Dharma Wheel

-3-

“Why do these people live in poverty?” Siddhartha asked when he once saw a group of ascetics begging for food in town.

“They believe their path leads to salvation from suffering,” Channa, his charioteer, told him.

“Luxury and honor do not give me the peace and detachment that their faces and gestures express. I will try their way to see if it contains the Highest Truth,” Siddhartha decided.

The prince said farewell to his loved ones in his heart and secretly left the palace. Accompanied by his devoted servants, he rode away into the night. As soon as they reached the forest, Siddhartha dismounted his horse, changed into plain clothes and, with his sword, cut his hair short. Except for one plain bowl, he then gave the servants all his belongings and told them to inform the King of his abdication. “When I find Truth, I will come back to share it with you,” he promised.

Thus Siddhartha, now a simple ascetic and member of a community of forest-philosophers, was given the name Gautama. The brotherhood was led by a yogi teacher, who taught his disciples the rules of discipline and contemplation for the attainment of non-existence. “This is the highest good, the blessed resting point of mind in its own source, the home-coming,” yogi teacher insisted. “All existence comes from non-existence and plunges back into non-existence again. The mind that can rest in pure, unsoiled non-existence is called skillful. Regular minds suffer from being unskillful. Bewitched by existence, they wander in the world of rebirth and transition from one body to the next like a thread’s end upon which beads are strung one after another.”

Earnestly restraining his senses and eschewing desires, Gautama first learned to concentrate his mind on red, blue, yellow, or white geometric forms. When he learned to focus his thoughts continuously on one object, Gautama experienced various degrees of ecstasy. He then transitioned to meditating on the nature of space, which contains all beings and material things. The ascetics called this first sphere of concentration the realm of limitless space.

When his perception became vast, Gautama meditated on the limitlessness of consciousness. Thus, he entered the second sphere of concentration. “Thoughts revolve around thoughts, sensations abide in sensations, and bodily conditions engender new conditions.” These tenets were taught to the ascetics while they meditated on the second sphere so that they could release themselves from absorption in the stream of stimulation produced by awareness of existence.

Experiencing deep relaxation, the ascetic concentrated his mind on the third realm of No-Thing from which consciousness springs and into which it sinks back. Heedless to the obstacles that beset his fellow seekers, Gautama quickly mastered these methods of contemplation. It seemed to them that he did not experience drowsiness, bodily weaknesses, or doubts to lead him astray.

It took Gautama a year to comprehend the realm of Nothing.^[5] The young seeker finally beheld the source of detachment and peace that had astounded him so much when he first beheld it on the faces of the ascetics. The prince, having renounced royal greatness in the secular world^[6], informed his teacher about his experience in dissolving himself in nothingness. “You have reached the highest state, the true source of mental activity” said the teacher. “Would you help me run this community?”

But Gautama felt that there existed a state that surpassed his experience. Even the Brahmin priests who despised the forest ascetics knew that this world had emerged from the Great Silent Ocean where only the breath of life existed. This and other descriptions of the primary state brought his mind back to the Realm of No-Thing.

Both ascetics and Brahmins considered their way of life to be the best and most worthy of emulation. They argued with each other like the neighbor-kings who extolled the nobility of their birth in order to uplift themselves in people’s eyes. In relation to human suffering such arguments seemed useless to Gautama.

The ascetic Gautama, distinguished by the dignified spirit of a true warrior, bid a courteous farewell to his fellow seekers; and continued meditative practices on his own. At times the lonely wanderer experienced the inspiration of true knowledge. ^[7] When his awareness became sharp and clear, he felt assured of the genuineness of his path and the righteousness of his goal.

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