Gautama Buddha's life and its significance
Lesson details
Key learning points
- There are divergent beliefs about whether the life story of Gautama Buddha is factual or illustrative.
- Before birth, there were signs that Siddhartha Gautama would be significant.
- He gave up his life of luxury with his wife after seeing the Four Sights.
- The Four Sights included sickness, old age, death and an ascetic.
- He eventually reached enlightenment, became known as the Buddha and established the Sangha.
Keywords
Ascetic - a life free from worldly pleasures, and involves giving up material possessions
Buddha - an awakened or enlightened person
Enlightenment - a state of wisdom that enables total clarity and understanding of the truths of existence
The Four Sights - Siddhartha Gautama’s experience of illness, old age, death and a holy man
Buddhahood - reaching enlightenment
Common misconception
All Buddhists believe that the stories of the life of the Buddha are factual.
Some Buddhists interpret all the stories as factual, while others see them as illustrative. Most Buddhists believe that the stories contain spiritual truths.
Teacher tip
This lesson content could to be taught over more than one lesson.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of the three jewels means ‘teachings’?
Q2.What is the best definition of the concept of dependent arising?
Q3.What are the three marks of existence?
Q4.In the Theravada Buddhist tradition, a human personality is understood as a combination of five elements. What are these known as?
Q5.Which of the following is not one of the five elements of a human personality?
Q6.Which of the following would relate to the understanding of the human personality in Mahayana tradition?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the keywords to the correct definitions.
a life free from worldly pleasures and material possessions
an awakened or enlightened person
a state of wisdom and understanding of the truths of existence
Siddhartha's experience of illness, old age, death and a holy man
reaching enlightenment
Q2.Which of these statements are most accurate?
Q3.Which religion was Siddhartha Gautama influenced by?
Q4.Why were the Four Sights significant to Siddhartha Gautama?
Q5.Why was Siddhartha Gautama's enlightenment significant?
Q6.What is the name of the ‘way’ that Buddhists try to follow?
To help you plan your 10 religious education lesson on: Gautama Buddha's life and its significance, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 religious education lesson on: Gautama Buddha's life and its significance, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 religious education lessons from the Buddhism: beliefs unit, dive into the full secondary religious education curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.