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Reading Notes Week 13: Buddha Part B

For the second half of the reading, I finally got to see the prince in a new light. The man who I thought was Buddha (and still was Buddha) gave me insight that the Buddha was not born without the normal thoughts/temptations of man. I have always made the comparison between Buddha and Jesus, thinking that he was always without the thoughts normal people have. This section of the reading really gave me a new view on who the Buddha is/was.

At first when they were speaking of the three men who came to see him while he was going through the city, I was convinced that he was going to treat them with compassion and have something wise to say about it, but rather it was the opposite. He became sad with each new person that he saw. This is just like many children when they first experience these things. The difference between a child and the prince is that the prince was so sheltered that he was not exposed to sadness or the real world until after he got married. This made me mad at first and curious to find out how he handled the depression that he fell into. At first I was made because rather than facing it, he would run off and hide and be sad. This is something i would do when faced with something I could not handle, so it was odd seeing the Buddha do this.

Eventually he starts to come around after hearing about Goya's dream. This would have been okay with me, but her dream basically said that would do great things if he went and became a monk. I had this expectation that the Buddha would want to change the world for different reasons not just because some dream said he was going to be great if he did. I understand that a lot of this is fictitious, but I still want the first Buddha to live up to my expectations.

In the end, he kind of brings it back together in a more selfless way before he leaves, but I am interested to see how his journey into the wise Buddha we all know goes.

(Siddhartha Leaves to Become a Monk. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Bibliography: The Life of Buddha

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