Lesson video

Hi, everyone, I'm Ms Reid.

I've been learning all about Buddhism recently, which is the religion we're going to be learning about in our next unit.

I've learned one of the key features of Buddhism is meditation.

I've been meditating today to help me feel calm and focused in preparation for our lesson.

Should we get back to it? Let's count to three and then click.

One, two, three.

Excellent work everyone.

Thanks so much for your help.

Let's get started with our lesson.

Okay.

Our key question for today's lesson and our first lesson of this new unit, all about Buddhism is, who was Siddhartha Gautama? That's tricky name to say.

Should we say it all together? Siddhartha Gautama.

Siddhartha Gautama.

That's really important name for this unit.

So don't forget it.

We'll be recapping it obviously throughout this lesson.

Now our new unit is all about the religion Buddhism.

And over the course of this unit, we'll learn about the origins, belief systems, practises, and important figures within the religion.

In this lesson, we'll be learning about Siddhartha Gautama.

He's the first individual to have achieved enlightenment through the practise of meditation.

We mentioned that a minute ago.

He became known as the Buddha, which means the enlightened one.

We'll learn about his life and his journey to enlightenment.

Let's move on.

So we'll be looking at our star words.

Then we'll be thinking about Buddhism.

Then the story of Siddhartha Gautama.

Siddhartha's journey to enlightenment.

And then we'll be story mapping his life based on what we've learned.

In this lesson, you'll need your exercise book and a piece of paper, a pencil, and your brain.

Pause the video now so you can go and get those things if you don't have them already.

I'm going to say the star words and I want you to repeat them after me.

Buddhism.

Enlightenment.

That's the state that Buddhists aim to achieve through meditation.

Siddhartha Gautama.

Buddha.

India.

Meditation.

Now Buddhism is over 2,500 years old.

And it began in India.

The map shows how Buddhism began in India and spread throughout Asia.

Take a closer look.

You can see here on the map, in this circle, this is the place in which Buddhism began.

And you can see the arrows that show how Buddhism spread throughout the rest of Asia.

You can pause the video now, if you'd like to take a closer look.

Here's your first question.

You need to choose the correct answer below.

In which country did Buddhism begin? Thailand, India or China? Pause the video now, so you can complete that question.

Let's see how you did.

Did you get it right? Did you remember that Buddhism began in India? Excellent work.

Give yourself a Pat on the back.

You can pause the video if you need to tick or fix your answer.

Now unlike many other religions that you might've learned about, Buddhists do not worship a god.

Instead, Buddhists attempt to achieve a special state known as enlightenment.

What's that word? Enlightenment.

Exactly.

Now the first person to become enlightened, according to Buddhists was an Indian Prince called Siddhartha Gautama.

And you can see him there in that image on the left.

He's right at the top, praying under the Bodhi tree.

Now he later became known as simply the Buddha.

Which means the enlightened one.

Do you remember? What does the Buddha mean? That's right.

The Buddha means the enlightened one.

Here's your second task.

You need to answer the question below in a full sentence.

What does the Buddha mean? The Buddha means.

Pause the video now, so you can complete that sentence.

Did you get that right? Excellent work.

Buddha means the enlightened one.

Check your spelling of enlightened.

It can be a tricky word to spell, Pause the video now so you can tick or fix your answer.

Great work everyone.

Now what I'm about to tell you the story of Siddhartha Gautama his life.

But before I start, it's important that you know, that we aren't exactly sure when Siddhartha Gautama was born or died because we haven't found any written records of that about him until a few hundred years after his death.

So it's quite hard to place him exactly in time.

However, in 500 BCE, India was made up of many great kingdoms and cities.

In one of these kingdoms, on the border of Nepal and India, there was a Prince named Siddhartha Gautama.

You can see on the map, the area in the red square is the area that his kingdom was situated in.

Here's an image of Siddhartha Gautama.

Let's take a closer look.

Now he was a prince and life would have been very easy for Gautama.

He would have had everything he needed.

Not only that, but he lived quite a sheltered life.

His father kept him inside the palace walls and he rarely saw anyone because anyone he met was inside the palace.

