Chapter V COMPASSION After a short period of quiet reflection in a grove near the river ba

                               Chapter V

                               COMPASSION
  

  After a short period of quiet reflection in a grove near the river
  bank where he had parted from Channa, the young Prince who was now
  only a wandering beggar, turned his steps southward towards the
  Magadha country, and in due time reached the chief city of that
  country, Rajagaha by name, where the King of the country, Bimbisara,
  had his principal palace.  Here, with begging bowl in hand, Siddhattha
  went round the streets of the city, begging his food from door to door
  like any other religious mendicant.  But he did not look like a common
  beggar.  Those who saw him pass along could see by his very look that
  he was no ordinary religious mendicant, and they put into his bowl the
  best food they had.
  
    When he had gathered enough, the prince-beggar left the city again,
  and in a retired spot outside the walls, sat down to eat what he had
  collected.  But O, what a meal it was!  Never in his life before had
  he, a prince by birth, and accustomed to the best of food served up in
  the most attractive and tempting way, had such a mixed mess as this
  set before him.  His stomach simply turned in disgust at the sight of
  that bowl full of scraps and portions of all kinds of different foods,
  all flung together into one dish.  He simply could not bring himself
  to eat the repulsive mixture. He wanted to throw it away and eat
  nothing rather than such a mess.
  
    And then he stopped and began to think:  and this is what he thought
  and said to himself:
  
    "Siddhattha, you were born of a good family, in a king's house,
  where you got everything good to eat that you could wish, the very
  best of rice, the richest and tastiest of curries, in all abundance.
  But in spite of this you made up your mind deliberately to live the
  life of a homeless beggar, and fare the same as every such beggar
  fares on what-ever was given you by the charitable.  And you carried
  out your resolve: you became a homeless beggar:  yet now, what are you
  doing? You do not want to eat the food proper for homeless beggars to
  eat -- the food that is given them, whatever it may be.  Do you think
  that is a right thing to do?"
  
    In these and in other words the prince-beggar reasoned with himself,
  chiding and scolding himself for his daintiness and fastidiousness in
  the matter of food, so unfitting in a beggar.  And in the end, after a
  struggle with himself, he succeeded in overcoming his repugnance to
  the food lying in his bowl before him, and he ate it up without
  further ado, and never afterwards had any more trouble about eating
  what was given him to eat.
  
    Meanwhile, the people of Rajagaha, King Bimbisara's city, were all
  talking about the new religious mendicant who had been begging in
  their streets that morning, he had looked so different from the common
  run of religious mendicants, so refined, so noble looking!  The talk
  even reached the ears of King Bimbisara in his palace, and he sent his
  servants to make enquiries and find out who the stranger mendicant
  could be.  Very soon his messengers learned all about Siddhattha, and
  came back and told their master that he was the eldest son of the King
  of the Sakyas, the heir to the throne; and that he had left everything
  behind him in order to become a beggar and try to discover if he
  could, some way that would lead men beyond the reach of old age and
  sickness and death.  As his servants told King Bimbisara this, he
  listened to them very much perplexed.  Never before had he heard of a
  religious mendicant looking for anything so strange, so extraordinary.
  But it sounded great and grand, and worthy of a prince's looking for
  it and perhaps is was not so impossible as it seemed, he thought. So
  he sent his men to ask the prince-beggar to stay in his city, and and
  he would provide a place for him to live in, and food, and everything
  else he required for his comfort; and he could settle down there and
  study and meditate and carry on his search.  But Siddhattha declined
  the King's kind offer, saying that he could not stay still anywhere
  until he had found what he sought. After he had found it, perhaps then
  he might be able to stay in one place.  So then the King made him
  promise that when he had found what he was seeking, he would come and
  stay in his city and let him and his people know about it first.
  
    So the prince-beggar left Rajagaha behind him, and passed upon his
  wandering way into the open country towards a hill on which a great
  many hermits were living from whom he thought he might be able to
  learn something about life and death and how all the ills connected
  with them might be overcome.
  
    And as he went along the road, he saw a cloud of dust coming down
  the mountain side, and heard the patter of feet; and then out of the
  dust there came into sight a herd of sheep and goats making their way
  to the plain.  But behind them all, painfully limping along, came a
  little lamb, its leg hurt, and bleeding, but still trying hard to keep
  up with its mates.  And when Siddhattha saw it, and noticed how
  anxious about it the mother sheep was, his heart was filled with pity.
  
    He picked up the little creature and walked alongside the rest of
  the sheep carrying the lame lamb in his arms.  "Poor little thing," he
  said, speaking to the lamb, "I was going to join the hermits on the
  hills, but it is at least as good a deed to ease your little heart of
  suffering as to sit up there with these praying hermits."
  
    Then he saw the men who were driving the herd and he asked them where
  they were going and why they were driving their flocks away from pasture
  in the heat of the day instead of in the cool of the evening.  They
  answered him that they had been ordered to bring a hundred sheep and a
  hundred goats down to the city during the day in order that they might
  be on hand and ready for the great sacrifice that was going to be
  offered that night by the King.  "I will go with you," said the
  prince-beggar; and he walked along with them and their flock, still
  carrying the lame lamb in his arms.
  
    And now, as he came near to the riverside, a young woman came up to
  him, and after saluting him with great respect, said to him:  "O
  Reverend Lord, have pity on me and tell me where I shall be able to
  find that seed which keeps away death."
  
