Praying that his son should develop into his heir, the king managed his best to separate the prince from those things that might inspire him toward a spiritual existence.  The prince was bombarded by comfort  and excess, every one of the advantages that his royal status could offer.  Siddharta Gautama proved to be a brilliant scholar and exceptional sportsman.  He married a lovely woman whom he cherished and  they  bore a child.”

At the age of 29, the prince found out that the world around him was much more complex than what he encountered in the walls of his palace.  Out amongst the people of the kingdom, he  discovered reality: sickness, old-age and death. The shock of this discovery left the youthful prince shaken. He decided then to dedicate himself to ending the suffering. Leaving his wife and child, the prince forsaked his worldly belongings and embarked on a spiritual journey.

Guatama began a course of study under numerous teachers to understand their methods. With the help of Alara Kalama, he soon started to learn meditation and discovered an exalted form known as absorption.  This allowed him to accomplish a state of nothingness where there is no moral or cognitive dimensions. Although this was useful it was clear to the past prince that it would not resolve the suffering he  had seen.  Guatama carried on his hunt for others who could guide him on his spiritual voyage.  Udraka Ramputra, helped Gautama to comprehend a state of neither perception or non-perception,  but this to was not what he was searching for. The next step in his quest led Gautama to Uruvilva in Northern India.  It was there that he deciced on an ascetic way, experiencing a life of deprivation for nearly 6 years. This just resulted in the degradation of his entire body, weakness and self-destruction. Even though it cost him his five followers, Gautama ended this ascetic lifestyle.

The end of this spiritual journey appeared as far away as ever, so the Buddha sat down under a Bodhi tree and proclaimed that “flesh may wither, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from the spot until Enlightenment has been one.”  After 40 days of thought and meditation, the Buddha at last attained Enlightenment.

It’s the Buddhist belief that at that moment he achieved a state of being that exceeds anything else in the world. Our normal experiences are based on preconceptions and conditions: how we were raised, our ordeals, imperfections and mistakes. Enlightenment is a state in which the complicated inner workings of life become apparent and the reason for human suffering identified.

For the next 45 years, the Buddha journeyed through much of what’s today north India. He taught the way of Enlightenment to all or any that desired to understand. This teaching had become known as the dharma or “the teaching of the enlightened one.     The Buddha took a number of disciples who in turn achieved their own Enlightenment and so they trained others.

Buddhists believe that Buddha attained a state of existence that goes beyond everthing else in the world. If typical experience is founded on conditions – parental input, psychology, viewpoints, awareness, and so on – Enlightenment is Unconditioned. It was a state in which the Buddha gained insight into the deepest operation of life and for that reason, into the cause of human suffering, the challenge that had set Him on His spiritual journey originally.

The Buddha statue we often see doesn not represent a god and would not look at himself as a divine person. He was just a man who endeavored to transform himself through self reflection and meditation. Buddhists view him as an ideal and his journey as a guideline which will direct them on the path to enlightenment.  Most homes that practice Buddhism will display some type of Buddha decor like a statue of Buddha, but this is intended to remind them of their own spiritual journey.

Prior to Europeans showed up in meso America the inhabitants employed a complicated mix off calendars to record their dates.  The Haab or solar calendar, both a timepiece and Mayan art form, was composed of eighteen 20 day months along with a time period of 5 days known as Wayeb to bring the total to 365.

The Tzolkin on the other hand was a cycle of 260 days, thirteen multiplied by twenty.  No-one has learned quite exactly why 260 days were decided on, however it appears the numbers 13 and twenty were each important to these earlier civilizations. There exists a probability that it was related to the time period between a woman's initial missed period and the birth of  her child, and helped calculate when a baby might be born, however other notions about crop growing and zodiac observations might be just as accurate. Nearly all dates could possibly be set by a combination of the Haab and Tzolin, the cycle would come together once every fifty-two years, which is approximately once in every life time.

To observe cycles longer than 52 years the Mayans employed a different technique that we now refer to as the Long Count calendar. This method is shown in both Olmec and Aztec art and wasn't introduced by the Maya. Dates run forward from a mythic day zero, the date from the start of the current world. Like all civilizations the base units were days, with twenty days in the uinal and 18 uinals in a tun (approximately a year). A K'atun consisted of 20 tuns and 20 of those a b'ak'tun. Once more the number 13 is significant and quite a few inscriptions in Mayan art indicate the date changing at the conclusion of 13 b'ak'tuns and spoke of events to occur on this date. This lead to  a belief that the Mayans envisioned something substantial to occur near the last day of the 13th B'ak'tun. That day has been calculated to be 21st or 23 December 2012. So what can we expect?

Well according to many scholars nothing whatsoever. There are some references to things going on about that point in time in inscriptions, but nothing genuinely concrete, therefore it is really surprising the amount of fuss 2012 seems to be creating. A few state there will a religious evolution, while some mention a momentous galactic alignment, even though this is based on the location of the galactic equator, which can't be identified, this does not appear very likely. Yet other people worry about planet Niburu.

Collision with planet X (or Niburu) was forecast since 2003, but any planet near enough to be within collision with the Earth in 2012 would certainly now be obviously visible to astronomers in the evening sky. Sadly this fictional collision has become confused in the media with the actual and predicted approach of a giant asteroid referred to as Eros that is likely to pass the earth in 2012. Eros is greater than the asteroid that we believe wiped out the dinosaurs 65 millions years back but since it won't ever be closer than seventy times the distance from the moon, it is not likely to do any destruction.

Looking at the Mayan calendar is a great reason to think about how we calculate time and why, to be aware of the solar cycles that still rule our life and also to admire the art of an appealing society. As to preparing for the end of the world, that still appears slightly premature.