Homeless

Author: * Ningyo Minamoto - 11 Posts on this thread out of 660 Posts sitewide.
Date: May 19, 2004 - 05:34

He left the castle one night with only his charioteer, Chandaka, and his favorite horse, the snow-white Kanthaka. His anguish did not end and many devils tempted him saying: “You would do better to return to the castle for the whole world would soon be yours.” But he told the devil that he did not want the whole world. So he shaved his head and turned his steps toward the south, carrying a begging bowl in his hand.

The Prince first visited the hermit Bhagava and watched the ascetic practices. He then went to Arada Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra to learn their methods of attaining Enlightenment through meditation; but after practicing them for a time he became convinced that they would not lead him to Enlightenment. Finally, he went to the land of Magadha and practiced asceticism in the forest of Uruvilva on the banks of the Nairanjana River, which flows by the Gaya Village. The methods of his practice where unbelievably rigorous. He spurred himself on with the though that “no ascetic in the past, none in the present, and none in the future, ever has practiced or ever will practice more earnestly than I do.” Still the prince could not realize his goal.

~~adapted from The Teaching of Buddha, ed. Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, Tokyo~~
image from: www.dzogchen.org