    Siddhattha looked at her as if he would ask her what she meant.
  
    The woman noticed his look, and went on:
  
    "Do you not remember, Lord?  Yesterday I brought you my little son
  who was sick, so sick that he was near to dying, and asked your
  reverence if there was no medicine at all that would keep him alive,
  for he is my only son.  And your reverence said yes, there was
  something that might save him from dying, if I could get it -- a
  tola's weight of black mustard seed got from a house in which no one
  ever had died."
  
    "And did you get that seed, sister?" said Siddhattha with a tender,
  wistful smile.
  
    "Nay, Lord, I did not," said the woman sadly.  "I went round all our
  village to every house asking for black mustard seed, and everybody
  was very willing to give me some, but when I told them that I only
  wanted it from them if no one had ever died in their house, they said
  that that was a queer thing for me to say, for everybody knew there
  had been a death in their house, and sometimes more then one death.
  Some said a slave had died with them.  In some houses it was the
  father who had died; in some the son; in some the mother; in some the
  daughter.  But in every home, every house, some one had died. I could
  not get my seed.  O Reverend Sir, tell me where I may get that seed
  before my little son dies.  Are there no homes at all where death has
  not been?"
  
    "You have said it," Siddhattha answered the now weeping woman.  "In
  all the wide world there are no homes where death has not been.  Now
  you have found this out for yourself.  Now you know that yours is not
  the only grief in the world.  Now you know with your own knowledge
  that all the world weeps along with you for some dear one dead.  Go
  home and bury your child.  As for me, sister, I go to find if I can,
  what will put an end to your and all men's sorrow; and if I find it, I
  will come again and tell it to you."
  
    So Siddhattha passed on his way and entered the city along with the
  herd of animals that were going to be killed, and still went with them
  right up to the palace where the sacrifice was to be made.  Here the
  King was standing with the priests all round him chanting their hymns
  to the gods; and soon the altar fires were lit and the priests made
  ready to kill the animals that had now arrived.  But just as the chief
  priest was about to plunge his knife into the throat of the first goat
  that had been picked for the sacrifice, Siddhattha stepped forward and
  stopped him.  "No, Maharaja,' he said to King Bimbisara, "do not let
  the priest strike that poor goat."  And before any one knew what he
  was going to do, he untied the rope of grass with which it was
  fastened, and let it go back to its mates.  And no one, not even the
  King nor the chief priest, thought of trying to stop him from doing
  it, so great and noble did he look as he set the goat free and allowed
  it to run back to the rest of its fellows.
  
    Then the Prince-beggar began to speak to the King and the priests
  and all who had gathered there to see the great sacrifice of blood,
  about what a wonderful thing life is; how anybody can destroy it, but
  how impossible it is for any one to restore it once it has been
  destroyed. Every creature that lives, so he told those round him, is
  fond of its life, fears to die, just as much as men do.  Why then
  should men use their power over these poor brothers of theirs only to
  rob them of what man himself is most fond of -- the wonderful thing,
  life.  If men wish to receive mercy, he said, they ought to show
  mercy.  If men kill, then according to the law that rules in the
  world, they will be killed. And what kind of gods, he asked them, can
  they be who are pleased with and take delight in blood?  Certainly not
  good gods, he said.  Rather they must be demons to take pleasure in
  suffering and death.  No, he ended, if men wish to taste happiness
  themselves in the hereafter, they must not cause unhappiness to any
  living creature, even the meanest, here in this world.  Those who sow
  the seed of unhappiness, of pain and suffering, will certainly have to
  reap a full-grown crop of the same in the future.
  
    In this way did Siddhattha speak to the King and the priests and
  people of Rajagaha, and did it so gently and kindly, and yet so
  powerfully, that the minds and hearts of the King and the priests were
  quite changed. There and then the King issued an order that henceforth
  throughout the whole of his Kingdom there were to be no more
  sacrifices in which living creatures were deprived of life.  After
  this day, everybody in his realm, King and priests and people alike,
  were to offer to the gods only such gifts as did not involve the
  taking of any living creature's life.  They were only to offer as
  sacrifices to gods, flowers and fruits and cakes, and other similarly
  bloodless offerings.
  
    And now once more King Bimbisara begged Siddhattha to stay in his
  kingdom and teach him and his people the good way of kindliness and
  pity and compassion towards everything that has life.  The
  prince-beggar thanked him for his kind offer but told him that he had
  not yet found what he was seeking, and until he had found it, he could
  not rest, but must still go on searching for it everywhere among all
  the wise men of India, in case any of them knew or in any way could
  help him in his search.
  
                                 * * *


  

                               Chapter VI

                            FIRST ENDEAVORS

  
  In those days in ancient India there were very, many different
  teachers of religion, the same as there are now, who took pupils and
  taught these pupils all they themselves knew.  One of these religious
  teachers, well known for his knowledge and attainments, was called
  Alara Kalama, and to this teacher Siddhattha now went in order to
  learn what he had to teach. And Siddhattha stayed with Alara Kalama a
  long time and studied under him and practiced the practices his master
  taught him so diligently that at length he had learned and practiced
  everything his master knew and practiced.  And his master Alara Kalama
  thought so highly of him and of his great ability that one day he said
  to him:  "Now you know everything I know.  Whether you teach my
  doctrine or whether I teach it, it is all the same.  You are the same
  as I:  I am the same as you.  There is no difference between us.  Stay
  with me and take my place as teacher to my disciples along with me."
  
