Even at a full gallop, they did not reach the border of Sakya until daybreak. Before them flowed the Anoma River, which they followed downstream until they found a shallow place to cross over with the horses. They rode for another spell before coming to the edge of a forest. A deer flitted in and out among the trees. Birds flew close by, undisturbed by the men’s presence. Siddhartha dismounted. He smiled and stroked Kanthaka’s mane.
“Kanthaka, you are wonderful. You have helped bring me here, and for that, I thank you.”
The horse lifted his head and looked lovingly at his master. Siddhartha pulled out a sword tucked in his horse’s saddle and then grasping his own long locks of hair in his left hand, cut them off with his right. Channa dismounted his own horse. Siddhartha handed him the hair and sword. He then removed his jeweled necklace.
“Channa, take my necklace, sword, and hair and give them to my father. Please tell him to have faith in me. I have not left home to selfishly avoid my responsibilities. I go now on behalf of all of you and all beings. Please, console the king and queen for me. Console Yasodhara. I ask this of you.”
As Channa took the necklace, tears streamed from his eyes. “Your highness, everyone will suffer terribly. I don’t know what I will say to the king and queen or to your wife, Yasodhara. Your highness, how will you sleep beneath the trees like an ascetic when all your life you’ve known nothing but a warm bed and soft blankets?”
Siddhartha smiled. “Don’t worry, Channa. I can live the way others do. You must return to tell everyone of my decision before they begin to worry about my disappearance. Leave me here alone now.”
Channa wiped his tears. “Please, your highness, let me stay here to serve you. Have mercy on me and don’t make me bear such sorrowful news to ones I love!”
Siddhartha patted his attendant on the shoulder. His voice grew serious. “Channa, I need you to return and inform my family. If you truly care for me, please do as I say. I don’t need you here, Channa. No monk has need of a personal attendant! Please, return home now!”
Channa reluctantly obeyed the prince. He carefully placed the hair and necklace inside his jacket and tucked the sword in Kanthaka’s saddle. He grasped Siddhartha’s arm in his two hands and beseeched him, “I will do as you say but please, your highness, remember me, and remember us all. Don’t forget to return after you have found the Way.”
Siddhartha nodded and smiled reassuringly at Channa. He stroked Kanthaka’s head. “Kanthaka, my friend, now return home.”
Channa held Kanthaka’s reins and mounted his own steed. Kanthaka turned to look at Siddhartha one last time, his eyes filled with tears no less than Channa’s.
Siddhartha waited until Channa and the two horses were out of sight before he turned toward the forest to enter his new life. The sky would now serve as his roof and the forest as his home. A sense of ease and contentment welled up within him. Just at that moment, a man came walking out of the forest. At first glance, Siddhartha thought he was a monk, for he was wearing the customary robe. But on closer inspection, Siddhartha saw the man was carrying a bow, and a quiver of arrows was slung across his back.
“You are a hunter, are you not?” asked Siddhartha.
“That is correct,” the man answered.
“If you are a hunter, why are you dressed as a monk?”
The hunter smiled and said, “Thanks to this robe, the animals do not fear me, and I am thus easily able to shoot them.”
Siddhartha shook his head. “Then you are abusing the compassion of those who follow a spiritual path. Would you agree to trade your robe for my garments?”
The hunter looked at Siddhartha and saw he was wearing royal garments of inestimable value.
“Do you really want to trade?” the hunter asked.
“Absolutely,” said Siddhartha. “You could sell these garments and have enough money to stop hunting and begin a new trade. As for me, I wish to be a monk and have need of a robe like yours.”
The hunter was overjoyed and, after exchanging his robe for Siddhartha’s handsome clothes, he hurried off. Siddhartha now had the appearance of a real monk. He stepped into the forest and found a tree to sit beneath. For the first time as a homeless monk, he sat in meditation. After a long final day in the palace and an autumn night spent on the back of a horse, Siddhartha now experienced a marvelous ease. He sat in meditation to savor and nurture the feeling of release and freedom that had filled him the moment he entered the forest.
