Our teacher is the historical Sakyamuni Buddha, who appeared on earth more than 2,500 years ago in India with main purpose of teaching the path of liberation for the sake of all sentient beings. Briefly, from conventional viewpoint, the life of Sakyamuni Buddha is marked by twelve main events: his descent from Tushita Heaven, his conception, birth, schooling and mastery in arts, sporting with his retinue of wives, renunciation, asceticism, meditation under the bodhi tree, conquering of maras and retinues, attaining Full Enlightenment, turning the Wheel of Dharma, and nirvana.

Sakyamuni Buddha was born into the royal family of the Sakya clan. During the earlier years of his life, he fulfilled his princely duties such as accomplishing and excelling in studies and arts, getting married and having a child. However, despite being in a lap of luxury, he saw that ultimately life itself was filled with suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death. This realization made him renounce his princely life in exchange for that as an ascetic in his quest for true liberation. Finally, in Bodh Gaya, he demonstrated the ways of becoming enlightened. Thereafter, Sakyamuni Buddha turned the Wheel of Dharma three times, over three different periods.

During the first period, which began with the first turning of the Wheel of Dharma in Varanasi at Deer Park, Sakyamuni Buddha taught doctrines based on Four Noble Truths. The Buddha taught these teachings mainly for sentient beings having the lineage of the Hearers (Sravaka). In the middle period, starting from the second turning of the Wheel of Dharma at Grdhrakuta, the Buddha expounded teachings based on the doctrine of non-inherent existence of all phenomena for the benefit of practitioners with sharp faculties having the lineage of Mahayana. During the final period, at Vaisali, the Buddha turned the Wheel of Dharma for the third time, and taught doctrines based on discrimination between phenomena that do not exist and those that exist, for the benefit of practitioners with middling and lower faculties having the lineage of Mahayana. The Buddha also appeared in the body of Vajradhara to teach the tantric teachings.