Part Four:
“It starts with a single mind, seeking for a way out, someplace to go where the grass is green, blooming flowers and satisfaction stretches.
Most souls will come up the stairs and collapse at the doorsteps; nothing is happening, They think and go back, but some fight through their pain, knock on the door and go inside, only to discover the path ahead is endless and filled with suffering.
Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the world, similar to the first three, in that there is “the perfect person,” the one who is the wisest and follow his lifestyle we must, The Buddha.
He had a similar birth to the one of Christ; an infant would be born to a humble virgin mother, in that case, a queen. With prophecies predicting his birth as the greatest king to be born.
If I had learned anything from Buddhism, it’s that life is suffering, You’d have to lose everything you have before you start gaining your happiness.
According to his holiness the Dali Lama:
“Every human being wants happiness in life, and to experience satisfaction, you’d have to experience the opposite and be completely okay with it.
In the end, that’s not what matters; in the end, your future, your past, and most importantly, your present are only dependent on you, and getting angry at meaninglessness is not good.
The Buddha is merely the guide to your path.”
The Buddha was born to a queen in a palace in which every desire he had would be fulfilled. He had everything he urged.
His parents shielded him from all the suffering in the world, like any overly protective parents would nowadays, he was prisoned in his heavenly palace with all his needs and wishes until the age of 29.
when he went outside the kingdom. The Buddha first encountered three old men. He looked preplexed; one of the men said to him: “one wouldn’t stay young and healthy forever.”
On his next trip, he’d encounter a sick man; he doesn’t understand what is wrong with the man and what does sick mean! He asks his attendant, and his attended would tell him that sickness will catch up with all of us.
On his third trip, he’d face a corpse, shocked as he looked, that’s when he first realizes that this is what the real world is and that we are all fated to meet such sufferings.
So he set out to leave the palace to seek out the truth of his big life questions, leaving all his desires behind to live in poverty on the edge as many people had lived and still do.
He learned to control his mind and body from fellow yogis that taught him the art of yoga and meditation.
Although yoga nowadays is considered a sport, it’s initially a form of meditation to control the soul of the being.
Siddhartha (the Buddha) set out to escape the form of reincarnation, the cycle of life and death. It is said that Siddhartha had lived in many bodies, animals, humans, and even gods in the past, which made him a super-student, learning the ways very fast and perfecting them.
Siddhartha now lived a life searching for the true meaning of suffering, he experienced extreme desires and well being and now he wanted to experience the limitation of suffering,
Which led him at the edge of living, meditation fiercely with little to no food to eat, sleeping on nails standing on one foot, and torturing himself so he can remove everything human in him and enter a sort of transcendent state that will liberate him.
One day he sat under a tree and decided to sit there until he solves his problems and attains full wisdom. Hence, the god of desire set out to challenge him with failed tests to make him move, but he didn’t blink as if he was in a different place.
He gained the vision to see the process of reincarnation that all creatures go through and remembered all his past lives.
In the end, he reached the state he desired, the awakening “The Nirvana.”
Soon enough, though, Siddhanta felt like he should teach others how to reach what he had achieved, but he was troubled in this dilemma of whether to go through all the trouble or not. But as we all know, he fought through it and conquered all our hearts with effective teaching that lasted to this day.
There is a misconception that to achieve mindfulness; you’ll need to cast away your desires, but that is not true, how can you set out to accomplish The Nirvana without desiring to do so?
One of the Buddha’s essential teachings is that we should choose the right desires and chase after compassion, flow, how everything passes through another, and how we all are connected because one cannot be happy in an ocean of misery.”
“So how do you become a Buddhist?” asked Sid
“You follow their way of life! The thing about eastern Asian religions is that you don’t have to follow just one, you can be a Buddhist a taoist and a Hinduist at the same time, they don’t call out other religions flaws but emphasize the connections between them.
Buddhism has taught me that I wouldn’t have to look for answers anywhere but within. In the end, all the answers lie inside my soul.
To be a Buddhist, you should follow the Buddha’s teachings and acquire the same desires, so, in the end, you may achieve liberty.
When I first began to study Buddhism, I started by watching videos about their philosophy and daily practices such as meditation I did that for a while. it was the start of a new year. At that time, I was at that phase that most of us would encounter during that period ( New year new me! )
learning the Buddhist way of life was revolutionary for my new personality that emerged from such a “phase.”
I used to sit on my bed for an hour every morning and evening without moving, focusing on my breath.
Inhaling and exhaling driving all my thoughts away, all the hardships, the responsibilities, the rent, or the things that I had to get done before the deadline, driving those thoughts away and just flowing.
I started to help people volunteering for the school, for the community, and donating food and clothing for the ones in need.
I had many clothes in my closet that I didn’t need, and somedays I would ask my parents for my daily allowance only to feed the homless to see what would happen, how they would react, or how I would feel after.
It was the perfect way of living, in the eyes of the cliche minds that is, but not in my eyes.
I didn’t feel better or worse, I can’t deny the life lessons the Buddha taught me, but I can only shed light on the truth in the end, and that is the fact that this life wasn’t the one for me. I wasn’t looking for happiness or satisfaction, that is not what I seek. It sounded like an effortless life to lead; a lifestyle did not fit for a unicorn.
After a while, I stopped, but when I did, it felt like nothing mattered, no matter what happens, and there is no reason not to be okay with that because that’s how life is and some things are just not worth your energy, nothing is worth fighting.
I became a much calmer person, and to some people, it felt odd.
My family was concerned about why I became like that, emotionless.
But I couldn’t explain it, and what I had to do is to keep looking for an answer.”
Retroveens 