Sunlight filtered through the trees and came to rest on Siddhartha’s eyelashes. He opened his eyes and saw standing before him, a monk. The monk’s face and body were thin and worn by a life of austerities. Siddhartha stood up and joined his palms together in greeting. He told the monk he had only just abandoned his home and had not yet had the chance to be accepted by any teacher. He expressed his intent to travel south to find the spiritual center of Master Alara Kalama and there ask to be accepted as a disciple.
The monk told Siddhartha that he himself had studied under Master Alara Kalama and that at present the Master had started a center just north of the city Vesali. More than four hundred disciples were gathered there for his teaching.
The monk knew how to get there and said he would be glad to take Siddhartha.
Siddhartha followed him through the forest to a path which wound up a hill and entered another forest. They walked until noon, when the monk showed Siddhartha how to gather wild fruits and edible greens. The monk explained that it was sometimes necessary to dig roots to eat when there were no edible fruits or greens to be found. Siddhartha knew he would be living in the forests a long time and so he asked the names of all the edible foods and carefully noted everything the monk told him. He learned that the monk was an ascetic who lived on nothing but wild fruits, greens, and roots. His name was Bhargava. He told Siddhartha that Master Alara Kalama was not an ascetic and in addition to wild foraging, his monks begged for food or accepted what was brought as offerings to them from neighboring villages.
Nine days later, they reached the forest center of Alara Kalama, near Anupiya. They arrived as Master Alara was giving a talk to more than four hundred disciples. He looked about seventy years old and, though he appeared thin and frail, his eyes shone and his voice resounded like a copper drum. Siddhartha and his companion stood outside the circle of disciples and quietly listened to the Master’s teaching. When he finished speaking, his disciples scattered throughout the forest to pursue their practice. Siddhartha approached him and after introducing himself, respectfully said, “Venerable Teacher, I ask you to accept me as one of your disciples. I wish to live and study under your guidance.”
The master listened and looked intently at Siddhartha, and then expressed his approval. “Siddhartha, I would be happy to accept you. You may stay here. If you practice according to my teachings and methods, you will realize the teachings in a short time.”
Siddhartha prostrated himself to express his happiness.
Master Alara lived in a straw hut made for him by several of his disciples. Scattered here and there in the forest were the straw huts of his followers. That night, Siddhartha found a level place to sleep, using a tree root for his pillow. Because he was exhausted from the long journey, he slept soundly until morning. When he awoke, the sun had already risen and the songs of birds filled the forest. He sat up. The other monks had finished their morning meditation and were preparing to go down into the city to beg for food. Siddhartha was given a bowl and shown how to beg.
Following the other monks, he held his bowl and entered the city of Vesali. Holding a bowl to beg for the first time, Siddhartha was struck by how closely linked the life of a monk was to that of the laity—the monks were dependent on the lay community for food. He learned how to hold his bowl properly, how to walk and stand, how to receive the food offerings, and how to recite prayers in order to thank those who made the offerings. That day Siddhartha received some rice with curry sauce.
He returned with his new companions to the forest, and they all sat down to eat. When he had finished, he went to Master Alara to receive spiritual instruction. Alara was sitting in deep meditation when Siddhartha found him, and so he sat down before the master, quietly trying to focus his own mind. After a long time, Alara opened his eyes. Siddhartha prostrated himself and asked Master Alara to teach him.
Alara spoke to the new monk about faith and diligence and showed him how to use his breathing to develop concentration. He explained, “My teaching is not a mere theory. Knowledge is gained from direct experience and direct attainment, not from mental arguments. In order to attain different states of meditation, it is necessary to rid yourself of all thoughts of the past and future. You must focus on nothing but liberation.”
Siddhartha asked about how to control the body and the sensations, and then respectfully thanked his teacher and walked away slowly to find a place in the forest where he could practice. He gathered branches and leaves and constructed a small hut beneath a sal tree where his meditation practice could ripen. He practiced diligently and, every five or six days, he returned to ask Alara’s advice concerning whatever difficulties he was experiencing. In a short time, Siddhartha made considerable progress.