    "But have you nothing more you can teach me?"  said Siddhattha.
  "Can you not teach me the way to get beyond the reach of life and
  death?"
  
    "No," said Alara Kalama. "That is a thing I do not know myself, so
  how can I teach it to you? I do not believe that anybody in the whole
  world knows that."
  
    Alara Kalama only knew what he had already taught Siddhattha -- the
  way to a state of consciousness called "the realm of neither
  perception nor nonperception," which was a very high state of
  consciousness, but one which does not save the man who reaches it from
  the necessity of being born, and therefore of growing old, and falling
  ill, and eventually dying, over and over again. So, very much
  disappointed, Siddhattha left his master Alara Kalama, and went away
  again to wander this way and that throughout the country, looking for
  some one who knew and could teach him more than he had learned from
  Alara Kalama.
  
    And after a time he came to hear of another famous teacher of the
  name of Uddaka, who was said by everybody to possess great knowledge
  and powers.  So Siddhattha now went to this Uddaka and became his
  pupil and diligently studied and practiced under him until as with
  Alara Kalama, he was as clever and learned as his master, and knew and
  practiced all that his master knew and practiced.  And Uddaka also,
  just like Alara Kalama, was so pleased with Siddhattha's quickness and
  ability, that he also wanted him to stay with him, and along with him
  become the leader and teacher of his band of disciples.  And
  Siddhattha asked him the same question that he had asked of Alara
  Kalama.  He asked him if he had no more to teach him, if he could not
  teach him how to overcome birth and death and all the disagreeable
  things connected with the same.  But Uddaka was in the same position
  as Alara Kalama in this matter.  He did not know how men could get out
  of the round of birth and death altogether, and had never heard of any
  one who did know such a thing. So disappointed once more, Siddhattha
  took leave of Uddaka too, and made up his mind that he would not go to
  any more teachers to ask about what he wanted to know but henceforth
  would try to find it out for himself, by his own labor and efforts.
  
    Now it was quite a common thing then in India, as indeed it still is
  to-day, for those men who leave their homes and follow a religious
  life to imagine that by going without food and making their bodies
  uncomfortable and miserable in a number of other ways, that they would
  earn the right to a long period of peace and happiness hereafter in
  the world of the gods.  They thought that if only a man made himself
  unhappy enough here, he would make sure of being happy hereafter; and
  that the more unhappy he made himself now, the more happy he would be
  in the future.  And they carried out this belief of theirs in actual
  practice just as many of them still do in India to-day.
  
    Some of them reduced the quantity of food they ate, little by
  little, day after day, until at last they were eating hardly anything
  at all, so that their poor bodies became mere skin and bones. Some
  practiced standing on one leg all the time until it turned stiff and
  lifeless with the continual strain.  Others held one arm up in the air
  all the time until it withered and dried up through the blood not
  flowing into it properly in that unnatural position.  Others, again,
  held their fists tightly clenched, never letting them loose, until the
  nails at the ends of their fingers actually grew into the palms of
  their hands, and through the flesh, and out at the backs of their
  hands!  Others never lay down at night except on a bed of thorns, or
  else on a board with sharp nails all over it, their points sticking
  upwards.
  
    And Siddhattha, because he was anxious and determined to find out
  what he wanted to know, and did not care how much trouble and pain he
  had to go through if only at last he might succeed, did very much the
  same as these other ascetics who were seeking religious truth.  He did
  not know any better way than to do just as the others did.  He
  honestly hoped and believed that if only he tortured and tormented his
  body enough, at last as reward he would obtain enlightenment of mind.
  
    Here is part of the story of what he did in those days, as he told
  it himself in after years to one of his foremost disciples, the Thera
  Sariputta.
  
    "I practiced the holding in of my breath," said the Buddha to
  Sariputta, "until it made a great roaring in my ears, and gave me a
  pain in my head as if some one was boring into it with a sharp sword,
  or lashing me over the head with a leather whip.  In my body also, I
  suffered pains as if a butcher were ripping me up with a knife, or
  some one had flung me into a pit of red-hot coals.
  
    "And then I practiced loneliness.  On the nights of the new moon and
  of the full moon, I went out to lonely places among the trees where
  the dead lay buried, and stayed there all the night through hearing
  the leaves rustling and the twigs dropping when a breeze blew, with my
  hair all standing on end with fright. When a bird came and lighted on
  a bough, or a deer or other animal came running past, I shook with
  terror, for I did not know what it was that was coming up to me in the
  dark. But I did not run away.  I made myself stay there and face the
  fear and terror I felt until I had mastered it.
  
    "I also went without food.  I practiced eating only once a day, then
  only once in two days, then only once in three days, and so on until I
  was only eating once in fourteen days.  I have lived eating nothing
  but grass, nothing but moss, wild fruits and roots, wild herbs and
  mushrooms, wild rice, and the dust I scraped up of thrashing floors.
  I covered my body only with garments made out of rags from graveyards
  and dust-heaps, with old skins of animals that had died in the fields,
  with woven grass, with patches made of birds' wings and tails that I
  found lying here and there.
  
    "In the lonely forests I lived alone never seeing a human being for
  weeks and months.  In winter, when it was cold at night, I stayed out
  in the open without a fire to keep me warm.  And in the day-time, when
  the sun came out, I hid myself among the cold trees.  And in the
  burning heat of summer, I stayed out by day in the open under the hot
  sun; and at night I went into the close, stifling thickets.
  
