Eventually Siddhartha came to the forest where the wise men lived. He studied first with Arada and then with Udraka. In a short time he mastered everything they had to teach. But still he was not satisfied. “My teachers are holy people, but what they have taught me does not bring an end to all suffering. I must continue to search on my own.”
He continued his travels until he came to the Nairanjana River, near the holy town of Gaya. He crossed the river and entered the forests on the other side. There he found a group of five men. Their life was extremely simple. They ate very little food, lived out in the open, and sat perfectly still for many hours each day.
“Why are you doing such painful things to your bodies?” the Prince asked these men.
“Most people in the world treat their bodies very gently,” they answered, “yet still experience much suffering. We feel that if we can learn to master pain, we shall have found the way to control all sufferings.”
Siddhartha thought to himself, “For so many years I have lived in those luxurious pleasure palaces. I was treated very gently, yet still my mind did not find peace. Perhaps these men are right. I shall join them in their practices and see if this leads to the end of suffering.”
And so he began these difficult and painful practices. He sat for hours in the same spot. Even though his legs and back hurt very much, he would not move a muscle. He let himself be burned by the blazing summer sun and chilled by the winter winds. He ate barely enough food to remain alive. But no matter how difficult it was, he thought, “I must continue and discover the way out of all misery!”
The five men were amazed at Siddhartha. They said to themselves, “Never have we seen anyone with as much determination as this man. He drives himself on and on and never quits. If anyone is going to succeed in these practices it will be Siddhartha. Let us stay near him so that when he discovers the true path we shall be able to learn it from him.”
Siddhartha treated his body more and more harshly. In the beginning he slept only a few hours each night, but eventually he stopped going to sleep altogether! He stopped taking even the one poor meal a day that he used to allow himself, and would eat only the few seeds and berries that the wind blew into his lap.
He grew thinner and thinner. His body lost its radiance and became covered with dust and dirt. He became little more than a living skeleton. But still he did not give up his practices.
Six long years passed. Siddhartha was twenty-nine years old when he left his palaces and all their pleasures behind. Now he was thirty-five, having spent six years with hardly any food, sleep, shelter, or decent clothing.
One day he thought to himself, “Am I closer to my goal now that I was six years ago? Or am I still as ignorant as before? When I was a prince and lived in luxury, I had everything a person could desire. I wasted my many years in those prisons of pleasure.
“Then I left and began my search. I have lived in forests and caves and have had nothing but poor food and much pain. But I still have not learned how to put an end to suffering. I can see now that it is a mistake to punish my body like this, just as it was a mistake to have wasted so much time in those palaces. To find the truth I must follow a middle path between too much pleasure and too much pain.”
He remembered that many years ago, after he had seen the dead man, he had meditated under a rose-apple tree. “After that meditation,” he thought, “my mind was very calm and still. I was able to see things clearly for the first time. I shall try to meditate like that again now.”
But when he looked at himself he realized, “I have been sitting here for such a long time with no food that I am tired, dirty, and weak. I am so thin that I can see my bones through my skin. How can I meditate when I am too hungry and dirty to even think clearly?”
And slowly he pulled himself up and went to bathe himself in the river. He was so weak, however, that he fell and was almost drowned. With great effort he just managed to pull himself to the shore. Then he sat for a while, resting.
