EVERY full moon in May, Buddhists around the world celebrate the extraordinary life of Siddartha Gautama, the prince who embarked on a spiritual quest over 2,500 years ago to discover the true nature and meaning of existence.
Having seen for himself how life was fraught with difficulty, pain and loss, the prince left his father’s palace in Lumbini (known today as a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District in Nepal) and spent the following years as a wandering ascetic until he eventually achieved spiritual awakening while in deep meditation under the Bodhi Tree in Bodhgaya, India.