    "I also practiced what was called 'purification by food'.  I lived
  on nothing but beans, then on nothing but sesamum seed, then on
  nothing but rice.  And I reduced the quantity I ate of these day by
  day, until at last I was eating only one bean a day, one sesamum seed
  a day, one grain of rice a day.
  
    "And through eating so little food, my body became terribly thin and
  lean.  My legs became like reeds, my hips like camel's hoofs.  My
  backbone stood out on my back like a rope, and on my sides my ribs
  showed like the rafters of a ruined house.  My eyes sank so far in my
  head that they looked like water at the bottom of a deep well and
  almost disappeared altogether. The skin of my head grew all withered
  and shrunken like a pumpkin that has been cut and laid out in the sun.
  And when I tried to rub my arms and legs to make them feel a little
  better, the hair on them was so rotted at the roots that it all came
  away in my hands.
  
    "And yet, Sariputta, in spite of all these pains and sufferings, I
  did not reach the knowledge I wanted to reach, because that knowledge
  and insight was not to be found that way, but could only be got by
  profound reasoning and reflection, and by turning away from everything
  in the world."
  
     In this way, for six or seven long years, Siddhattha put his body
  to all kinds of torment, thinking that by doing this, if only he went
  on long enough, at last he would get to know what he wanted, all the
  while wandering about here and there through the country of Northern
  India.
  
    At length, in the course of these wanderings, he came to the land of
  Magadha again, to a nice quiet place in a bamboo grove beside a broad,
  smooth-flowing river, with a good bathing-place, and a village close
  by where he could easily go and beg food.  He liked the look of this
  place as soon as he saw it.  "This is a good place to stay in," he
  said to himself, "for any ascetic like myself who wants to strive and
  struggle for knowledge.  Here I will stay."
  
    So in this place, called Uruvela, Siddhattha now took up his fixed
  residence, under the trees meditating and striving hard, fasting and
  otherwise treating his poor body very badly, all in the hope that by
  such pains and endeavors he would gain a knowledge of the truth he
  sought.
  
    Meanwhile there had gathered round him a little band of disciples
  who admired him very much as they saw how he starved himself and
  otherwise made himself undergo severe hardships.  And these disciples,
  five in number, waited upon him and attended to his few wants, for
  they thought that an ascetic who could make himself suffer such pains
  and privations, and persevere in them as did Siddhattha, must be no
  common man.  They thought, indeed, they felt sure, that an ascetic
  with so much endurance and determination, must be certain to get what
  he was looking for, and that when he had found it, then he would tell
  it to them, his pupils and followers.
  
    But one day it happened that as he sat alone under a tree, the poor
  prince-ascetic, all worn out with fasting and hardships, and added to
  that, the strain of intense and prolonged meditation, fell down in a
  dead faint, and lay there on the ground so completely exhausted and
  without strength that perhaps he would never have risen again but died
  there just where he lay. Fortunately, however, a boy who was watching
  some goats near by happened to come along by the tree under which
  Siddhattha lay in a swoon; and when he saw the holy man lying there,
  the boy at once guessed that he was dying for want of proper food, for
  everybody round about knew that he was a very holy man, and went
  without food for days and days. So the boy ran back to his goats and
  brought up one of them, and milked some milk from its teats into the
  half-open mouth of the holy man, without touching him with his hands,
  for he did not dare, he a common herd-boy, to lay his hands on a
  saint.
  
    Very soon the good, fresh milk began to produce its effect upon the
  half-dead Siddhattha.  After a little while he was able to sit up,
  feeling very much better than he had felt for a long time. And he
  began to think about why it was he had fainted, and why he was now
  feeling so much refreshed in body and mind.  And these are the
  thoughts that passed through his mind:
  
    "O how foolish I have been!  I left my wife and family and home and
  everything, and became a homeless wanderer because I wanted to get to
  know the truth about man's life and how he must live it to the best
  purpose.  But in order to gain a knowledge so difficult to gain as
  this, I needed to have a brain and a mind as strong and vigorous as I
  possibly could get, so that I might be able to think and meditate
  steadily and strongly.  And then I went and made my body weak and
  wretched with starvation and those other practices I practiced! But
  how can a man have a strong and healthy mind if his body is weak and
  miserable and unhealthy?  O how foolish I have been to make myself
  weak just when I need all the strength I can get to carry through the
  great task I have set myself to perform!  After this I shall eat all
  the food my body requires to keep it in god condition.  I shall not
  eat too much, for that will make me dull and heavy and sleepy, and
  then I shall not be able to think and meditate properly.  But I shall
  eat enough to keep me well and strong, so that I may have a clear,
  unclouded mind, and so perhaps, at last, I shall be able to gain the
  truth I want to reach."
  
    So, with thoughts like this in his mind, Siddhattha turned to the
  goat-herd boy who now was kneeling before him in veneration, and asked
  him if he would kindly give him a little more of his goat's milk in a
  dish, as it was doing him very much good.
  
    "O Reverend Lord," said the boy, "I cannot do that.  I cannot give
  you milk in a dish that has been touched by my hand.  I am only a
  common herd-boy of low caste, and you are a holy man, a Brahmin.  If I
  were to touch you with anything I had touched, it would be a crime."
  
