The Four Excursions of the Buddha

What is known about Siddhartha Guatama, better known as the Buddha, is very flexible in the historical accuracy department. Tales of Buddha's life were committed to posterity even longer after his death than the stories of Jesus. There is a healthy amount of mystery involved in what is real and what is myth, but at the same time there also exists a number of confirmations that conform to known historical events. He was born a prince to the father of the King of a small state that existed between India and Nepal. His mother is said to have died one week after giving birth. Of course, there is also a mystical creation story attached to the Buddha that says he was actually conceived by the God of the Three Worlds who assumed the form of a white elephant with six tusks and entered the body of his mortal mother through her right side.

Buddhism would probably not exist had it not been for what is known as the four excursions of Siddhartha. The decision to make these excursions was based on the fact that his father had gone to obsessive lengths to protect his son from ever seeing anything that revealed the sad, ugly, unpleasant reality of life. It is interesting that these excursions have similarities to stories about other religious figureheads. The legend of Buddha is based on Siddhartha Guatama's decision to exit the cloistered and sheltered world created for him by his overly protective father. The first excursion had Siddhartha going out the eastern gate of the royal city and meeting an old man. Upon first seeing the ravages of age, Siddhartha was overcome by the realization that his own strength and energy was subject to loss. He learned from the old man the truth that entropy is unavoidable; everything born must one day grown old and that decay paradoxically begins at the moment of birth.

The second excursion of the future Buddha took place as he exited through the south gate of the city and met a sick man who was suffering greatly. Suffering had never been known by Siddhartha in his protected state and the lesson was that suffering is the real king of the earthly realm and happiness is merely an illusory and temporary state of being. The next excursion took Siddhartha through the western gate and this was the first time that he ever witnessed a funeral procession. All around him he saw mourners weeping uncontrollably. The man who would be Buddha came to understand the value of life through his realization that nothing lasts forever and everything must eventually die. The fourth and final excursion of Siddhartha took him through the northern gate of the city. There he met a nomadic monk who appeared to be inhumanly tranquil and at peace. This serenity was the result of the monk giving up all his worldly possessions and seeking peace not through the acquisition of an opulent castle, but through the fact that he had no place to call home.

Siddhartha was deeply moved by this monk and followed his path. One of the stories of his life might be very familiar to Christians. Siddhartha was traveling as an itinerant monk himself when one night while falling into a deeply meditative state beneath a fig tree, he was visited by a figure that we would commonly refer to as the devil. This figure produced images for Siddhartha that showed him what his life in the court of his royal father would be like. He would have anything he desired and lack for nothing that any man could ever want. The temptation of Siddhartha lasted forty-nine days and, like another religious figure, he resisted even the last temptation. Ultimately, Siddhartha achieved utter and complete enlightenment. It was during this path to enlightenment that the Four Noble Truths were revealed to Siddhartha and that he finally became the Buddha; the Enlightened One.

This path to enlightenment was said to have been facilitated by two ascetic teachers; technically, by the rejection of their ways. Early after he left the protection of his father's kingdom, he engaged in the ways of asceticism. This included denying himself even the most basic of comforts, as well as even refusing to eat or drink. At one point the legend has it that Siddhartha came very close to starving himself to death, at which point he had a vision in the form of a dream. The result was the rejection of this form of extreme asceticism as he gained the revelation that such mortification of the self was a path to vain senselessness. Instead, he saw that the truth lay not without, but within. Siddhartha adopted a much more moderate form of asceticism and the embrace of a philosophy that placed a high premium of moderation in all things.