil acts. .
Even though there are several different forms of Buddhism that have come into existence since Buddha's death, there is still a basic essence that all Buddhists agree with. All Buddhists recognize four basic noble truths. The first noble truth of the world is dhukka, or suffering. There is much dissatisfaction in one's life.