While sitting in meditation, he was able to let go of thoughts and even of clinging to his past and future, and he attained a state of wondrous serenity and rapture, although he felt the seeds of thought and attachment still present in him. Several weeks later, Siddhartha reached a higher state of meditation, and the seeds of thought and attachment dissolved. Then he entered a state of concentration in which both rapture and non-rapture ceased to exist. It felt to him as though the five doors of sense perception had completely closed, and his heart was as still as a lake on a windless day.
When he presented the fruits of his practice to Master Alara, the teacher was impressed. He told Siddhartha that he had made remarkable progress in a short time, and he taught Siddhartha how to realize the meditative state called the realm of limitless space, in which the mind becomes one with infinity, all material and visual phenomena cease to arise, and space is seen as the limitless source of all things.
Siddhartha followed his teacher’s instructions and concentrated his efforts on achieving that state and in less than three days, he succeeded. But Siddhartha still felt that even the ability to experience infinite space had not liberated him from his deepest anxieties and sorrows. Dwelling in such a state of awareness, he still felt hindrances, so he returned to Alara for assistance. The master told him, “You must go one step further. The realm of limitless space is of the same essence as your own mind. It is not an object of your consciousness, but your very consciousness itself. Now you must experience the realm of limitless consciousness.”
Siddhartha returned to his spot in the forest and in just two days, he realized the realm of limitless consciousness. He saw that his own mind was present in every phenomenon in the universe. But even with this attainment, he still felt oppressed by his deepest afflictions and anxieties. So Siddhartha returned to Master Alara and explained his difficulty. The master looked at him with eyes of deep respect and said, “You are very close to the final goal. Return to your hut and meditate on the illusory nature of all phenomena. Everything in the universe is created by our own minds. Our minds are the source of all phenomena. Form, sound, smell, taste, and tactile perceptions such as hot and cold, hard and soft—these are all creations of our minds. They do not exist as we usually think they do. Our consciousness is like an artist, painting every phenomenon into being. Once you have attained the state of the realm of no materiality, you will have succeeded. The realm of no materiality is the state in which we see that no phenomena exist outside of our own minds.”
The young monk joined his palms to express his gratitude to his teacher, and returned to his corner of the forest.
While Siddhartha studied with Alara Kalama, he made the acquaintance of many other monks. Everyone was attracted by Siddhartha’s kind and pleasant manner. Often, before Siddhartha had a chance to seek food for himself, he found food waiting for him by his hut. When he came out of meditation, he would find a few bananas or a rice ball secretly left for him by another monk. Many monks liked to befriend Siddhartha in order to learn from him, as they had heard their own master praise Siddhartha’s progress.
Master Alara had once asked about Siddhartha’s background and so learned of Siddhartha’s life as a prince. But Siddhartha only smiled when other monks asked him about his royal past. He answered modestly, “It’s nothing of importance. It would be best if we spoke only about our experiences of practicing the Way.”
In less than a month, Siddhartha attained the state of the realm of no materiality. Happy to have achieved this state of awareness, he spent the following weeks trying to use it to dissolve the deepest obstructions in his mind and heart. But although the realm of no materiality was a profound state of meditation, it, too, was unable to help him. Finally, he returned to ask the advice of Master Alara Kalama.
Alara Kalama sat and listened intently to Siddhartha. His eyes shone. Expressing deepest respect and praise, he said, “Monk Siddhartha, you are profoundly gifted. You have attained the highest level I can teach. All I have attained, you have attained as well. Let us join together to guide and lead this community of monks.”
Siddhartha was silent as he contemplated Alara’s invitation. While the realm of no materiality was a precious fruit of meditation, it did not help resolve the fundamental problem of birth and death, nor did it liberate one from all suffering and anxiety. It did not lead to total liberation. Siddhartha’s goal was not to become the leader of a community, but to find the path of true liberation.
Siddhartha joined his palms and answered, “Venerable Teacher, the state of the realm of no materiality is not the final goal I am seeking. Please accept my gratitude for your support and care, but now I must ask your permission to leave the community in order to seek the Way elsewhere. You have taught me with all your heart these past months and I will be forever grateful to you.”
Master Alara Kalama looked disappointed, but Siddhartha had made up his mind. The next day, Siddhartha again took to the road.