In the sixth century b.C., Buddhism appeared on the Himalayan promontory, in the Kapilavastu Kingdom, the present Nepal, thanks to a prince, Siddhartha Gautama of the Sakya descent who, on the basis of his own intuitions, obtained the existential condition of Buddha, «the Awakened».The tradition tells that the young prince lived in a kind of golden court, where his parents kept him protected from all unpleasant perceptions of the world, which can be summarized in illness, aging and death. After a stealthy walk outside the court, he was very upset by this aspect of existence he completely ignored. He understood that confidence is fragile, that everything goes by and that unthinkable ills are possible. He escaped from home, from his family, from pleasures, from comforts and became the sakyamuni, “the silent wise man from the sakya descent”: the one who begins a spiritual search, able to remedy his own fears, searching the eternal present where there is no illness, no aging nor death.
He felt that time is the problem, since it implies the problem of the Ego,

since Ego is the past, the present and even the future, that is the anticipation of the future time. After having met many masters and having made exhausting ascetic practices he always left, becoming aware that a run down body is an obstacle to Liberation, Sakyamuni made up his own awakening, under the Bodhi tree, through the Middle Way: he fell into the present eternal fullness without extension, where time finally does not sprout any longer. He discovered the middle instant that it is not possible to catch, that is not in time, that is not present, that is not past, that is not future. Death was dead, the essence of Buddha found itself invulnerable and suffering dissolved itself in a sweet ocean, the incessant time that was offering its eternal present:
existence.       

[taken from my book, Uscite dal sogno della veglia, (Leave the dream of waking), Rimini 2008].