11
and elsewhere. The servant told him that indeed, sickness was
widespread in everyday life across the known world. He also told
his master that death was the inevitable end for all living things,
including people.
Enduring Physical Punishment
Siddhartha for the first time realized one of life’s main truths—that
the world is full of suffering. But, he asked himself, why does suf-
fering exist? Also, was there perhaps a way to avoid it? Mere sec-
onds after he had considered these queries, a holy man strode
by. The servant explained to Siddhartha that such monks often
sought out deserted, quiet places and meditated for long periods
in hopes of discovering life’s deeper meanings. The prince con-
sidered this idea. Maybe if he, too, devoted himself to solitude
and meditation, he could understand some of the many realities
of life he had missed while trapped in his father’s palace.
It also struck the young man that his becoming a solitary monk
would require leaving behind his relatives, among them his wife
and son, whom he dearly loved. He felt he could not leave them
without saying good-bye. So that night, he sneaked back into the
palace. He stood over them and bade them farewell in silence as
they slept.
Away from the palace again, Siddhartha abandoned all his
luxuries and even got rid of most of his clothes. Eager to be-
gin meditating and gaining wisdom,
he did what many monks did—began
practicing extreme self-discipline and
self-denial. Week after strenuous week,
he endured extremes of heat and cold
in hopes of better learning to focus his
mind and think deep thoughts. He no
longer washed. Also, at times he lay
for hours on tangles of thorns and slept
beside rotting human corpses that had
been tossed into a mass grave. Worst of
all, he ate less and less and finally tried to live on a single grain of
rice each day. After a while, he got so thin that when he pressed
a hand to his stomach he could feel his spine. “The bones of my
spine,” he later remembered, “were like a row of spindles.”
8
“The bones
of my spine
were like
a row of
spindles.”
8
—The Buddha