    But Siddhattha replied:  "My dear boy, I am not asking you for
  caste:  I am asking you for milk.  There is no real difference between
  us two, even although you are a goat-herd and I am a hermit.  It is
  blood that flows in the veins of both of us.  If some robbers were to
  come and cut us both with swords, the blood that would flow from both
  our bodies would be of the same red colour.  And if it went on running
  and nobody stopped it, we should both of us die with no difference
  between us.  If a man does high and noble deeds, then he is a high and
  noble man.  And if a man does low and ignoble deeds, then he is a low
  and ignoble man. That is all the real caste there is.  You have done a
  good kind deed in giving me milk when I was almost dead for want of
  food; therefore you are of good caste to me.  Give me some more milk
  in a dish."
  
    The herd-boy did not know what to say to these strange but so very
  pleasant words from this extraordinary hermit who did not send him
  away from him because he was a low-caste herd-boy, but instead wanted
  more milk from him, and would take it out of a dish.  But he went off,
  and soon came back with a bowl full of his best goat's milk which he
  joyfully offered to the kind hermit who had told him that he was of as
  good a caste to him.  Then he took back his empty bowl, and after
  bowing down before the hermit and asking his blessing, went back glad
  and happy to his goats.
  
    But the prince-ascetic, now thoroughly refreshed with the good drink
  of milk, sat on beneath the tree, meditating more successfully than he
  had done for a long time. And as he still sat there in the dark after
  the sun had gone down, he heard the sound of girls' voices singing. It
  was a band of professional singers and dancers going to a neighboring
  town to give an entertainment; and as they passed along close to where
  he sat, he distinctly heard the words of their song which was about
  the instrument they played when they sang, called a lute.  They were
  saying, in their song, that if the strings of the lute were hung too
  slack, they made very poor music; and if they were stretched too
  tight, then they broke and made no music at all.  Therefore, so they
  sang, it was best to stretch the strings neither too slack nor too
  tight, but just medium, and then they would give proper music.
  
    "That is true what these girls sing," thought the prince-ascetic as
  he heard them.  "These girls have taught me something.  I have been
  stretching the strings of my poor body far too tight this long time,
  and they have come very near to breaking altogether.  If that boy had
  not come and brought me the milk to-day, I should have died, and then
  what would have become of my search for the Truth?  There and then it
  would have come to an end. My search for that which I and all men need
  to know would have failed miserably just for want of a little food for
  my body. This harsh way of treating the body cannot be the proper way
  to find Truth.  I will give it up at once and treat my body with
  proper care and attention henceforth."
  
    So when, next day, a young woman called Sujata, who lived near by,
  came to him in his hermitage among the trees with a bowl full of extra
  good rice boiled with very good rich milk, which she had specially
  prepared for him, saying as she gave it to him:  "May you be
  successful in obtaining your wishes as I have been!"  He did not
  refuse her gift, but accepted it with pleasure, and felt the benefit
  of it at once in a greatly strengthened body and mind.
  
    After this, Siddhattha went out again every morning to the village
  to beg food, and eating what he got there each day, he soon became
  strong again and his skin became a good colour, almost as clear and
  golden as it used to be in the old days when he lived in his father's
  palace.
  
    But although he himself now saw that the pains and hardships to
  which he subjected himself were just like trying to tie air into
  knots, or weave ropes out of soft sand, for all the help it was to him
  in his search for the Truth, the five disciples who believed in him
  and had hitherto stayed with him through everything did not think this
  at all.  They still believed, like everybody else in India in those
  days, that the one only way to find the Truth in religious matters was
  to make yourself miserable in body.
  
    So when they saw the master and teacher they had hitherto admired,
  so much for the way in which he starved and in other ways ill-treated
  and tormented his body, beginning to eat all his body required of the
  rice and curry he got when he went out begging, they were very much
  disappointed with him, and they said among themselves:  "Ah, this
  Sakya ascetic has given up striving and struggling.  He has gone back
  to a life of ease and comfort."  And the whole five of them turned
  away from their old master and left him, for they felt sure that there
  was no use in staying any longer with a teacher who did not starve
  himself and in other ways make himself miserable.  Such an ascetic,
  they were sure, could never possibly attain to any great knowledge of
  religious truth.
  
    How very much mistaken, how very far wrong, these five disciples of
  the prince-ascetic were, was soon made clear to them. Their master and
  teacher, far from having turned back from his goal, was now on the
  very point of reaching it.
  
                                 * * *
  


                              Chapter VII

                                SUCCESS


  Any one to-day who wishes to see the very spot where, twenty-five
  hundred years ago, Prince Siddhattha of the Sakya race at last found
  the Truth he had sought so long and with such painful efforts, need
  only go to the town of Buddha Gaya in Behar, and from there walk six
  or seven miles along a road which more or less follows the course of a
  broad, sandy stream now called the river Phalgu, but which in those
  days was called the Neranjara.  As he comes near his destination, he
  will see rising above the neighboring flat fields on a slight
  elevation, a tall solid structure of dark stone, with a few terraces
  running round its oblong form, which rises into the air, growing
  smaller and smaller towards the top where there is a small open
  platform from which rises a spire of stone, of the solid Hindu
  pattern, the whole structure being decorated with a great variety of
  sculptured work of all descriptions. This is the celebrated monument
  of Buddha Gaya.  And in the shadow of this great memorial structure,
  surrounded by a low stone wall, the visitor yet may see the tree
  beneath whose branches Prince Siddhattha at last obtained the light he
  sought; for it was towards this tree that he turned his steps one
  evening, having resolved to make one last mighty effort of mind and
  will, and penetrate the final secret of life and all existence.
  
