In the land of India, there lived a young Prince by the name
of Siddhartha. Prince Siddhartha was destined for greatness from the day he was
born, much to the dismay of his parents'. His parents, the Queen and King, loved Siddhartha so much and did not
want anything to taint their young son. In so doing this, they kept Prince
Siddhartha away from the all the bad in the world. The Prince stayed inside his
palace and received everything with its confines. Prince Siddhartha lived this
way until he grew to be a young adult.
One day, though, the flowers that bloomed so beautifully as spring
approached tempted the Prince to finally leave the palace and explore the
world. Prince Siddhartha went to the King to let him know that he wanted to
leave the palace the next afternoon.
"Father, I would love to explore outside
of the palace tomorrow. Is that alright?" said Prince Siddhartha.
The King, having protected his son from the outside world for so long, felt a
little antsy about letting his son leave the palace. The King also felt that he
could still shelter young Prince Siddhartha away from world, or so he planned.
"Yes, son, I agree. You should be able to explore outside of the palace.
Just let me know when you want to leave, and I will have a chariot waiting for
you," the King exclaimed.
"Thank you, Father, I will leave tomorrow
afternoon," said Siddhartha gleefully.
The King, pondered what he could do to keep Prince Siddhartha
away from the ordinary encounters of life. The King then thought that he could
order all those to clear away from where Prince Siddhartha would be riding on
his chariot. And so it was done the next morning. Little did the King know, the Gods had other plans for Prince Siddhartha. The Gods made sure that Prince
Siddhartha would have three real world encounters for him to learn all that his parents had sheltered him from.
Later that afternoon when Prince Siddhartha left for his
exploration outside the palace, he was fascinated by how beautiful the land of
India was. On Prince Siddhartha's way up a long stretch of road he saw a man
walking alongside the road. The man was very old with a hunchback and gray
hair, and a cane to help him walk. Always being in the palace, the Prince was
not aware of old age. Also, seeing the older gentlemen made Siddhartha
wonder if he would grow to be that old someday. He pondered it, until he came
upon another older man who was noticeably ill.
Once again, the Prince was taken aback by the sickly look of the man.
The Prince began to wonder again and asked the charioteer if being sick was normal
for all people and the charioteer replied to him honestly. Prince Siddhartha
then began to think about all the terrible things people face and ordered his
charioteer to take him home. Although, on the way back to the palace, Prince
Siddhartha saw four men carrying a corpse to a funeral and asked the
charioteer to stop at once. He asked the charioteer what happened to the corpse,
and he explained to the Prince the lesson that everyone will face death, and that is what happened to the man whom he saw. Prince Siddhartha, very shocked
by this revelation ordered his chariot to be returned to the palace.
Once back at the palace, Prince Siddhartha returned to his
room, and he felt greatly depressed about all that he had learned. The King learned about what had happened
during Prince Siddhartha's ride outside the palace, and he felt bad for hiding
so many things from his son. He attempted to bring great entertainment for his
son consisting of having his maidens entice Prince Siddhartha by dancing and flirting with him, but he still felt sad. When Prince Siddhartha woke up one morning, he
devised a plan to end all suffering in the world. In order to accomplish this, though, he had to
leave the palace for a while. When Siddhartha was leaving the palace, the King tried to stop him. Prince Siddhartha
told the King, "Father, if you cannot keep me from being old, getting sick,
or dying, then please do not stop me from leaving." The King could not
promise any of those things to his son, so he did nothing but let his son go
off on his own and learn for himself.
Author's note: The original story this was based on was from "The Life of Buddha" unit in the UN-textbook. Specifically, I based my story on the three encounters of Prince Siddhartha. During his encounter he learns about old age, illness, and death. Prince Siddhartha had not previously known about these types of suffering in the world because he was sheltered from the outside world by his mother and father.Prince Siddhartha's father even tries to shelter his son when he does leave by taking away all the crippled and elderly, but the Gods make it so Prince Siddhartha still encounters everyday ordinary people. When Prince Siddhartha returns to the palace for the last time, he is depressed. The King tries to cheer him up with entertainment, but it does not work. In the end, Prince Siddhartha feels that he needs to find a way to end the world's suffering, so he leaves home. His father tries to stop him, but he still leaves. I kept the general theme of the story, but changed the way Prince Siddhartha learned about the world's suffering a little. I made it to where he learned all encounters in the same day. What I set out for this story is to show how someone can live a sheltered life and be ignorant to everything around them. I recently had an experience with this when a friend of mine was not familiar with a common phrase that is used very commonly because they lived a sheltered life growing up.
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