The ploughing oxen also—they, toiling so pitifully and with no reward,—their lolling tongues and gaping jaws, the whip and goad indenting smooth flanks until bright blood drops started and they trembled and shrank—all these things tortured the mind of Siddhartha as he sat silently observant. And he said within himself:
“The world is built on pain and its foundations laid in agony. O Gods, most cruel and unjust, if there be a way, where is it? If there be a Law of Peace, where shall I find it? For I am bound in the dungeons of despair.”
And, nobly moved to sympathy, he dismounted from the chariot, forcing himself to look steadfastly upon the sufferings of man and beast, and he sat down beneath a jambu tree, reflecting on the ways of death and birth. And he desired his companions, the Sakya lords, to leave him and wander where they would, and they went away laughing with each other and talking, costly umbrellas borne over them in the heat until they should reach the shade of the forest and there rest beside their wines and fruits. And then, as was now his wont, he gave himself to deep meditation on life and death, on transiency, and the progress of all to decay, desiring with all his soul that somewhere, anywhere, he might behold the changeless, the Abiding and in that find rest. And he asked of his soul:
“Is there safety in riches? Are the rich exempt and high in the Gods’ favour. No—no, indeed,—for their very luxuries consume them body and soul, making their bodies the home of disease and death, and their souls the harbourage of cowardice and terror. For it is harder to leave a Palace of gold than a mud hovel, and these are the spoilt children of the universe. There is no refuge in riches. In all the Three Worlds I see no refuge at all from the three Enemies—death, old age, and disease.”
And as he meditated, his heart thus fixed, the five senses, as it were, extinguished, lost in the clear light of insight he entered on the first stage of pure rapture. All low desires submerged and in an ecstasy that was not joy but perfect clarity he saw the misery and sorrow of the world, sounding its deeps of agony and loss, the ruin wrought by age, disease, and death,—the hopeless dark beyond.
Hitherto he had known only in part, but now the whole, even as an eagle suspended on unmoving pinions, floating in supernal sunshine looks down beholding the earth spread like a picture below him, and nothing hidden.
And suddenly a great light shone within him—not to be described in words nor in thought comprehended. And he said these words, radiant with the first dawning beams of illumination:
“I have heard the wisdom of men and it is the crackling of dry wood in a destroying fire. Now will I seek a Noble Law they have not known, a Law hidden and divine, and I will wrestle with disease and age and death and bind their terrors. For behind these things is Peace, if the way is opened. And I will seek until I die.”
And slowly at length, passing downward from ecstasy his thoughts collecting centred again about things earthly, and he became aware that a man approached him, carrying a bowl in his hand, wearing a coarse robe of yellow, pacing slowly in the roadway. And their eyes met.
And it appeared to the Prince that he had never before seen a man who resembled this strange mendicant, and he rose to greet him with courtesy, saying in his heart: