An interpretive biography of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni. Daisaku Ikeda, a contemporary Buddhist leader and thinker, attempts to trace, using the scarce biographical information available about Gautama Siddhartha, known as Shakyamuni or the Buddha, the motivations that led a man who had every earthly wealth and privilege at his disposal to abandon palaces, his princely title, wife, and son. He likely did so in reaction to the discovery of the fundamental sufferings of life, which spare no one, not even those who enjoy a privileged existence. Ikeda retraces the steps of the young man in search of the enlightenment that can free human beings from every bond of suffering, engaging in a quest based on sparse sources and his own experience as a Buddhist practitioner. Can what drove Gautama Siddhartha almost three thousand years ago to undertake a arduous struggle to overcome the impermanence of life and find the supreme happiness represented by "awakening," or Buddhahood, still be valid today? Can his message, which has changed the lives of millions of people over the centuries throughout the East, also inspire the West? The author, and we with him, believes it can and helps us understand the essence of the "Enlightened One's" illumination.
The original title of the work, My View of Shakyamuni, suggests the spirit with which the author approached the historical Buddha, who lived in India approximately twenty-five centuries ago. Indeed, there is very little data about his life, and the only sources are texts transmitted for centuries solely in oral form. Reconstructing the life of the "Sage of the Shakyas" therefore means trying to go far beyond what the news and hagiographic accounts have handed down to us, and making a considerable effort to interpret the many important choices Shakyamuni made throughout his life. Ikeda undertakes this journey based on his own experience as a contemporary religious leader, and it is precisely by virtue of this role that he guides us to understand the deepest meaning of the "Enlightened One's" illumination.
