The Three Pillars of Contentment

Lessons on suffering, wellbeing and balance from Eastern scholars.

Born into royalty and raised in northeastern India, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha was a monk and sage upon whose teachings the school of Buddhism was later founded.

His works would go on to influence not just Eastern philosophy, but the landscapes of personal development, self-help and counselling — even millennia after his death in 4th-Century, BCE.

Gautama was fortunate enough to have access to every imaginable luxuryduring his early years. He lived out an affluent childhood as a royal within the confines of his opulent family palace, lavished with wealth and grandeur.

Protected by his father from the danger and corruption of the outside world, it wasn’t until the night of his twenty-ninth birthday that Gautama ventured out beyond the walls of the palace.

He met three men during his travels: one sick, one ageing, and the third dying. Gautama was horrified by his first encounter with human suffering; the impermanence and fragility of life. He decided to leave the palace against his father’s will and seek spiritual enlightenment through meditation, freeing his mind from the perennial vice of hardship.