    And as he went towards that tree -- in memory of Siddhattha's great
  achievement ever since called the Bodhi Tree, or Tree of Enlightenment
  -- Sujata's words to him must have been in his ears:  "May you be
  successful in obtaining your wishes as I have been!"  For now he sat
  down beneath the tree and made a solemn vow to himself that even if
  all the blood in his veins dried up, and all his flesh wasted away,
  and nothing was left of his body but skin and sinews and bones, from
  this seat he would not rise again until he had found what he sought,
  reached his goal, discovered for himself and for all men the way by
  which they might gain the highest happiness, be delivered once and for
  all from the need to be born and to die, again and again in a
  wearisome, never-ending round of the same pleasures and pains, over
  and over again.  He sat down there under the Bodhi Tree, resolved to
  sit there, no matter what might happen to him, until he had discovered
  the way that leads out of Samsara, the world of birth and death and
  change, to the constant, lasting, deathless state called Nibbana.
  
    This was a tremendous resolve to make.  It had never been made
  before by any mortal man of our epoch of the world.  There were indeed
  many other ascetics and hermits in Siddhattha's native land of India,
  who had spent long years of bodily hardship and severe mental labor,
  in order to obtain what they thought was the highest good possible.
  But what they won after all their years of toil and struggle of mind
  and will, was the attainment of a very great happiness, only it was
  not a constant, lasting happiness.  It was not permanent.  It was not
  for ever secure against all chance and change. After a time, when the
  energy they had put forth in order to bring them to these high states
  of bliss in the heaven-worlds was all exhausted; all spent, then these
  people, these ascetics and hermits, fell down again from these
  blissful states to lower states of existence, to life on this earth
  again, with all its unpleasantness and disappointments.  It was with
  them as it might be with a man who had gathered together a lot of
  money in a box, and started spending it all.  Very soon it would all
  be spent, the box would be empty, and he would have to begin getting
  more. And so with these hermits and ascetics, if they wanted to enjoy
  great happiness again, they had to begin all over again the painful
  things they had done before, so as to get to the heaven-world again
  and enjoy its delights. And this they would have to do again and again
  as long as they wanted such delights.  Again and again they would have
  to go through a course of misery endured on earth so as to get
  happiness in heaven, and then the same again, always and always,
  without any end.  Their way of doing was like that of a man who with
  great trouble rolls a heavy ball to the top of a high hill, only to
  find it roll back to the bottom again; whereupon he has to go through
  all the labor of rolling it up the hill again, and has to do this
  over and over again, without any end to his labor.
  
    But what Siddhattha wanted was to find some way by which he and all
  men would not need any more to be for ever rolling the ball of life to
  the top of some high peak of happiness, see it roll down again into
  the valley of unhappiness, and then have all their work to do over
  again, if they wanted happiness again; and this for ever and ever,
  without any end to it.  He wanted to find some state that would be
  permanent and lasting, some kind of wellbeing that would not be lost
  again, so that those who reached it once, would not need any more to
  be always striving and struggling to get it again.  And on this great
  night under the Bodhi Tree at Uruvela he was determined to find such a
  state of lasting wellbeing, or perish in trying to find it.  And now
  when Siddhattha wished to give the whole force of his mind to this
  great work, his mind fought against his will, and turned itself to
  dwell upon all the unlasting, all the passing, temporary delights and
  pleasure of life that he ever had tasted.  He wanted to leave aside
  whole thoughts of worldly things, and concentrate all his attention
  upon trying to find out how all things arise, but his thoughts, in
  spite of all he could do, turned back to his former pleasant life, and
  brought before his mind's eye the most attractive pictures of the
  happy life he used to live in his father's palace before he came out
  on this painful search for Truth.
  
    Again he saw before the eye of his mind, the splendid rooms and
  halls of his palace, its beautiful grounds and gardens, its lovely
  lotus-ponds and bowers of delight; and the many attendants who had
  nothing else to do but wait upon his will and minister to his
  pleasure. And then he saw his beautiful young wife; her lovely
  pleading eyes, her pleasant charming ways rose before him in vision;
  her very voice, so low and sweet, sounded in his ears.  And then he
  saw his little son, his only child, a merry little babe who might grow
  up to be a son of which any father might be proud.  And he saw his
  father, too, grey-haired now, and getting on in years, and grieving
  that his eldest son was not beside him to help him to govern the
  country and take his place when soon he would have to give it up
  through sheer old age.
  
    With his mind's eye the prince-ascetic Siddhattha Gotama saw all
  this, and his heart misgave him as the thought he did not wish to
  think, forced itself into his mind:
  
    "You might have had great glory and power as a famous king if you
  had stayed in household life like everybody else.  But you have gone
  and left behind you all that sensible people prize and value, in
  search of something nobody but yourself has ever even thought about,
  something that perhaps never can be found at all, perhaps does not
  even exist for anybody to find!  How do you know you are not a fool or
  a madman to leave behind all these real, solid things you certainly
  once had and enjoyed, to look for something you cannot even be sure
  exists for you to find?
  
