‘Still and unmoving, he is silent.’ No words from the mouth, no thoughts from the mind—that is an inconceivable state. The Buddha speaks Dharma without speaking; he speaks and yet does not speak, does not speak and yet he speaks. This is still and silent, still, still, silent and unmoving, yet responding in accord; responding in accord and yet always, always silent and still. This is the meaning of the Buddha’s personal name, Muni.

All Buddhas have the title Buddha in common, but only this Buddha has the special name Śākyamuni.” (AS 8)

“Why did Śākyamuni Buddha come into the world? Because he saw that all living beings are covered with too much selfishness. He wanted to make it clear to all of us that we shouldn’t be so egocentric and only know of ourselves and not know that other people also exist. From selfishness people give rise to strife and kill and mutilate one another. Śākyamuni Buddha saw this situation as something very pathetic; therefore, he came into the world.…” (EDR VII 111)

The Life of the Buddha Śākyamuni

The only Buddha to appear in the world in the so-called historical period is the Buddha Śākyamuni. He was born the eldest son of the ruler of a small city state on the border of what is now northern India and Nepal. As a young adult he was struck by the meaninglessness of his life and was moved to give up the kingdom to which he was heir, his parents, wife and young son, and the wealth, pleasures and prerogatives of his position.

As a wandering mendicant he went out into the great forests of northern India in search of a sage to teach him the transcendent path to Reality. In succession he studied with the two greatest meditation teachers of his time and reached those states of cosmic consciousness which they considered true Liberation. After rejecting their ultimacy, he went off to seek his own Path.

First he went to the Himalayas where he meditated for six years while practicing the extreme asceticism of eating only a single grain of wheat and a single sesame seed each day.

Rejecting such extreme asceticism, the Buddha-to-be made his way down from the mountains, slowly nursed himself back to health, and found an auspicious spot to continue his meditational quest inward. He vowed not to leave that spot, located under a large tree later known as the Bodhi Tree, until he reached his goal. Forty-nine days later, during the second half of the night, he saw a star in the night sky and his last thin strand of attachment was rent asunder. At that moment he became a Buddha, a fully and perfectly enlightened one.

After remaining seated meditating under the tree for a period of time, he decided to follow that path of those Buddhas who had gone before him and go forth into the world to teach living beings the way to Buddhahood. For forty-nine years he traveled widely in India, together with a great gathering of disciples, teaching all those who sincerely requested instruction. At the end of that period his body died and he was said to have entered wnirvana, but for the Buddha at that moment nothing at all really changed.

That is a very brief summary of the important events of the life of the Buddha Śākyamuni. Yet his quest for Buddhahood did not begin with a young prince named Siddhārtha Gautama. The life in which he realized Buddhahood was the culmination of a decision (bodhi resolve) and vows that he made countless lifetimes previously and of intense personal cultivation in each and every lifetime all the way up to that final one over two millennia ago.

釋迦牟尼《佛》 ; “Śākya [was] the name of the Buddha’s clan.…Muni was the Buddha’s personal name. It means ‘still and quiet’ (Ch. ji mo).