An interpretive biography of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni. Daisaku Ikeda, a modern-day Buddhist leader and thinker, attempts to trace, using the scant biographical information regarding Gautama Siddharta, known as Shakyamuni or the Buddha, the motivations that drove a man who had at his disposal every wealth and earthly privilege, to abandon palaces, princely title, wife and child. He did so, probably, in reaction to discovering the fundamental sufferings of life, which are not spared even to those who enjoy a privileged existence. Ikeda retraces the young man's steps in search of the enlightenment that can liberate human beings from all constraints of suffering, engaging in a search based on scarce sources and his own experience as a Buddhist practitioner. Can what prompted Gautama Siddhartha almost three thousand years ago to undertake a very hard struggle in order 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, inspire the West as well? The author, and we with him, believes so and helps us understand what the essence of the "Awakened One's" enlightenment is.
The original title of the work, My Vision of Shakyamuni, suggests the spirit in which the author approached the historical Buddha, who lived in India some twenty-five centuries ago. Data on his life are in fact very few, and the only sources are texts handed down for centuries only in oral form. Reconstructing the life of the "Sage of the Shakyas" therefore means trying to go far beyond what hagiographic reports and accounts hand down to us, and making a considerable effort to interpret the many important choices Shakyamuni made during his lifetime. Ikeda makes this journey on the basis of his own experience as a contemporary religious leader, and it is precisely because of this role that he guides us to understand what is the deeper meaning of the "Awakened One's" enlightenment.