    "But even if you so want to leave the good things of the world
  behind you and go in search of something beyond them which you think
  is better, why could you not continue to search for it in the same way
  that other religious men search by fasting and mortification and the
  other religious practices all the other ascetics and religious men of
  the country follow?  Is it likely that they are all wrong in their way
  of looking for religious truth, and that only you are right?  And any
  way, why cannot you be content to gain the same kind of happiness they
  are content to gain, even if it is not as lasting as you would like it
  to be?
  
    "Life is short.  Men soon die:  soon you too will die.  Why do you
  not use the little time you have to live in getting all the pleasure
  you can out of it before the night of death comes on, when you cannot
  have pleasure any more?  There is love:  there is fame:  there is
  glory: there is the praise of man:  all to be had if you try for them:
  all solid, certain things:  all of them things you can feel, not
  dreams and visions made out of thin air.  Why should you make yourself
  wretched in this lonely forest looking for something nobody has ever
  found?"
  
    Thus did Siddhattha's thoughts torment him on that great night when
  he sat down beneath the Bodhi Tree to seek the way of deliverance from
  birth and death, tormenting him with the keen memory of the pleasures
  he had left behind, with doubts about his power ever to find what he
  sought, with uncertainty about whether he was seeking it in the right
  way.  But he did not allow himself to be turned from his purpose.
  Rather did he the more strenuously pull his mind together for a yet
  stronger effort to discover what he wanted.
  
    "Begone, Mara, Evil One!"  he cried.  "I know you who you are.  You
  are the evil spirit that would keep men back from everything that is
  good and great and noble.  Try no more to keep me back from what I
  have set out and am determined to do.  My mind is made up.  Here I sit
  until I have found what I seek, even if I have to sit until all the
  blood in my body dries up, and my flesh wastes all away, and nothing
  is left of my but dry skin and bone."
  
    And there Siddhattha sat and still continued sitting, striving and
  struggling, laboring and wrestling with all his mind and will to find
  what would bring to an end all infelicity, all undesirable and
  unpleasant things, searching for what would end all evil things for
  ever, and bring in their place a wellbeing, a happiness that would not
  pass away, a felicity that would be sure and lasting, eternally beyond
  the reach of any change.
  
    And he was successful. After a time as he still persisted in his
  meditations, putting away out of his thoughts all evil things that
  were trying to disturb him and distract his mind, at length his mind
  became still and quiet like a still and quiet lake.  It ceased to
  trouble him with memories and suggestions of pleasures he once had
  owned and enjoyed.  It vexed him no more with doubts and uncertainties
  about what he now was seeking.  In the calm, close concentration of
  his mind, now wholly calmed and collected, in the intense power of his
  will now directed towards one thing only, there where he sat under the
  Bodhi Tree, Prince Siddhattha, the ascetic of the face of the Sakyas,
  of the family of Gotama, became the Enlightened One, the Awakened One,
  the All-Knowing One; he became Gotama the Buddha, the bringer of the
  light of truth to the men of this epoch of the world, to the whole
  human race that now lives on the earth.  For now He was enlightened in
  a way compared with which all other men were stumbling and groping in
  the dark.  Now He was awake in a way compared with which all other men
  are asleep and dreaming.  Now He knew with a knowledge compared with
  which all that other men know is but a kind of ignorance.
  
    For now He had penetrated the real true meaning of life through and
  through from its root upward.  Now He knew how and why men were born
  and died again and again, and how they might cease thus to suffer
  repeated birth and death.  But the first thing He saw clearly with His
  new and penetrating insight this night as He sat meditating under the
  Bodhi Tree, was the long line of His own lives and deaths through ages
  after ages, in all kinds of bodies, in all kinds of conditions of
  life, low and high, humble and exalted, gross and refined, until at
  last He was born in this present life as the son of King Suddhodana
  and Queen Mahamaya.
  
    Then with His keen, penetrating power of mind, He next perceived how
  all men are born and pass away again, to be born elsewhere anew,
  strictly according to the deeds they do.  He saw how some are born to
  happy lives because their deeds were good deeds; and He saw how others
  were born to lives of unhappiness because the deeds they did were
  evil.  He saw as plainly as anything that it is men's own actions and
  nothing else whatever which make them happy or unhappy in this and in
  all worlds.
  
    And then, last and greatest of all He saw on this great night, He
  saw and understood clearly, beyond all doubt, that is it not well for
  men always to be at the mercy of the continual changes of the world;
  that it is not good that they should be now happy and now unhappy, now
  up and now down, like boats tossed on a sea.  He perceived that the
  reason why men come in to existence to be thus tossed about on the waves
  of the changing world, is because they are fond of, and cling to all
  the little bits of happiness that existence in the world provides at
  times.  He saw that men are caught in the snare of existence in the
  world because like deer they fling themselves greedily upon any little
  bit of pleasure they see.  Then He saw that if men do not want to be
  caught in the snare of existence, the only way for them to do is not
  to jump heedlessly upon every scrap of pleasure they see, not to
  abandon themselves recklessly to its enjoyment, not to set their
  hearts so eagerly upon the things existence offers.  And then He saw
  the Way by following which men at length would be able to refrain from
  flinging themselves recklessly into enjoyment of pleasure, because
  they would have learnt to know and like something better, and so they
  would no longer be bound to come back to the world where such
  pleasures are found, to the world of change and disappointment and
  uncertain happiness, and would be able to attain the true and certain
  happiness of Nibbana.  And this Way or Path, He called the Noble
  Eightfold Path, because it is the Path followed by everybody who has
  noble aims and desires; and it has eight distinct branches or parts or
  members.
  
