Who Influenced Siddhartha Gautama?

Answer 1

Dalai Lama is the name of the post - the person is chosen at an early stage through handpicking. The current Dalai Lama was influenced by the teachings of Buddha predominantly and real life experiences around his society.

Answer 2

Buddhas teachings are unique. He tried and discarded the teachings of others. That is not to say that he discarded all he was taught. No one does that, but if he could not verify through his personal experience something he was taught, it was discarded.

In that sense, no one influenced the Buddha.

Answer 3

A few people influence the Buddha on his quest for enlightenment. When The Buddha left his palace, he sought out teachings from two guru's, Alara Kalama and then Udaka Ramaputta. From each he learned meditation practices and he surpass his gurus. Each asked The Buddha to succeed them but he turned them both down, recognizing that there were further truths to be learned. He also was taught ascetic practices by both and he incorrectly thought that furthering this practice might help him in his quest. So he then join 5 ascetics led by Kaundinya who practiced even a more severe form of asceticism. This again proved fruitless. So he sat down and just meditated and realized the truths of the universe and became enlightened.

So the teachings, both correct and incorrect he learned from these gurus lead The Buddha to his enlightenment.

Answer 4

Because of a fortune teller's prophesy to the Buddha's father that his son would grow up to be either a great King or a great holy man, the King shielded his son from all the unpleasantness of the world, surrounding him with pleasure and beautiful undying things. But later in the young Buddha's life, he traveled and saw the sick, the poor and dying and was deeply troubled. This continued to bother him that people should suffer so much that he left his wife, child and throne to seek the answer to why people suffer and a path to relieve that suffering.

Answer 5

The Buddha needed his disciples for missionary work to spread his teachings.

[ The Buddha had got two of his chief disciples: Shin Thariputtara and Shin Maha-mau-galan, and a younger brother, Shin Ananda (who always preached the teachings of the Buddha back to the laypeople, monks, etc. after the Buddha had preached), and many of his other followers. ]

One of the 9 qualities of the Buddha is that the Buddha needed no teacher/ mentor to help him know or see things as they really are.

He possessed the omniscience (the ability of knowing everything completely).