The Buddha's Asceticism

Multiple Choice

The Buddha's teachings are called

• The Karma

• The Dharma

• The Nirvana

• The Sangha

Multiple Choice

Dukkha, anicca and anatta are the three marks of existence. Is that true or false?

• True

• False

Multiple Select

Dukkha is...

• defined as suffering

• defined as impermanence

• emotional, physical and attachment

• caused by the three poisons

Multiple Select

Anicca is...

• defined as suffering

• defined as impermanence

• represented by the offerings made at shrines of the Buddha

• part of the Four Noble Truths

Multiple Select

Anatta is...

• defined as having no soul or self

• defined as impermanence

• used to teach about the uselessness of attachments

• a teaching recorded in the Buddha's final words

Multiple Select

Which of these are the three refuges?

• The Buddha

• The Sangha

• The Dharma

• The Karma

Multiple Choice

Which term is this the definition for?

emptiness; the concept that nothing has a separate, independent ‘self’ or ‘soul’

• Anicca

• Sunyata

• Arhat

• Buddha-nature

Multiple Select

What's the difference between Buddha-nature and Buddhahood? Select two answers:

• Buddhahood: when someone achieves enlightenment and becomes a Buddha

• Buddhahood: the idea that everyone has the essence of a Buddha inside them

• Buddha-nature: the idea that everyone has the essence of a Buddha inside them

• Buddha-nature: when someone achieves enlightenment and becomes a Buddha

Multiple Choice

Which school of Buddhism is considered to be traditional and conservative

• Mahayana

• Theravada

Multiple Choice

Someone who practices a simple and strict lifestyle with few pleasures or possessions is known as an:

• ameliorate

• anaesthetic

• aesthetic

• ascetic

Multiple Choice

Siddhartha saw an old man, an ill man, a dead man, and a holy man. These are known as

• The Four Visions

• The Four Guests

• The Four People

• The Four Sights

Multiple Choice

Meditation is a central practice of the Buddhist faith

• True

• False

Read more here:
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Self-Mummification

Match

Match the following

• Ascetic

• Aesthetic

• Asceticism

• The Five Ascetics

Someone who practicises asceticism

Concerned with beauty

living a simple and strict lifestyle

The Buddha's first students

• Someone who practicises asceticism

• Concerned with beauty

• living a simple and strict lifestyle

• The Buddha's first students

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

The Inspiration of the Four Sights

Having seen the Four Sights, which made him realise that suffering was unavoidable, Siddhartha left the palace and his luxurious life. He rejected them as unsatisfactory. He spent the next few years learning meditation techniques from different Hindu masters. He wanted to gain insight into the problem of suffering. He also lived a very austere life, denying himself the things he craved, especially food.

Multiple Choice

Why did Siddhartha practise asceticism?

• So he could learn how to suffer.

• So he could learn how to overcome suffering.

• So he could appreciate the beauty of nature.

• So he would appreciate poverty.

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

Six Years of Asceticism

He fasted for long periods of time, becoming increasingly hungry and weak. Some accounts write that – at some points – Siddhartha was only eating one grain of rice a day. Other stories say that his body became so thin that his legs were like bamboo sticks, his backbone was like a rope, his chest was like an incomplete roof of a house, and his eyes sank right inside his skull, like stones in a deep well. He looked like a living skeleton, and suffered from terrible pain and hunger.

Siddhartha practised asceticism with five others, using pain and hardship to discipline their minds. This period of his life lasted six years, during which he almost starved to death – but he did not find the solution to suffering.

Multiple Choice

Did Siddhartha reach enlightenment through asceticism

• Yes

• No

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

Stories about the end of Siddhartha's Asceticism

One day while meditating, he heard a man telling his son about stringing an instrument – fasten the strings too tightly and they will snap, too loosely and they will not play. Either way, no music is made. Siddhartha saw this as a metaphor for what he was doing – his life of luxury had not worked, and neither did the extreme austerity he now practised. He washed and ate proper food for the first time. His companions deserted him, seeing him as a failure.

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

Stories about the end of Siddhartha's Asceticism

Another story relates Siddhartha turning away from asceticism like this: one day, Siddhartha was bathing in the River Nairanjana. When he got out of the water he saw a girl who was looking after a herd of cows for her father. The girl offered Siddhartha a bowl of milk and rice. He accepted the food because he had by this point become too weak even to meditate. Siddhartha’s strength was restored by the food and he decided to stop his ascetic practices, because he was no closer to the truth of why people suffer and how to get rid of this suffering.

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

The Middle Way

Siddhartha’s ascetic life was the opposite extreme to his life of luxury – he had now experienced both extremes, neither of which worked. To him, this meant the solution had to be between these – hence Buddhism is a Middle Way.

Dropdown

Siddhartha practised ​

Select answer

for ​​

Select answer

years with five other ascetics. Siddhartha would ​

Select answer

and ​

Select answer

for long hours. However, after all the years, he was no closer to ​

Select answer

. He decided to turn away from asceticism and find a Middle Way.

The Buddha's Ascetic Life

Meditation is the Key

Siddhartha reflected on the Four Sights as he saw them, then learned to meditate from masters. He later reflected that as a child he had meditated, though he had not known that was what he was doing. Meditation became a central theme in his life and in his teachings.

References

Hayes, J. and Parry, L. (2017) AQA GCSE (9-1) Religious Studies Specification A. London: Hodder Education.

Bartlett, C.B. (ed.) & Nagapriya, K.J. (2016) Religious Studies A: Buddhism. Oxford: University Press.

Drag and Drop

Siddhartha lived a life of extremes. His early life was a life of extreme ​

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. After he saw the ​

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, he renounced his royalty and practised ​

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for six years. However, this extreme life of ​ self-denial and meditation did not lead him to be any closer to ​​

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. After these experiences Siddhartha set out to find a Middle Way between the extremes of luxury and asceticism. This Middle Way is what we now call ​

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.

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

luxury

Four Sights

asceticism

enlightenment

Buddhism

Hinduism

parinirvana

Four Noble Truths

aesthetician

dukkha

Multiple Choice

The Buddha almost starved himself to death trying to reach enlightenment

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Dukkha is the same as the Dharma

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Siddhartha was closer to enlightenment as an ascetic compared to his life of luxury.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

The five ascetics Siddhartha practised with became his first students when he attained Buddhahood, despite abandoning him at first.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Siddhartha reached nirvana as an ascetic

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

The Four Sights inspired Siddhartha to be an ascetic

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Which of the Four Sights inspired Siddhartha to be an ascetic?

• Dead man

• Old man

• Sick man

• Holy man

​Answer these in your book

​Write down four things you've learnt this lesson

Multiple Choice

Which keyword matches the definition: the foundational Buddhist beliefs about the nature of human existence.

• The Three Refuges

• The Three Poisons

• The Three Marks of Existences

• The Threefold Way

Multiple Choice

Dukkha, anicca and anatta are the three marks of existence. Is that true or false?

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Enlightenment means

• being reborn into another being - reincarnation

• three characteristics fundamental to all things: dukkha, anicca and anatta

• the gaining of true knowledge about the nature of reality

• a demon that represents spiritual obstacles, especially temptation