Buddhism

Unit 3- Year 6 : Following the Buddha’s teaching

You covered units 1 and 2 about Buddhism in Year 4. Before you start this unit, take a few minutes to make a mind map to show what you can remember / already know about Buddhism. Here are some question prompts to get you started. Don’t worry if you don’t remember / know

a lot. By the end of the unit, you will be able to answer these questions and many more!

Who was Buddha?

Where do Buddhists worship?

What is the Buddhist holy book called?

What are the rules that Buddhists follow called?

What do Buddhists believe?

What vocabulary associated to

Buddhism can you remember?

TASK : Create a mind map about what you ALREADY know

Who was the Buddha?

• He was born in northern India about 2500 years ago.

• He became a famous religious teacher. His ideas are still followed by millions of Buddhists today.

• In this lesson, we will start by revisiting the story of the Buddha and how Buddhism began.

What can we deduce about the Buddha using images and artefacts?

• Look at these representations of the Buddha.

• What do you think we can learn about him from these images?

• Write down 2-3 things.

Now read the story about how Siddhartha

Gautama became the Buddha.

Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family in Nepal and for many years lived within the palace walls away from the sufferings of life such as old age, illness and death. Never having seen these things, he didn’t know what they were.

Eventually he married, had children and decided it was time to go outside the palace to see what was on the other side. He witnessed an old man, a sick man and the corpse of a dead man. He was very worried by what he saw and learned that sickness, age and death comes to everyone, even if you are a wealthy person.

Next Siddhartha saw a holy man dressed in rags with only a begging bowl in his hand. Despite owning nothing but the bowl, he looked so calm and at peace. He pondered how a man with nothing could be so content.

These four sights were a turning point for Siddhartha. He wanted to know if there was more to life than sickness, old age and death so he decided to leave his riches behind and go and find out for himself.

Dressed as a monk, he went to meditate under a Bodhi tree and promised himself that he wouldn’t rise again until he found the truth. As he sat, he thought carefully about the past, present, future and the four sights he saw when he left the palace. After some time, he realised there was a way for people to end their pain and sadness. Within this moment, he became wise and enlightened.

He began to teach people about what he had realised and people began to call him Buddha or ‘teacher’. He taught them the Four Noble Truths.

The first Noble Truth was about the fact that suffering exists. Our lives are a struggle. The second was about the cause of suffering. We create some of our own difficulties in the way we think. The third was that it is possible to end suffering, by realising we cause some of our own difficulties. And the fourth explained the path (the Noble Eightfold Path) to be followed in order to end suffering.

You can also watch a short animation here:What is Buddhism?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zh4mrj6/articles/zdbvjhv

Tasks• If you have someone to do this with, you could choose

one scene from the story of Buddha and create a freeze frame. You don’t have to be a person in the scene, you could choose to be an object.

• Complete ONE of the comprehension tasks (you need to download these separately)- one is at the expected level, the other is more challenging. If you want to do both comprehension tasks, that’s fine (you’ll see that the texts are quite similar in content). The comprehension documents have been saved as separate documents on the school website.

• Please have a go at answering the questions BEFORE looking at the answers!

Additional Task (you may choose not to do this)Have a go at producing a piece of art based on one of these images of the Buddha. You could use collage, paint, pastels, felt-tips, pencils …. whatever you have. If you want to use a different image of the Buddha, there are thousands online.

And finally ….If you did this lesson with someone, use Rally Robin to take turns to tell each other something that you have learned. Try to give at least 4 facts each.

Write down 2-3 questions about Buddhism that you would like to find answers to over the next few weeks.

If you did this lesson on your own, tell someone in your household 4-5 things that you have learned. You might even want to challenge yourself to act out the story of the life of Buddha, with you playing all of the parts!