siddhartha

Siddhartha sat under the tree. For a long time.

"Why are we even here?" he asked himself. "What good is it?"

"Everybody suffers. Everything suffers. And then, after a life of suffering, everyone and everything alive gets old, gets sick, and dies. Not only is all of life suffering, but it always ends badly. Life's a bitch and then you die."

He thought about this for a while and decided his body was at fault. If he could free his mind from his body, he reasoned, he would experience enlightenment. So he deliberately abused his body. He didn't eat but a double handful of cooked beans or lentils a day. His ribs stood out like exposed slats, and the skin of his belly pressed so tightly against his backbone that he could rub his fingers on his vertebrae from in front. But enlightenment didn't come.

He had hoped to realize the self his teachers had told him of, that self which is the intelligence that created the universe. The first without a second. That which never changes. But when he looked for the self, all he encountered at the core of his being was a heap of undifferentiated characteristics -- instincts, impulses, animalistic inclinations, half-remembered infantile memories, dreams, and so forth.

He decided punishing the body was not the way to enlightenment, for the body, and the mind, and the breath are all present in the self, and the human self, far from being eternal, is a thing that arises, then passes away; here today, gone tomorrow.

He sat under the tree and ate again. He sometimes arose and went to wash himself and exercise. He ate rice and vegetables and beans, and enjoyed the taste of sweet fruits. He took in the odor of flowers and felt the sunshine on his face. He sat under the tree and breathed, feeling his upper spine grow longer when he inhaled; pressing the belly toward the spine when he exhaled. He focused his attention intently upon his breath. Peace began to settle over his mind.

He meditated on the chakras, the energy centers of the spine, that central column which holds up the physical structure of the self. He concentrated on their individual and unique attributes, and kept his attention on the bija mantra, or syllable associated with each chakra as his mind dwelt along his backbone, and his breath came and went strongly, evenly, tranquilly.

After a time, he became enlightened. He found himself sitting under a tree, taking in prana from air, water, and food. He knew why. Then he got up from the tree, and went out on the road to teach people what he had learned.

--30--