Twenty-five hundred years ago, the fourth of the thousand Buddhas of this fortunate aeon took birth in the family of the king of the Sakyas as the prince Siddhartha. Abandoning life in the palace to seek an end to suffering, he tested and rejected all paths claiming to lead to liberation and proceeded to the diamond seat (vajrasana) beneath the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, where he reached complete and perfect enlightenment.

The Buddha turned the wheel of the Dharma three times:
First, in Sarnath, the Buddha taught the four noble truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering. This is the basis of the Hinayana tradition of Buddhism.
Second, at Vulture's Peak in Rajgir, he taught the perfection of wisdom (the Prajna Paramita or "The Heart Sutra"). These are teachings on characteristiclessness or "emptiness," such as, "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form." He taught this to a mixed audience of men, women, bhiksus, bhiksunis, and bodhisatvas (including Manjushri, Avalokitsvara, Vajrapani and Maitreya).
Finally, he taught the doctrine of absolute truth to supernatural beings, gods, bodhisattvas, nagas, raksas, yakshas, and human beings.

The Buddha imparted 84,000 kinds of teachings. There are appropriate teachings for every kind of mind. These teachings can be classified into nine yanas, or vehicles. Buddha Sakyamuni first taught Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle) in private at the request of King Indrabodhi of Oddiyana (Orgyen). He taught chosen disciples of high merit how to transform phenomenal appearance into a pure mandala. In order to teach this, he emanated the Guhyasamaja mandala, gave the empowerments, and then gave the tantric teachings. Thus, it was taught apart from the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma. He also prophesied in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra that he would be reborn in a lake in order to teach the Vajrayana. This prophecy was fulfilled by the birth of Padmasambhava, the "Lotus-Born" (Pema Jungney), who is also known as the Second Buddha, and as Guru Rinpoche ("Precious Guru").

History & Background