You need to choose the correct answer below.

When did Siddhartha Gautama live? About 5,000 BCE, about 500 BCE, about 50 BCE, about 500 CE.

Pause the video so you can choose the correct answer.

Did you remember? Let's have a look.

The answer was about 500 BCE.

We don't have an exact timeframe, but we know it was about 500 BCE.

Pause the video now, so you can tick or fix your answer.

Now, one day when Siddhartha was around 29 years old, so he was quite old by this point, he went for a walk outside the palace walls and he saw four sites that would change his life.

The first of those sites was a weak and frail old man.

And seeing this weak and old frail man taught him that he would not be young and healthy forever.

He'd never seen old age before.

And therefore he'd never come across this feeling that he would one day get older.

The second site he saw was a sick man.

Again he had never come across illness before in the palace.

He'd lived such a sheltered life and seeing this sick man taught him that sickness was an inevitable part of life.

The third site that he saw was a corpse or a dead person in a funeral parade.

Now this taught Siddhartha that life comes to an end.

No one had ever spoken to him about death before.

And this was his first realisation that death happens.

Now these three sites made Siddhartha of feel pretty low.

He'd never come across these things before and they made him feel like the world outside the palace was full of suffering and dread.

However, he then saw a fourth site.

The fourth site was a Holy man or a sadhu.

He saw that this man had found happiness through his spirituality, despite all of the suffering around him.

Here's your task.

Answer the question below using the images to help you.

What were the four sites that Siddhartha Gautama witnessed? Here are the pictures to help you.

You can write your answers in note form, or in full sentences.

What were the four sites? Pause the video now to complete the task.

Did you remember those four sites that changed his life? Let's have a look so you can tick or fix your answer.

So the four sites were, a weak frail old man, a sick man, a corpse in a funeral parade or procession, and a holy man.

Tick or fix your answers now.

Great work.

Let's move on.

So, Siddhartha had seen four sites.

And I did tell you that they changed his life.

Well, they changed his life in a huge way because that night Siddhartha snuck out of the palace and forever rejected his life of princely luxury.

This was a huge deal.

Now he encountered many spiritual leaders who taught him all about meditation.

Gautama actually spent six years learning from these spiritual leaders.

But he found that none of them could help him really understand the true nature of his own mind.

So just before his 35th birthday Gautama sat under a Bodhi tree and began his own meditation.

He meditated for six days and six nights.

And at the end of it, he achieved enlightenment.

He had become the Buddha or the awakened one.

We also call him the enlightened one.

So that is Gautama's life story.

We're going to have a look at this story map.

And I'm going to recap on the eight key moments of his life.

And you can listen along.

You can point at the images, as I say each moment in his life.

So number one.

Siddhartha Gautama grew up as a prince in a kingdom of India.

The kingdom was situated on what is now the border between India and Nepal.

He lived a life of luxury and didn't want for anything.

Two.

When he was 29 years old, he decided to go for a walk.

On this walk, he saw four sites that changed his life.

Three.

First, he saw a frail old man.

He was shocked as he had not encountered old age before.

And this site taught him that he would not be young and healthy forever.

Four.

Next, he saw a sick man.

He could not believe it as he had never come across illness before.

He had lived a sheltered life.

Again, he realised that his health and his youth would not last forever.

Five.

Following that he saw a corpse in a funeral parade or procession.

And he learned that life comes to an end.

He would not live forever.

Six.

Finally, he saw a holy man or a sadhu.

And to his surprise, he saw that this man had found happiness through his spirituality, despite all of the suffering around him.

He was in awe of this man.

And he realised that he needed to change his life.

Seven.

That night, Siddhartha snuck out of the palace and forever rejected his life of princely luxury.

Over the next six years, he encountered many spiritual leaders who taught him about meditation.

However, he found that none of them could really help him understand the true nature of his own mind.

Eight.

Just before his 35th birthday Gautama sat under a Bodhi tree and he began his own journey in meditation.

He meditated for six days and six nights.

And at the end, he achieved enlightenment.

