"The Buddha: In His Own Words" The life of the Buddha from the original texts

PROGRAM: The life of the Buddha in his own words – the evolution of his thought, the triumphs, and the rarely portrayed tragedy at the end of his life – all told from the authentic texts.

Siddhartha Gautama, the man we know as the Buddha, lived in Northern India 500 years before Christ and introduced the teaching known as Buddhism. After his death, and perhaps even during his life, his experiences and teachings were recited in groups so that if one participant made a mistake, the collective voice of the group kept the story straight. Approximately 300 years after the Buddha's death, the carefully preserved and extensive oral history was written down and then carried and copied throughout Asia. This canon is the taproot of the entire Buddhist tradition and it is from these records and their primary commentary that the life of the Buddha has been assembled.

The Buddha: In His Own Words, an original one-man show, brings to the stage these authentic texts. Selections focusing on the person, the genesis of his thought, and his very human experiences will again be spoken aloud to tell the remarkable story of his life, start to finish.