A monk called Gotama, it seems, a son of the Sakyans, who went forth into homelessness from a Sakyan clan, has come...

Now a good report of Master Gotama has been spread to this effect:

"That Blessed One is such since he is accomplished and fully awakened, perfect in true knowledge and conduct, sublime, knower of worlds, incomparable leader of men to be tamed, teacher of gods and men, awakened and blessed... He teaches a True Idea that is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, with its own special meaning and phrasing; he exhibits a holy life that is utterly perfect and pure."

Now it is good to see such Accomplished Ones.

Majjhima Nikaya 41

The above is a translation from the Pali Tipitaka, a collection of early Buddhist writings that includes many discourses reputed to have been first uttered by the historical Buddha. He was the princely Siddhartha Gautama who was born over 2550 years ago in north-east India, the heir to the Sakya clan.

The story of how and why the young prince rejected all the luxurious trappings of regal privilege to become a wandering holy man (sadhu) provides valuable insight:

Siddhartha had a most extraordinary upbringing. His father and stepmother, King Suddhodana and Queen Mahapajapati, went to extreme lengths to insulate him from the bitter facts of life. He grew up blissfully unaware of the fundamental truths of ageing, sickness and death. Such concepts were completely unknown to him.

The king and queen went to these extraordinary lengths because of some alarming predictions made shortly after Siddhartha's birth. In that time fortune telling was the custom and some respected practitioners of the craft had detected certain signs on the baby prince's body. From these signs they divined that he would either become a great sage, or failing that, a great emperor. One of them told the king and queen that the only possible chance they had of ensuring that Siddhartha would choose the imperial rather than the spiritual career was to prevent him from coming face to face with the painful realities of old age, sickness and death.

Concealing the truth from Siddhartha was no easy task. A beautiful pleasure garden was built for him. The plan was that it should provide for his every need, so that he would never seek to go beyonds its confines into the real world where the truth could not be so easily disguised. The sight and scent of flowers was everywhere. There were lakes and wandering streams running through flower-studded lawns. There were herds of deer and pavilions with elegant, dancing fountains wrought by skilled craftsmen in fine stone.

Everything was kept immaculate by a host of gardeners, carefully selected for fairness of countenance and perfect health. They were under the strictest orders to promptly and silently remove anything that had withered or which showed the least sign of disease or decay. For Siddhartha, it must have been like growing up in Heaven...

The Prince grew to manhood before the Plan failed. He had married the beautiful Princess Yasodhara and she had borne him Rahula, his firstborn son. He loved his family very dearly. Much as young men today, Siddhartha enjoyed the thrill of speed and began to race his chariot well beyond the perfect garden. Outside the ordered palace precincts he came face to face with the real world for the first time in his life. Imagine therefore, the impact it must have had on him, when one by one, he beheld, in turn, examples of ageing, sickness and death. Each of these experiences greatly troubled the prince, who ordered Channa, his faithful charioteer, to explain the phenomena before his eyes. So the obedient Channa at last revealed to Siddhartha that old age, sickness and death were but natural events; the way of the world.

The sudden realisation that death lay in wait even for himself and all those he loved must have been a tremendous shock for Siddhartha. In particular, the possibility of his beloved Yasodhara or Rahula being racked with pain or writhen with age and finally gone forever, never to be seen again, hit him like a thunderbolt. And then the Prince saw another sight that amazed him. A wandering Sadhu (i.e. a monk or holy man) walked serenely by. His clothes were as rags and he leaned on a rough staff, but there was a sparkle in the depths of his eyes and he seemed to radiate a profound peace. How could it be that anyone could bear up with such untroubled calm in the midst of life's attendant horrors?

Channa explained that such persons were those who had renounced the world and all its woes in order to devote their lives to the eternal search for wisdom and truth. Thus was the seed sown that eventually grew into Siddhartha's unstoppable resolve to renounce His birthright and become a Sadhu in order to seek for the answer to ageing, sickness and death. You can be sure that Siddhartha had received a character-building education befitting a future king. So it was that once he recovered from his initial shock, he put despair behind him and decided that he had a duty to 'correct these terrible anomalies'.

The intricate plan to ensure Siddhartha would follow in the King's footsteps had instead helped to forge a unique individual who saw such things as ageing, sickness and death as errors that could and should be overcome rather than as the hard but inevitable facts of mortal existence.

So it was that one night, when all around him were fast asleep, Siddhartha stole away from the palace and melted into the shadows of the forest. He cast off his fine clothes and took on the garb and role of an alms mendicant.

It must have been agonising to tear himself away from his beloved family. What drove him was the conviction that he was doing his duty to save the ones he loved from the suffering that would otherwise surely overtake them sooner or later. All he had to do was find the Answer, then he would return in triumph to remain with them forever in the perfect bliss his upbringing had led him to believe was the birthright of all beings.

But he can only find the Answer by deserting his family for as long as it would take. Isn't this a perfect analogy for the 'unsatisfactory' nature of sentient existence? It also hints at an essential prerequisite for anyone intent on following the Buddha - a loving heart that is deeply moved by the suffering of others.