He became known as the Buddha or the awakened one or the enlightened one.

So now I've gone over the story map.

It's your turn to draw your own story map.

I'm going to show you how I want you to create a story map.

I'm going to show you my own story map and how I draw my own images to help remind me of the key events in the story.

I'm going to show you how I want you to do that now.

Okay.

So I've drawn my table and you can see that my table includes one, two, three, four, five, six lines, one, two, three, four, five, six lines per row.

And I've divided my table in half.

So there's the top four boxes and the bottom four boxes.

And I've numbered them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And that shows that I'm going to have eight different pictures.

Now looking at the first picture from the screen, I can see that this is a picture of Siddhartha Gautama, and it shows him living as a prince.

So I might draw a crown to remind me that he was living as a prince.

I'm also going to draw a person.

And I remember that Siddhartha Gautama in that picture or image was shooting at the bow and arrow.

And I remember that he grew up in a life of luxury.

So what could I draw? I'm going to draw a diamond shining, to remind me that he was growing up as a prince in a life of luxury.

And I need to remember that he grew up on the border of India and Nepal.

Well what's currently India and Nepal.

So I'm going to write, Nepal and India.

The kingdom was encompassed by that area.

So, or the kingdom was made up of that area.

Nepal on one side and India on the other side.

Or that's what it is currently.

Now I can move on to the second image.

Now, this image needs to show that he was, when he was 29 he went on a walk.

And it was on this walk that he saw the four sites.

So I'm going to draw a path, and I'm going to draw Siddhartha.

I might even draw that crown on his head.

And I might draw one, two, three, four to remind me that Siddhartha Gautama saw four sites.

I'm going to stop there, and I'm going to let you continue to draw each of the images based on the pictures and my description.

Great.

Now you've seen how I want you to do it.

You're going to have a go yourself.

Let's look back at those images so that you can use the images to draw your own story map.

Pause the video now so that you can first, copy out the story map.

Pause the video while you copy it out.

Now that you've copied out your story map, you can start using the images to draw images that will help you to retell the story.

Pause the video now, while you draw your own images.

Great work everyone.

Now that you've drawn your own images and yours looks like a version of this or a version of my own.

Your going to use your story map to retell Siddhartha Gautama's life story, or his journey to enlightenment.

Now you could talk to your screen.

You could go and tell it to an adult.

You could tell it to a brother or a sister, maybe you even want to call someone on the phone.

Or as a challenge, can you get someone to film you so that an adult, a parent or carer can actually upload it to Twitter with the hashtag learn with Oak so that I can see it and congratulate you.

I'd like you to pause the video now so that you can practise retelling the story of Siddhartha Gautama's journey to enlightenment.

Pause the video now so that you can practise.

I wish I was out there with you all, listening to your retelling that journey to enlightenment.

I've got one more task for you before we finish the lesson today.

Now you need to answer this question below.

It says, Siddhartha Gautama thought that suffering, for example sickness, old age and death was inevitable and there was no way to prevent it.

Do you agree? You can use the sentence starters, I agree because, or I disagree because.

Now the thing to remember here is that there's no right or wrong answer.

You might agree that some suffering, for example death, is inevitable.

However, you might feel that some suffering, for example, some illnesses are avoidable because we have the benefit of modern medicine.

Now you could say, "I agree that death is inevitable.

However, some suffering such as illnesses, are not inevitable because we have modern medicine." What do you think? Remember, you're using your opinion.

You can pause the video now while you complete that task.

Excellent work everyone.

I wonder what you wrote down.

I'm really interested to know your opinions about this.

You did a really great job today everyone, and it was really exciting learning about Siddhartha Gautama with you and all about Buddhism in our first lesson.

Now, I would really like to hear you retelling Siddhartha Gautama's journey to enlightenment.

If you'd like to share what you've learned, you can ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter at Oak national, with the hashtag, learn with Oak.

Thanks so much everyone.

And I'll see you in the next lesson where we'll be learning about the book or the spiritual book that Buddhists follow called the Tipitaka.

Thanks so much everyone, and I'll see you next time.