So travelling alone (for he said in his heart:
“If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better or his equal let him steadfastly keep to his solitary journey: there is no companionship with a fool.”) He came at last to the town of Uruvela, and when he saw the place he loved it, and long afterwards, when Enlightenment was come he spoke of it thus.
“Then, O disciples, I thought within myself, Surely this is a place dear and delightful. The forest is wide and deep. There flows a pure river, with little creeks where a man may bathe, and fair lie the villages of the simple people. This is a good place for one in search of deliverance.”
But he was very weary, and often he said to his heart:
“Long is the night to him who is awake, long is a mile to him who is tired, long is life to him who knows not the true Law. O that it would shine upon me in this gross darkness.”
And there in the great woods he set himself to a cruel discipline so that other wood-dwellers marvelled at his austerities though themselves treading a painful way. And of these were in especial five, of whom more hereafter. And they established themselves within reasonable distance, hoping to learn from him when he should attain, and talking with him of great things.
So by the river in the forest composing his body and mind he set himself to contemplation lessening his food little by little daily until he subsisted on a morsel incredible to the mind of man, and even this he would have spared had it been possible that the attenuated body could still have caged the soul. And after awhile he spoke to no man, sitting lost in far-off regions they could not enter, even controlling his breath so that scarcely could he be said to breathe at all.
So still, so motionless, he sat day-long that he became a part of nature as much as the tree that sheltered him, and the creatures of the forest moved about him unafraid. The furry mothers brought their cubs to nestle by his feet, and winged mothers lit upon his shoulders to call their broods, and at his feet the wild peacock outspread his jewelled fans, and fear was unknown in the still presence of the Bodhisattva—the Buddha-to-be.
Far and wide spread the fame of this great and noble ascetic in the woods of Uruvela, and persons would journey from the city that they might stand far off and see him lost in meditation, and when, looking timidly through the boughs, they beheld his starved body like a withered tree and his calm unseeing eyes they were moved with wonder and compassion, and went away very softly, in their hearts entreating his prayers and blessings.
But lost in deep meditation Siddhartha was beyond prayer or blessing and whether they came or went, he neither saw nor knew.