    The first branch or part or member of this Noble Eightfold Path to
  deliverance from all things evil taught by the Buddha is called --
  Right Seeing.  This Right Seeing means, to see that everything in the
  world, even one's own existence, is changeable, not really solid and
  lasting, and so only leads to disappointment and pain when we cling to
  it too closely.  Right Seeing also means to see that good deeds always
  lead to happiness and evil deeds to unhappiness, both here and
  hereafter.
  
    The second member of the Noble Eightfold Path was called by the
  Buddha -- Right Mindedness.  This means an attitude which, because it
  sees rightly the nature of the world and everything in it, turns away
  from clinging tightly to it.  Right Mindedness also means a right
  attitude of mind in which we have pity and compassion for all beings
  who, through clinging too close to worldly things, are suffering
  distress of body or mind, while at the same time we have a keen desire
  to relieve their suffering and help them as far as possible.
  
    Right Speaking, the third part of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path,
  means speaking only what is true and kindly and sensible.  It means to
  avoid lying and rude and slanderous and silly talk.
  
    Right Doing, the fourth part of the Noble Eightfold Path, means to
  refrain from killing, and stealing, and impurity, and the drinking of
  intoxicating liquors which make men mad and reckless so that they do
  things they otherwise would never have done.
  
    Right Living, the fifth part of the Eightfold Path, means earning
  one's living in any way that does not cause hurt or harm to any other
  living creature.
  
    Right Endeavour the sixth part of the Noble Eightfold Path, means
  endeavoring, trying to control one's thoughts and feelings in such a
  way that bad, harmful thoughts and feelings may not arise, and that
  those which unhappily may have arisen, may die out.  It also means
  trying to keep alive and strong in our minds all good and helpful
  thoughts and feelings that already are there and causing to arise in
  our minds and hearts as many as we can of new, good and helpful
  thoughts and feelings.
  
    Right Remembering, the seventh member of the Noble Eightfold Path,
  means always remembering, never forgetting, what our bodies really
  are, not thinking of them as finer and grander than they are actually.
  It also means remembering all the movements and actions and functions
  of the body as being just the movements and actions and functions of
  the body, and nothing else beside. Right Remembering also means
  remembering what our minds are, a constantly changing succession of
  thoughts and feelings in which nothing is the same for two moments
  together.  And it means, lastly, bearing in mind and never forgetting
  the various steps Buddha has taught us we must take in order to set
  the mind free from all bondage and bring it at last to the state of
  perfect freedom -- Nibbana.
  
    And Right Concentration, the eight and last member of this Noble
  Eightfold Way to Nibbana made known by the Buddha means not allowing
  our minds to wander about as they like, but fixing them firmly upon
  whatever we are thinking about, so as to arrive in this way at a
  correct understanding or whatever we are trying to understand.
  
    Such are all the eight parts or members of the Noble Eightfold Path
  which Prince Siddhattha Gotama, who now became the Buddha Gotama,
  discovered under the Bodhi Tree at Uruvela twenty-five hundred years
  ago. The last three parts or members, Right Endeavoring, Right
  Remembering and Right Concentration, in their full and perfect meaning
  are mainly intended to be practiced by men who are trying to follow
  the Buddha closely, and in order to do this better and more easily,
  have left the household life and become Bhikkhus. But every one,
  whether he is a Bhikkhu or not, can practice them to a certain extent
  as they are here described.
  
    The first two members of the Eightfold Path, also, Right Seeing and
  Right Mindedness, in their full perfection are only possessed by those
  men who, after many years of training and practice of meditations, at
  last have come very near to understanding and realizing the true
  nature of things in the same way that the Buddha did.  Yet still,
  every one who wishes to follow the Buddha, must have a little of Right
  Seeing, and a little of Right Mindedness.  They must think sometimes
  how all things round them are not really so fine and splendid as they
  often seem to be. And they must sometimes entertain in their minds the
  thought that some day they will turn away from the transient things of
  the world to something better, to something more sure and lasting.
  
    But the three middle members of the Noble Eightfold Path are for
  everybody to practice to the fullest extent of their powers. Everyone
  ought to try to live without doing harm to any one either in word or
  in act.  Every one ought to try, and can try to avoid wrong-speaking
  and wrong-doing; and according as they do this, they prepare the way
  for some day controlling their thoughts and properly training their
  minds, and so coming at last to true knowledge and insight, that
  knowledge and insight which the Buddha discovered and teaches, which
  is truly called Wisdom.
  
    And when they come to this true wisdom, then the mind is delivered
  from clinging any more to anything in any world.  And because it does
  not cling any more to such things, therefore it does not any more for
  ever take shape or form in any world.  That is to say:  For if there
  is no more being born into the world, and so no more of all the
  troubles and unpleasant things that follow men who are born into the
  world; and so the whole mass of distress of any kind is brought to an
  end for ever. All this the Buddha discovered beneath the Bodhi Tree:
  He discovered the Noble Eightfold Path of Right Seeing and Right
  Mindedness, of Right Speaking and Doing and Living, of Right
  Endeavoring and Remembering and Concentration, which is also called
  by the name of the Triple Path of Right Behavior, Mind-culture and
  Wisdom; or in the Pali, Sila, Samadhi, and Panna.
  
                                 * * *