I really enjoyed the encounters of Prince Siddhartha. What really captured my attention was the relationship between the Prince Siddhartha and the King. I found it pretty interesting that the King kept Siddhartha sheltered for so long. Siddhartha's father was so successful in sheltering him that he was an adult before he knew about the world's suffering. His father was still so protective that he even attempted to keep Siddhartha away from the crippled, sick, and dying. I felt this was important to the theme because the whole basis of the episodes on the encounters revolves around Siddhartha's ignorance to suffering. It was crazy reading about him learning about these things like a small child, because usually you learn about these things at an early age. I also found this to be a little overprotective of the King considering Prince Siddhartha's age. When Siddhartha finally did learn of old age, illness, and death he felt deeply saddened by this type of suffering people have to face. He also felt that he could find a way to stop it. When Siddhartha planned to leave home, the King could not reason with his son because he had kept him so sheltered, so he never learned that you cannot stop someone from dying, getting old, or being sick when he was younger. For example, I once had a conversation with someone who was home-schooled and they were not privy to a common phrase that had to do with homosexuality, unassumingly so because they lived a sheltered life around their family. Which is fine, but it sort of makes them ignorant to other types of people sort of like Siddhartha. I would definitely recommend the first half of this reading because it relatable to a lot of people. It also has a weird supernatural twist in the beginning that was kind of cool.
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