The exact date when the Buddha appeared in the world was not known, but it is most accepted that he live from about 536 to 483 B.C. He was born as the heir to King Suddhodana of the Sakya tribe of Kapilavatthu, a country that was situated at the foot of the Himalayas. His full name was Siddartha Gautama, but was later known as Buddha, which means the enlightened one. The Buddha was not a god and the philosophy of Buddhism does not entail any theistic world-view. The teachings of the Buddha are aimed solely to liberate sentient beings from suffering. The goal is the full enlightenment of the individual mind, a process wherein the light flows in as the man-made barriers of self are slowly cleared away. This process is often pointed out as not the salvation of a soul but the liberation of the Self from self, of the individual mind from the illusion of separation. The process of self-liberation is therefore confined to the individual mind, though carried out for the ultimate benefit of all.

Buddha taught the four noble truths, which are suffering, that suffering has a cause, that suffering has an end and that there is a path that leads to the end of suffering. The first noble truth dukkha, which means the reality of suffering. In other words the usage means suffering, pain, sorrow. But in the context of the first noble truth dukkha also means imperfection, impermanence, emptiness and insubstantiality. There are three kinds of suffering, dukkha-dukkha which means ordinary suffering, virapinama-dukkha which means suffering produced by change and samkara-dukkha which means suffering as conditioned states. The second noble truth is samudaya, which means the cause of suffering. Within the context of samudaya there is kama-tanha which means desire for sense, bhava-tanha which means desire to become and lastly vibhava-tanha which means desire to get rid of. The third noble truth nirodha which means the cessation of suffering. The end of suffering is non-attachment, or letting go of desire or craving. This is the state of Nibbana, where greed, hatred and delusion are extinct. By letting go of attachment to desire for condition phenomena, desire can come to an end and letting go of attachment to desire for condition phenomena can liberate us liberated from suffering. Finally the last noble truth is magga in our words it means the Noble Eightfold Path. The end to suffering will result by the following the Noble Eightfold Path. There are three qualities that must be developed to attain Nirvana. Wisdom-Panna, the right to understanding and the right to thought. Morality-Sila which is the right to speech, right to action and the right to livelihood. And the last quality is concentration-samadhi which entails right effort, mindfulness and right concentration. He saw that all phenomena in life are impermanent and that our attachment to the idea of substantial and enduring self is an illusion which is the principle cause of suffering.

The Buddhist teaching, the law of Karma says only this "for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful". A skillful event is one that is not accompanied by craving, resistance or delusions; an unskillful event is one that is accompanied by any one of those teachings. In other words the law of Karma teaches that responsibility for unskillful actions is born by the person who commits them.