So today we're celebrating the birthday of Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of the religion of Buddhism. And I want to talk a little bit about his life, because of course, like other people whose birthdays we celebrate, like Jesus and Martin Luther King, it's really the amazing things they did later that we're celebrating. And so, Shakyamuni Buddha was born Prince Siddhartha. He was born a prince, kind of born into the lap of luxury. And I don't know. Some pictures. He One thing they do in India when a baby is born, probably, into royalty at least, is they bathe the baby with sweet tea. So that's why later on in the morning, all of us are going to have an opportunity to go and pour sweet tea over the baby Buddha.

[01:05]

Anyway, the first amazing thing that happened to Shakyamuni Buddha was after he was born, a holy, a wise, like a fortune teller came to the palace and he saw the baby Siddhartha and he said, oh, this is a really special, amazing baby. This baby's either going to be a great king, which his father was a king, or he's gonna be a great spiritual leader. And the father immediately thought, oh, please, please, let him be a great king, not a great spiritual leader. And I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that he becomes a great king rather than a great spiritual leader. And one thing he thought that if he was able to shield Siddhartha from any unpleasantness, any of the kind of suffering that normal people experience, that would sort of steer him away because of course when we hear about painful things like death and things, it kind of makes us wonder about the meaning of life more.

[02:18]

He did everything he could. Everybody in the palace was instructed to never let Siddhartha find out about anything bad, any sickness, old age, anything war, anything bad. And so he grew up that way, and he was a very sensitive, kind-hearted person from the beginning. And there's a story that they tell that he was walking on the palace grounds and suddenly a swan fell out of the sky with an arrow in their wing, in its wing. And he carefully gathered it in his arms. I actually have a picture for this. He gathered it in his arms and carefully removed the arrow talking soothingly all the time to calm the fears and then took off his own silk shirt and wrapped the swan up in that and was sitting there comforting it and holding it and his cousin Devadatta came by and

[03:35]

was very excited. I shot a swan. I shot a swan. It's fallen somewhere around here. Help me find it, you know. And Siddhartha's sitting there and he says, well, here it is. And Devadatta immediately says, it's mine. It's mine. I shot it and it's mine. And they have this big argument. Siddhartha saying, this swan isn't going anywhere until it can fly away. And Devadatta saying, it's mine, I shot it, it's mine. And Prince Siddhartha says, well, when grown-up people have a dispute like this, they go to a court and have judges decide. So that's what I think we should do. And so he goes to his father and his father agree. First they think, oh, this is silly, these kids. But then they say, these are princes. They should learn the ways of the court. So this is a good opportunity. So they have some kind of a, they have the wise judges of the court.

[04:41]

palace world come and they make their cases and the adults also have a hard time deciding who is right, you know. And finally, someone comes in from the outside like a wise person and They ask him what he thinks, and he says, well, all living beings want to live. Therefore, I think it should go to the person who wants to preserve his life, not the person who wants to kill him. So, Siddhartha won that argument with Devadatta. And he continued to live in the palace, very comfortable life, and he got married, had a baby, maybe he was about 28 or so, 28, 29, when he started to feel restless and he wanted to, he began to wonder what the world was like outside the palace walls and he asked his father if he could

[06:00]

journey out from the palace. His father had insisted that he stay there so he wouldn't run into any painful things. And so the father said, OK, that's reasonable, and you should learn about the world that you're going to be the king of. But he also went into the town and he tried to engineer it so that nothing bad could happen while Siddhartha was out. And Siddhartha took three trips. Here's where I actually think the dad's plan backfired because Siddhartha hadn't seen anything bad like normally, like you hear about painful things. You have relatives that die, you know, your grandmother gets old and bad things happen and you sort of get, you get used to it and it's part of the world. But here he was someone who came into his adulthood and really hadn't quite gotten it about the painful side of our life.

[07:07]

So he went on these trips and they drove into town and he had a charioteer, Chana, who was his companion and they went through town and some of the stories, there's two ways to think about the stories. One is that he just inevitably sees an old person on the first trip and the other is that magically Because the universe has a plan for Siddhartha too and he magically, an old person appears and he sees this old bent-over guy walking on his cane and he says, what's that? And Chana tells him that, well, that's an old person. everybody gets old at some point. And so Darth is just stunned by this. He's like, well, you mean like even me and my wife and my, and you know, my, you know, he's just totally floored.

[08:08]

And he goes back, he says, I don't even want to finish this trip. I just have to go back and think about this. And he goes back and he just continues to be very restless and uneasy. And he goes on a second trip and similarly, He sees in the crowd of people, everybody's out there presenting a very good face, waving to him, to the prince, and throwing flowers. But he sees in the midst of it all a sick person who's kind of like shaking and sweating and feverish. He says to Chana, what's that? And Chana says, that's a sick person. It can happen to anybody, you know. I mean, everybody could get sick at any time. And so, Darth is just, once again, stunned and shocked. And he's kind of like, well, why is everybody so calm about this? Why is everybody taking this so in their stride?

[09:11]

He says, let's go back, I need to think about this. He goes back to the palace and then he, not there yet, he goes out one more time and he sees a funeral procession. So in those days they had the, they carried the people, the dead person on a platform that they carried through town. And he says to Chana, what's that? And Chana says, well, that's a dead person. You know, not everybody's going to get old and not everybody's going to get sick, but everybody's going to die. And, you know, it's hard to imagine someone getting to be 28 before knowing this, but somehow the way I think about it is more like it just never quite registered. And somehow in this situation, it really hit him. And he is just totally despondent.

