วันอังคารที่ 12 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2557

STORY OF THE BUDDHA

        Buddhism is the teaching of the Buddha. He was a wise teacher. His teachings help people to live wisely and happily today, more than 500 million people in the world follow his teachings. In this unit, we are going to tell you the story of the Buddha.
        About 2,600 years ago, there lived a great king named Suddhodana. He had a pretty wife called Maya. They lived at the bottom of the Himalayas mountains in northern India.
        One night, Queen Maya had a wonderful dream. She saw a huge white elephant come into her room. It was holding a lotus flower. The elephant blew its trunk as it was walking round her bed three times.
        In the morning, the king asked his wise men about the queen’s dream. They said. “Oh King! A great son will be born to Queen Maya. “The king and queen were very happy with this news.
        Queen Maya gave birth to prince Siddhartha in a pretty royal park. It was the full-moon day of May. All the trees were in flower. The bees were humming around the fresh flowers. The birds were singing sweetly. Everyone was happy because a prince had been born.
        The prince was very kind. He never hurt anything, not even the smallest animals
        One day, his cousin shot a swan. It fell to the ground and was badly hurt. The prince felt sorry for it. He picked it up and looked after it. He knew that all animals wanted to live. They did not want to die.
        In the palace, the prince had many teachers. He was a very good student. His father wished that one day he would become a great king.
        The prince grew up to be a strong, handsome, young man. He married a beautiful girl. They lived happily together.
        One day, when the prince visited a village, he saw four people: one sick, one old, one dead and a holy man. The first three made him very sad. The holy man made him think about what in meant to be happy.
        At the age of twenty-nine, the prince gave up his palace life. He left his family to find a way to make everyone happy.
        For the next six years, he when form place. He learn Form many wise teachers. He had a lot of a way to get rid of sadness in the world. He became wiser day by day.
        At last, he sat under a huge Bodhi Tree. He meditated over and over on these questions. “Why do people suffer? How can I help them to be happy?”
At the age of thirty-five, he found a way for people to end their pain and sadness. From then on, was called the Buddha.
        The Buddha first told his ideas to five monks, there are problems in all our lives. These problems come from being selfish. If we get rid of being selfish, we could be wise and happy.”
        For the next forty-five years, many people, rich and poor, young and old, came to listen to the Buddha’s teachings, “We should always think about what we do. If we do good, good things will happen to us. If we do Bad, things will happen to us.”
        At the age of eighty, the Buddha passed away.