Buddha was a young prince, Siddharta Gautama, who lived about 2,500 years ago in the region of the frontier between India and Nepal. After he had recognized, how deeply people suffer from old age, illness and death, he turned away from the luxury life at the royal court and started his spiritual search. For six years, he studied with spiritual teachers of the high Indian culture of his days and also practiced strict asceticism.

This way, he had learned various views of the world and meditations, but nothing that had the power of really liberating all beings from all suffering completely. Therefore, he finally sat down under a leafy tree in Bodhgaya, a place in the Northern lowlands of India and stayed there for six days and nights in deep spiritual absorption. On the morning of a full-moon day in May he recognized that there is no real separation of the one who experiences from what is experienced, that there is neither an independent self nor an outward world that exists independently from those who experience it. He experienced, that this realization did not lead to nothingness, but that mind is very rich by itself, which shows as fearlessness, absolute joy and non-discriminating love.

Since then prince Siddharta Gautama has been called "Buddha, the Awakened", awakened from the sleep of ignorance and confusion – just like you wake up from a dream in the morning. Although the dream may have been experienced as quite intense and very real, after waking up there is nothing left of it except perhaps a memory. In exactly the same way we can wake up from our current confusion – our dualistic perception and our belief in reality. Then all those old ways of suffering disappear just like the dream when we wake up.

This is what Buddha experienced when he became enlightened. In the 45 years after that he gave teachings, travelling from one place to another, and giving advice in practical every day life situations. His teachings were written down and arranged only after his death at the age of 80. They are called Dharma – “the way things are” (Skt.). –and consist of 84,000 teachings. Buddha emphasized different aspects of his teachings and taught different meditations at different times, corresponding to his disciples’ abilities and openness. By these disciples reaching enlightenment and going to other places, Buddhism spread all over Asia. During the first 500 years, mainly the explanations on cause and effect and meditations for calming the mind were distributed. Today, they are still known especially in the southern Buddhist countries as Theravada. After the begin of our common era spread most of all the explanations on the dream-like aspect of all phenomena and the self, as well as on the development of love and compassion - known as the Great Way – throughout the northern Buddhist countries.

Even though the highest level of Buddha’s teachings, the Diamondway, had already been practiced in India for many centuries, it only became known to the general public about 1,000 years ago, especially in the Himalayan region.  The main aspect here is to directly enjoy the freshness and joy of enlightenment in every moment of consciousness. Since this approach especially corresponds to modern Western thinking, the Diamondway spread widely throughout the West during the last 25 years.