108 Buddhist Parables and Stories. Olga Gutsol
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and Devadatta stand at a distance apart from each other, and he then put the bird in the middle. As the swan started walking towards its saviour, Siddhartha became the rightful owner of the bird.
3. THE TIES OF LIFE
The palace which the king had given to the prince was resplendent with all the luxuries of India. All sorrowful sights, all misery, and all knowledge of misery were kept away from Siddhartha, for the king desired that no troubles should come near his son. The prince should not know that there was evil in the world.
As Siddhartha grew to manhood, King Suddhodana sought ways to strengthen the prince’s ties to home. The king married him to the lovely Princess Yasodhara, daughter of the king of Koliya. Surrounded with luxury, the prince became a creature of pleasure and seldom left his apartments in the palace’s upper stories.
In the wedlock of Siddhartha and Yasodhara was born a son, whom they named Rahula (fetter or tie). King Suddhodana was glad that an heir was born to his son, and said, “The prince having begotten a son will love him as I love the prince. This will be a strong tie to bind Siddhattha’s heart to the interests of the world, and the kingdom of the Sakyas will remain under the sceptre of my descendants.”
4. FIRST MEDITATION
When Siddhartha was nine, King Suddhodana, his royal family and all his ministers attended the ceremony of the first plowing of the fields. On that day Siddhartha saw the actual plowing; he saw a man naked to the waist prodding a water buffalo to pull a plow. It was very close to noon, and the sun shone relentlessly on the man’s bare back. He was sweating profusely and visibly tired from walking up and down in the field making the furrows. Intermittently, he would whip the reluctant buffalo. The buffalo had to pull very hard with the yoke upon its body. The plow turned up the soil exposing the worms that made their homes there. Siddhartha then realized why so many small birds were hovering near the ground. They were eating the live worms and other tiny bugs that laid bare for their easy picking. Just then, a hawk swooped down and caught one of the small birds.
Siddhartha watched in silence. He felt the toil of the man who ploughed the field in the hot sun. He felt the struggle of the water buffalo chained to the plow. He felt the pain of the worms cut by the plow. It was heart wrenching to witness the worms, the insects, and the small bird losing their lives so abruptly.
The noonday sun was extremely hot. Siddhartha took shelter under a rose-apple tree. The leaves provided a much needed shade away from the heat. After sitting quietly for a while, Siddhartha thought about what he saw and recognized that the man, the water buffalo, the birds, and the worms had one thing in common: each of them was tied to the conditions of its life. A worm was tied to the condition that it was a food source for birds. A small bird was bound by the condition that it might fall prey to larger birds. A water buffalo had to live in captivity and work for its captors.
He recognized that life conditions brought fear and pain at times, and enjoyment at others. In one moment, the small bird was enjoying the worms, but in the next moment, it was food for the hawk. Siddhartha observed that the conditions were different for everyone. Some animals enjoyed a greater degree of freedom and safety than others. The peacocks of the royal gardens certainly led a better existence than that of a water buffalo. It was the same with people. One thing stood out above all else: regardless of what conditions they were born with, all living things had a universal wish to live in peace and happiness. All living things wanted to avoid suffering.
King Suddhodana saw Siddhartha sitting under the tree, and in the king’s heart his greatest fear was taking shape: Siddhartha would leave him one day in search of the truth.
5. THE THREE WOES
As the chained elephant longs for the wilds of the jungles, so the prince got bored with the royal entertainments and asked his father for permission to see the world outside of the palace. King Suddhodana ordered a jewel-fronted chariot and commanded the roads to be adorned where his son would pass and cleared of the old, sick, dead and holy men. Yet the celestial beings had other plans for Siddhartha.
The houses of the city were decorated with curtains and banners, and spectators arranged themselves on either side, eagerly gazing at the heir to the throne. Thus Siddhartha rode with Channa, his charioteer, through the streets of the city, and into a country watered by rivulets and covered with pleasant trees.
Suddenly, by the wayside an old man appeared with bent frame, wrinkled face and sorrowful brow. The prince asked the charioteer, “Who is this? His head is white, his eyes are bleared, and his body is withered. He can barely walk.”
At first the charioteer did not dare to speak the truth. But eventually, much embarrassed, he explained, saying, “These are the symptoms of old age. This same man was once a suckling child, and as a youth full of sportive life; but now, as years have passed away, his beauty is gone and the strength of his life is wasted.”
Siddhartha was greatly affected by the words of the charioteer, and he sighed because of the pain of old age. “What joy or pleasure can men take,” he thought to himself, “when they know they must soon wither and pine away!”
Shortly after they were passing on, a sick man appeared on the way-side, gasping for breath. His body was disfigured, convulsed and groaning with pain. The prince asked his charioteer, “What kind of man is this?”
The charioteer replied, “This man is sick. The four elements of his body are confused and out of order. We are all subject to such conditions: the poor and the rich, the ignorant and the wise, all creatures that have bodies are liable to the same calamity.”
And Siddhartha was still more moved. All pleasures appeared stale to him, and he loathed the joys of life.
The charioteer sped the horses on to escape the dreary sight, when out of a sudden they were stopped in their course by four persons passing by and carrying a corpse. The prince, shuddering at the sight of a lifeless body, asked the charioteer, “What is this they carry? There are streamers and flower garlands; but the men that follow are overwhelmed with grief!”
The charioteer replied, “This is a dead man: his life is gone; his thoughts are still; his family and friends now carry his corpse to the burnings grounds.”
“Is this the only dead man, he asked, or does the world contain other instances?” asked Siddhartha filled with awe and terror.
With a heavy heart the charioteer replied, “All over the world it is the same. He who begins life must end it. There is no escape from death.”
With bated breath and stammering accents the prince exclaimed, “O worldly men! How fatal is your delusion! Inevitably your body will crumble to dust, yet carelessly you live on.”
The charioteer observing the deep impression these sights had made on the prince, turned his horses and drove back to the city. Siddhartha having returned home looked with disdain upon the treasures of his palace. His wife welcomed him and entreated him to tell her the cause of his grief. He said, “I see everywhere the impression of change; therefore, my heart is heavy. Men grow old, sicken, and die. That is enough to take away the zest of life.”
The king, hearing that the prince had become estranged from pleasure, was greatly overcome with sorrow.
6. RENUNCIATION
The night after his trip to the city, the prince could not fall asleep. Siddhattha went out into the garden, sat down beneath the great jambu tree and gave himself to thought. Pondering on life and death and the evils of decay, he became free from confusion and saw all the misery and sorrow of the world, the pains of pleasure, and the inevitable certainty of death that hovers over every being. A deep compassion seized his heart.
While the prince