Week 11 Reading Diary A: The Buddha Learns Tough Lessons

Myth-Folklore Unit: The Life of Buddha

The Encounters, Laotian temple painting

Today I'm going to write about my favorite episodes in this week's readings, which were about the young Buddha. My favorite part that I might write about in the storytelling was the chapter The First Encounter (and also its sequel, Two More Encounters). When Siddhartha was growing up (Siddhartha was the young Buddha), he decided he wanted to go on a visit outside the kingdom but the king was frightened that he might see something that would cause him to not want to be king anymore and to fulfill the prophecy, so he had all of the streets cleared of beggars and sick and old people so that his son wouldn't see them. Everything that the prince has is bedecked in gold, he is really very spoiled if you think about it so it's a wonder that he didn't turn out a spoiled brat of a prince but instead was a selfless Buddha. The gods were jealous of the happiness of the city so they decided to upset Siddhartha's mind by setting an old man in the road in front of his chariot. The gods also muddled the charioteer's mind so that he answered truthfully Siddhartha's questions about the old man and he then learned about old age and that it would eventually happen to everyone in the world, including him. In the next chapter he decided to go out once more into the city but the gods put a diseased man in his path so he learned all about sickness and how it could happen to anyone, including him. He was greatly affected by the fact that men stay strong and courageous during life even though they are faced with such adversities as old age and possible sickness, so he ended his trip. The king was grieved at what had happened to his son despite his careful planning and punished the charioteer for it, though not too badly. At first he tried to keep Siddhartha more entertained than ever within the palace walls but when that failed he decided to let him go out one more time and once again had the streets cleared of everyone "unsavory." He even changed charioteers. The gods interfered again, however, and made a corpse being carried by four men and grieved by several people so Siddhartha learned all about death.