[10:19]

And he goes back and he says, I can't live with this. I can't. I can't understand how this could be and how everybody could be going about their business the way they are if this is true." And so he just feels very restless and unhappy and he's wandering around the palace grounds and he comes upon a holy person, a beggar in India, one thing that a person could do I think when you got older is you could sort of leave society and seek the truth and study with spiritual teachers. But it wasn't really available to Siddhartha to do that in his being a prince. He asked this person, what are you doing?

[11:25]

And he said, I'm seeking the end of suffering for all people. And Siddhartha feels like, well, that's what I want to do. And so he goes to his father and asks him if he could be allowed to leave the palace life, and his father's just furious. not that different from anybody's father, really. We want our children to sort of continue in our life the way we have in mind for them. So he says, absolutely not, and he goes, Siddhartha leaves, and then either that night or soon after that, again, the universe cooperating with this project. A strange night comes when everybody in the palace is just so incredibly drowsy and they're just so sleepy. They all fall asleep and finally everyone's asleep except Siddhartha and he realizes this is my chance.

[12:27]

So he sneaks out. Here's a great picture. He sneaks out of the palace while everyone's asleep. And gets his charioteer who I guess has not, for some reason, hasn't fallen asleep. I guess he can't, I guess he can't saddle his own horse. He gets him to saddle his horse and they go out, leave the palace grounds finally and Siddhartha dismounts from the horse and says, OK, take the horse and go back. I'm not coming back. And Chan is of course shocked and grieved and burst into tears and, but sees that he can't really do anything. So he, leaves and Siddhartha spends the night in the woods there and then when he wakes up in the morning he says, I'm not a prince anymore. He cuts off his long hair, which I guess in the royalty in India where the men wore long hair, cuts off his hair and trades his rich clothing with a workman that he comes across and then he

[13:35]

wanders around looking for the great spiritual teachers of that time. And this is where I was wondering whether I was going to run out of time at this point, but I guess it's not quite. So, he tries everything that's available to him. It's sort of like if you went to every church or every religion. He's tried every religion and nothing really seems like it's really satisfying him. It doesn't answer his questions and he comes across the most extreme things he comes across. I want to show you a picture. So he spends six years searching and one of the supposedly highest spiritual teachers is instructing people that the way to free your spirit is to turn away from your body completely. So hardly eat anything, hardly bathe, hardly sleep.

[14:39]

And Siddhartha becomes the virtuoso of this school of practice. Everywhere he goes with every teacher, he becomes the best student. And then he says, this isn't really it. So then he goes to the next teacher, and he becomes that person's best student. And this isn't really it. And finally, he becomes the virtuoso at this practice. loses all his weight and he's dirty and his hair's all matted and he's horrible looking and he's sitting there and he's realizing once again, this is not working. And he says, okay, this doesn't make sense. I need to eat to sustain my life, to do anything. So he goes down to the water, he bathes. And then he comes across a woman who just had a baby and she's gone to make an offering in the forest to the forest spirit to thank her for the healthy birth of her baby.

[15:47]

And she has this bowl of rice porridge and she goes into the forest and she sees Siddhartha and he's so amazing looking. Even though he's skinny, he's got this amazing glow. and she offers it. She says, he must be the king of the four spirits. And she offers him the food. It's hard to be a mom at an event like this. Wait for the bathing of the Buddha. Don't leave. So, anyway, Siddhartha immediately, in the story, he immediately fills out and this one bowl of food completely nourishes him and he feels strong again and he says, okay, so I've tried everything.

[16:53]

What can I do? And he says, okay, I'm just gonna sit here and get calm and see if I can just really understand a solution to this problem. And so he sits down and he says, I'm not going to get up until I've solved this. And the way the stories go, he's attacked by Mara, who is the name for delusion. So what it really kind of means is his inner demons. So it's sort of like his inner demons and it's sort of like being attacked from outside, sort of a combination. And first it's like storms and warriors. It's like hateful, horrible, terrible, scary things come. And he's able to sit still through that. And then Mara's sort of like the god of delusion or something, and he thinks, oh, that didn't work, so maybe I'll try

[17:56]

good things, and so he sends beautiful women and visions of wonderful things that Siddhartha could be doing instead of this. You know, like, oh, you could be experiencing all these wonderful pleasures, and Siddhartha's able to sit completely still through that. And then finally, in his last ditch effort, Mara says, who do you think you are? I mean, who do you think you are that you think you could solve the problems that no one else in the world has ever solved?" And Siddhartha touches the ground and there's a famous statue you'll sometimes see of the Buddha where he's touching the ground like this. And the way it is in this story, which I'm going to tell you about in a minute, is that this is actually because Siddhartha has had all these previous lifetimes where he's done good deeds and he's saved countless beings and lives and developed his own heart of compassion and wisdom and the earth is his witness that he, so he touches the earth and then there's this huge earthquake.

[19:19]

And Mara says, okay, okay. Go for it!" And so finally he settles and he settles and he settles and he gets quieter and he settles until he's completely just kind of merged with everything in the whole world. He's so completely settled that he's completely merged. And then it's the morning of the seventh day and he sees the morning star which in the winter, I guess, comes in the morning. Venus is the morning star, it comes in the morning. And somehow that is the last thing he needed, somehow the light from the morning star and he understands how everything somehow fits together and it's very hard to explain what he understands there.

[20:26]

In fact, it's almost like every Saturday morning talk we're trying to explain what happened there. And so here's the picture of his, and that's when he got the name of Buddha because Buddha means awakened. So here is the Buddha awakened. And I just wanted to tell all the young people and moms and dads here that I took these pictures from this book, Prince Siddhartha, which I think is a really good book. It's good as a chapter book read aloud and it's also good if you're a little older that you can read. It's an easy read and it's a wonderful story. And it goes on in more detail about what the enlightenment meaning was and what the Buddha did after he became enlightened. So thank you very much for your patient listening.

[21:27]

And now we're going to go on to the next part of the story.

[21:36]

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