Describe Buddhism and explain how it began and by whom. Explore the concepts of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Explain the purpose of both. What is the ultimate goal of a Buddhist?

Buddhism is an education (well, some people like to call it philosophy or religion) which teaches the following: To do good, to avoid evil, and to purify the mind. It originated in India and it's founder is the Buddha. He was a crown prince living a life of luxury in his palace when he came across the 4 signs on 4 trips out of his palace. The first sign is an old man, the second is a sick man, the third is a dead man, and the forth is an ascetic. Prince Siddhartha has never seen these in his whole life because his father keep these things away from him in order to prevent any of these signs of suffering to lead him to leave the home life to cultivate. However, upon seeing these signs, Prince Siddhartha lost interest in palace, and then he renounce his palace life to become an ascetic. He endured lots of tough ascetic practices including eating only one grain of rice and one other grain each day. However, he did not achieve his goal of understanding the truth. So he gave up extreme ascetic practice and cultivate the middle path - neither too comfortable nor extreme torment. He finally achieve enlightenment and understand the truth under the Bodhi tree.

He taught the four noble truths:

1) There is suffering

2) There is the cause of suffering

3) There is the cessation of suffering

4) There is the path to the cessation of suffering.

The four noble truths allows us to understand our sufferings and their nature and walk the path to the end of suffering.

The eightfold path is basically how you walk the path, and it consists of the following:

1) Right speech,

2) Right action,

3) Right livelihood,

4) Right effort,

5) Right mindfulness,

6) Right concentration,

7) Right view,

8) Right intention