The story of the Buddha

Buddha had four encounters with the outside world, beyond the palace and the life of luxury. It is said that during his first outing, he decided to walk outside and explore the kingdom. There, he encountered the world for the first time: old people, the sick, and poverty that brings disease. On his second outing, he felt as if he was witnessing horror after horror. In another visit outside the kingdom’s walls, he saw corpses and felt paralyzing fear.

He realized that this was the world he had been protected from, a world he had never seen. He was shocked and understood that this was also his fate. He, too, would grow old, become sick, and die. He was not immune to the harsh world; his royal lineage would not protect him from life itself.

Buddha asked himself, “How do I deal with this?” This is the most universal question in human life. It is the story of transformation from someone who knows nothing to someone who seeks to know everything.

During his fourth outing beyond the palace, Buddha met a spiritual guide, someone who had chosen to live a life completely different from others, in an effort to escape death and suffering.

For Buddha, who had experienced a traumatic confrontation with the suffering and pain of life, this meeting was transformative. He knew that even in those days, people tried to protect their children from seeing these harsh aspects of life, but at a very young age, before he could even remember, he had already suffered the greatest pain one can endure when his mother suddenly died when he was only a week old.

According to Buddha’s teachings, to become enlightened, one must endure suffering at a primitive level.

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left the palace for the first time. His wife gave birth to a son at that time, who was named Rahula—”fetter.”

One evening, Siddhartha walked to his wife’s room, where an oil lamp was burning. His wife lay sleeping on a bed of flowers with their child in her arms. He looked through the doorway and thought, “If I take my son from my wife’s arms, it will be too painful for me to leave.” He turned around and climbed out of the palace. His horse, Kantaka, awaited him outside, and as he rode towards the northern wall of the city, he leaped high into the air.

Mara, the god of desire, awaited him and said, “You are destined to rule a great empire. Return and power will be yours.” Siddhartha refused. He left everything behind, including his wife and son.

There is no knowledge without sacrifice, and this is one of the hardest truths of human existence. To achieve everything, one must first lose everything.

Siddhartha was alone in the world for the first time in his life. By a nearby river, he drew his sword and cut his hair. He told himself that he was wounded by the pleasures of this world and left the palace and its comforts to become penniless in search of peace.

Siddhartha traveled south towards the sacred Ganges River. From a great prince, he became a wanderer, sleeping on the cold ground of the forest—a frightening place with dangerous wild animals and dwelling spirits.

He set out to see what the world held. Searching for answers without prior learning or understanding, he had no solution yet but recognized the same problems he had seen when he left the palace. Siddhartha did not seek help from the Indian religion; some of the rituals were shamanistic practices of a 2,500-year-old faith.

In the early centuries, rituals brought honor to the gods, but these practices did not help Siddhartha. The rituals had become more important than the gods themselves. Cities grew, and spiritual hunger increased, with an ancient voice lamenting, “The ocean dried up, cities crumbled, the North Star trembled, and the gods abandoned us.”

“I am like a frog in a dry well,” said Siddhartha. Many people become dissatisfied with the religion they grew up with, and when Siddhartha gave up his life, he did what many still do today—he joined the thousands of seekers like himself, living on the edge.

At that time in India, many people sought to avoid death; it was part of Indian culture long before Buddha. Suffering did not begin with birth and end with death; suffering was endless.

To find a way out, for him, was to become enlightened. At that time, the idea of death was not final but led to rebirth. It is said that Siddhartha lived many lives before this one, as animals and humans, even as gods over four ages, experiencing life in all forms until reaching a life where he went deepest.

The idea from life to life is to progress further and further towards enlightenment and become wiser. Some beings are stubborn, living below their potential, and they will die and be reborn, potentially needing billions of lifetimes to awaken.

To become a Buddha is to become enlightened; it is the only way out of this cycle. Rebirth is not the popular concept people think of but rather that each life is like attending school repeatedly.

Siddhartha clung to a guru who taught that true knowledge cannot be obtained through spiritual practice alone; one must look inward. The guru told him that he could stay and said that a wise person absorbs the teacher’s knowledge and experiences it directly. Thus, Siddhartha learned what the guru taught.

He studied yoga and meditation, which were practiced even in those days. The ultimate goal of yoga is to achieve deep meditation.

By holding and focusing the mind on one object, it is possible to bring the mind to fascinating places. The man who would become the Buddha reached these states, pushing himself to the limit, but no matter what he did, he was still trapped by the pain that had driven him.

The states of consciousness he experienced were not permanent and did not bring him to the truth or the nature of reality, making it a temporary escape but not a solution.

Siddhartha studied under another guru, but the results were the same. The practice brought his mind to heightened states but did not lead to direct knowledge or deeper awareness, so he left this master as well. Siddhartha continued to wander south, still searching for answers to why people suffer and whether there is a way out of suffering. He had already experienced pleasure and pain, punishing the body as a path to surrender and wisdom.

Siddhartha brought his body to extreme pain, knowing that old age and illness bring physical suffering and that death is the end of bodily function. He felt he could punish the body and escape its influence, transcending bodily limits, minimizing its needs for survival, sitting through rain and heat, experiencing life as people know it and the knowledge needed to be reborn as someone who sees.

Siddhartha was exhausted, punishing himself for six years, trying to bring an end to the hunger that causes suffering. He attempted to destroy everything he saw within himself that brought him to the world’s evil. Life taught him that one could be free if one destroys everything human—every drop of anger, desire, and will—eradicating them with sheer willpower. The Buddha managed to do this.

He pushed his body to the most extreme limits, becoming emaciated, but from there, he realized that he could not achieve what he sought. He had surrendered himself entirely to the practice, and yet he did not find what he wanted. He was on the verge of death, dying without enlightenment, but remembered something. He recalled a day from his youth when he sat by a river with his father, and the reflection of the world appeared on the water’s surface.

As a child, his father had taken him to a festival. While watching the dances, he looked down at the grass and thought about the insects and their eggs being destroyed as the field was sown, and he was overwhelmed with sadness.

This story teaches one of the virtues of Buddhism, which is compassion—a deep affection felt for others because we are all in this together, creatures, people, our planet—all connected.

One beautiful day, he meditated under a tree as the sun moved overhead, the shadows of the trees beneath him remaining still. He felt pure joy, a happiness found within a world that appeared broken. In this world, where we are all a part, he discovered that beneath its seemingly harsh surface lies true happiness, found through wisdom and joy.

But he told himself he could not stay in that state and those feelings without sustenance. At that moment, a mysterious village woman offered him rice, saying, “Eat.” This act of generosity and release when he accepted the rice was a decision for life, a grace shown to him and an understanding that it cannot be done entirely alone.

He tasted that rice pudding his mother had fed him when he was born, and in that moment, he remembered all the emotions he had for his wife and child—emotions he had suppressed. He remembered more and more, recalling the deep emotions he had buried; they resurfaced and were still there.

He was on a spiritual journey, having gone through so much, and as he took the food, his original question returned to him. Life is painful, life demands change, and this was still the problem. The problem had not disappeared.

Before long, Siddhartha’s companions found him eating and gossiped among themselves that he had returned to a life of luxury. However, Siddhartha, the man who would become the Buddha, already understood at that stage that extreme conditions were not the way. We can live as ordinary humans, eating and drinking; we need these to survive.

Siddhartha had trusted two gurus who ultimately did not help him. He had punished his body and mind to the point of near death. Now he felt he knew what he needed to do to find the answers he sought.

He would look inward into himself.