One night Buddha was enjoying himself: there was a lot of music, beautiful girls were dancing. Then he fell asleep. It was late and he was tired. All the girls also fell asleep. In the middle of the night he woke up, looked at the girls, they were no longer so good. One of them was sleeping with her mouth open, and the other was bleeding. Reality penetrated this night.
Another incident that prompted Buddha to renounce occurred when he went to participate in a festival. On the way he met a funeral procession. He saw a dead body being carried to the ghat for burning. Before that, he had never seen a single dead person and looked at the procession for a long time.
He was especially struck by one very old, bent man, whose face was withered and wrinkled. Buddha asked the driver:
-What happened to this man? Why was his back bent like that? What kind of curse fell on his head?
The driver replied:
- This is not a curse, sir. This is a natural thing that happens to everyone. Everyone gets old and wrinkled.
-What happened to the other person? Why do people carry it on their shoulders? - asked Buddha.
The driver hesitated, he knew that it was not allowed to talk about this, and answered:
“I’m not allowed to talk, but since you’ve already asked, now you can’t hide it.” This man died, and in the same way everyone will die, everyone who was born.
Suddenly a sannyasin appeared and followed the procession. Buddha asked:
-What happened to this man? Why does he have orange clothes?
The driver said:
“This man understood life, he realized that life ends in death, and he renounced it.
Buddha said:
- Turn around, I renounced...
At night he left the palace. The old faithful servant went to see him off. In the morning they began to say goodbye. The old man cried and said:
- Why are you leaving? Listen to me, I'm like a father to you. Night, dark. Where will you go? Such a beautiful palace, a beautiful wife, comfort!
“Don’t dissuade me,” said the Buddha, “I can no longer live unconsciously, I’m going in search of consciousness.”
Siddhartha was the only son of his father. My father was getting old; he was already 70 years old when he left the palace.
The angry father sent people to all corners of his kingdom with the order to seize his son and forcefully return him home. He was offended and heard rumors that his son had joined the monks and was begging. He thought: “What kind of nonsense is this? What was he missing? He betrayed me in my old age!”
Therefore, Siddhartha was forced to leave the boundaries of his kingdom.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru