He Was Raised As a Prince in a Small State Near Present-Day Nepal

Buddhism:

Siddhartha Gautama, who lived from approximately 563 B.C.E. to 483 B.C.E., became an important axial-age [Philosopher Karl Jaspers calls the period around 600 B.C.E. when major religions and philosophies emerged the Axial Age because axial represents the core ideas around which a society revolves] thinker in India
He was raised as a prince in a small state near present-day Nepal
After living a sheltered life, he decided to leave the palace in search of answers to such questions as:

Why is there so much suffering in the world?
Is there a way out of suffering?

After meditating under a Bodhi tree, the prince reached enlightenment and became known as the Buddha (enlightened one)
The Buddha made a crucial decision that helped to transform his ideas from the thoughts of one man into a world religion: He decided to teach what he had learned to others
The Buddha taught that there were four noble truths:

All life is suffering.
Suffering is caused by desire.
There is a way out of suffering.
The way out of suffering is to follow the Eightfold Path.

a)The Eightfold Path includes right understanding, purpose, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, awareness, and concentration

The idea was that if you want to stop suffering, you must stop desiring, and if you want to stop desiring, you must live in a righteous manner by following the Eightfold Path
The ultimate goal for Buddhists is to reach nirvana, which is the release from the cycles of reincarnation and the achievement of union with the universe
Buddhism took the central ideas of Hinduism such as dharma, karma, and samsara, but then altered them significantly
According to Buddhism, people did not need the rituals of the Brahmins
Gods and goddesses are not necessary – everyone can seek enlightenment on her own, and no one is an outcast by birth (challenging the caste system, very important to India.)
There is, it espouses, complete equality among all believers
Buddhism was a religion that ‘hit the road.’
The followers of the Buddhists acted as missionaries spreading his message.
These ideas particularly appealed to the low-caste Hindus as well as women.
The Mauryan emperor Asoka actively encouraged the spread of Buddhism.
Back at home in India, however, some Buddhist beliefs were absorbed into Hinduism, which remained the dominant religion.
Buddhism traveled to Asia, however, along the Silk Roads, where it met with great success.
It later went on to influence Central Asia, China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.
As it spread, it would blend with the native ideas of the lands it encountered (syncretism).
It was its flexibility and its message of universal acceptance that helped make Buddhism a major world religion.
From the start, Buddhism was a missionary religion.
Theravada Buddhism, the stricter form of the religion, spread to Southeast Asia, while Mahayana Buddhism spread to Central and East Asia.
The latter form focused more on meditation and on rituals, and included the worship of holy people, known as bodhisattvas.
Also, it had a greater tolerance for prior cultural traditions.
Along the Silk Road, Buddhism traveled to Central Asia and adapted to polytheism.
In Tibet, Buddhism became popular as it combined shamanism and the importance of rituals.
In East Asia, monks, merchants, and missionaries adapted Buddhism to the political ideas of Confucianism by including ancestor-worship and a focus on familyThey also mixed in Daoist ideas.

Particular during chaotic times, Buddhism appealed to people as an avenue toward personal salvation.

Chinese Buddhism spread to Korea, where it received royal support, and to Japan.

In Japan, it was initially resisted by Shinto leaders, but eventually, syncretism (the fusion of differing systems of beliefs) occurred after Buddhism blended in the worship of Shinto divinities.

Because Buddhism lacked an organized church, it was able to merge with the local ideas of the peopleHowever; it did become vulnerable to more organized forces.
In Central Asia, for instance, Islam eventually replaced Buddhism.
In China, the Tang dynasty turned against it in the ninth century.

Russian Serfdom:

After the Mongol rule of Russia, many free peasants fell into great debt and were forced to become serfs.
The Russian government encouraged this process beginning in the 1500s because it was a way to satisfy the nobility and to regulate the peasants at the same time.
As new territories were added to the empire, serfdom extended along with it.
In 1649, an act proclaimed that serfs were born into their status and could not escape it.
Serfs could be bought and sold, gambled away, and punished by their masters.
Whole villages could be sold to supply manufacturing labor, but serfs were not literally slaves.
Serfs who were illiterate and poor had to pay high taxes and owed extensive labor service to their landlords in the form of agriculture, mining, or manufacturing.

At Lumen-Empty Monastery, Visiting the Hermitage of Master Jung, My Departed Friend; by Meng Hao-jan; translated by David Hinton

The blue-lotus roof standing beside a pond,

White-Horse Creek tumbling through forests,

and my old friend some strange thing now.

A lingering visitor, alone and grief-stricken

after graveside rites among pines, I return,

Looking for your sitting-mat spread on rock.

Bamboo that seems always my own thoughts:

It keeps fluttering here at your thatch hut.