Engaged

The news is that the Goddess Selene has been living with me for the last 4 weeks. We've got an Engagement ring....nothing flash, just a Sterling Silver ring that just happens to mean the world to us.
Wedding is provisionally set for May of 2010.

Time to fess up

Wednesday March 25.
My knees are sore from a 60 km bike ride to Carrum yesterday. The mind is relatively happy with the meditation, especially given the fatigue I feel.

Thursday March 26.
I change the meditation, I begin with Mark using the normal recitation, then myself using the new recitation, then Fred using the normal meditation. Mind is happy and calm.

Sunday March 30.
There have been a number of things happening inside me in the past week. There has been the recognition of an unexpected love…. I’ve finally admitted to having a more than passing affection for a young lady who has been visiting my stall at Melbourne Uni. This has caused an outbreak of fear and confusion. That the feelings are almost certainly reciprocated doesn’t help.
I have been using the meditation of Karuna to begin to deal with the scar tissue inside me…how much of the fear and confusion has to do with this I’m unsure.
This morning was the happiest my meditation has been all week. Essentially the same procedure. Just that with the fear gone the mind is much happier.









Monday March 31.
I begin with the man Ken, who I’ve mentioned previously. Ken after being told that I couldn’t help him contacted me again last week and this time I’ve made sure that Ken understands that not only am I not able to help him (I lack the mental health qualifications) but that I am unwilling to involve myself with something well and truly over my head. Ken still suffers and it is for this reason that I use him. I then make a simple, but important change to my meditation, I recite “May I be free from the fear and confusion from my childhood.” This is the first time that I have named what I know is behind the doors in my heart that I talk about in the poem “Knocking on Doors”. The mind is simply dull.

Wednesday April 2.
Two bad nights sleep in a row. I have admitted to pretty well everyone that I’m in love including the object of the love. If you want a truly weird state of mind then falling in love has to be it.

Can’t
Can’t eat,
Can’t sleep,
Can’t think,
It must be love.

The mind certainly isn’t running away from the recitation. Perhaps the falling in love is mitigating the effects. Mind you with Selene I’m either dying because I can’t get her out of my head or crapping myself with anxiety that she doesn’t love me….despite substantial evidence that she does. Won’t say it, but glows when she’s near me. Interesting times!

Poetry.

I’m done with hating.
I’m done with hating,
Had more than enough of anger.
Hated enough,
Been angry enough,
To know they are no answer.
Seen enough love,
Had enough peace,
To know they are the answer.








Laugh
Laugh at the sunshine,
Laugh at the birds,
Laugh at the clouds,
Laugh at the sky,
Laugh because you can,
Laugh because the alternative,
Is tears.

Once
Once life was simple,
Once life was black,
Or white,
Or yes,
Or no.
There was dare,
Or dare not.
There was fight and win,
Or lose and die.
Life was very simple,
Once.

Knocking on Doors

Monday March 10.
I met someone yesterday who in a lot of ways proves the old saying “Too smart for his own good”. Ken suffers. He suffers in large part because he intellectualises everything and thinks himself into corners. This morning the meditation was simply cultivating Karuna towards Ken.

Tuesday March 11.
I begin the meditation with Ken, then proceed to myself and finally Fred. The mind is relatively settled.

Wednesday March 12.
I begin with Fred, then myself and finally Ollie. The mind is calm and happy.

Thursday March 13.
I begin with Fred, then myself, then Mark and finally every being in my street.

Friday March 14.
I begin with Mark, then myself and finally my father. I recollect the pointlessness of anger towards him.

Saturday March 15.
I begin with Mark, then myself, then Ollie. The mind is peaceful.

Sunday March 16.
Due to gravity attacking me whilst I cycled to the city yesterday I’m more than a little sore and weary. I sat late….7 a.m. and didn’t have much of a sit due to the soreness, dogs barking at hot air balloons etc., I simply used my father this morning. The mind is dull.

Monday March 17.
I begin with Mark, then myself, then Ollie. There is a barking dog nearby, a Bull Terrier by the sounds of it. You can imagine how irritating the barking is at 5 a.m. “May all dogs be free from their pain and sorrow”. The mind likes this and is calm and happy.

Tuesday March 18.
After having had three people in the last six months unintentionally walk into my scar tissue I’ve decided to do something about it. There are parts of my childhood where it has simply been too painful to go to. I know what is behind the doors I’ve refused to open….a frightened four year old.
This morning the Karuna was initially towards my brother Mark. Then “May I be free from the scar tissue from my childhood”. Notice how I’m not assigning a cause for the scar tissue. I am simply accepting that it’s there and is a cause for suffering. Designating a cause won’t help, if anything it will reinforce an anger. I don’t care where the scar tissue comes from, it simply matters that it’s there.

Knocking on Doors
The time is coming,
When I will have to visit,
The long neglected places of my heart.
Soon I will wander back to the places I fled,
So long ago.
Soon I will begin knocking on doors,
And holding the little boy who answers.
Soon I will hold the fear and confusion.
Soon I will cry again the tears of not understanding,
Soon I will cry the tears of fear,
Soon they will be gone.

Wednesday March 19.
The meditation is simply: “May I be free from the pain and scar tissue from my childhood.” There is a sense of sadness, of grief in me.

Thursday March 20.
I simply use the same recitation as yesterday. The mind is dull. Still sore from the bruising.


Friday March 21.
I again use the recitation from March 19. The mind likes it. Or to put it this way, it’s a lot more content to be with this recitation. So far neither bliss nor pain have arisen.

Monday March 23.
The mind is full of conversation regarding an e-mail from a friend that essentially told me that any idea that I might be able to catch a 19 year old is pure fantasy. I’m not a happy boy. The fact of the matter is that I have had a number of women in their late teens/early 20’s express interest in me. At first it was quite unsettling. But apparently it is the life experience that is attractive….. I’ m told I don’t look anywhere near my age, so being easy on the eye doesn’t hurt. I’ve also been picked up by someone who wasn’t a student at a university market. So this was in my head. Also what irks is that the long term partner of the friend in question wasn’t a 185 cm, 120 kg Adonis, he was a ratty looking, 50 kg drug addict….someone I found physically repulsive.
Apart from this, the mind is happy with the meditation.

Tuesday March 24.
A short meditation. The mind is again full of e-mails.

New Edition

New Edition

Sorry for the gap....been busy.

Wednesday February 20.

The mind is full of songs, plans etc., but still happy to practice Karuna. Only a relatively short sit due to last night being uncomfortably warm.

Thursday February 21.

A nice hour long meditation. Early mornings are a double edged sword…. I love the peace and being able to have a meditation and still go for a ride on almost empty roads, but a series of early mornings is a killer.

The mind delights in the stillness. I begin with Mark, then myself, then Norman, then my house, my street, my suburb and finally Metro Melbourne. The mind is still and happy.

Friday February 22.

A rare afternoon meditation. My mind is full of Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma. There is someone on the chess website I spend so much time in, who I have a real problem with his name is deewatson. Dee is someone who engages in rude, abusive behaviour and who I understand has mental health issues. Needless to say, I don’t enjoy contact with him. He was suspended after an exchange where he suggested I engage in sex with a kangaroo. I’m back playing him. I have made it very clear that I won’t accept abuse. Today I used him in my meditation. Much to my surprise, the mind was happy with this.

Saturday February 23.

This morning deewatson was the sole object of the meditation. For three-quarters of an hour my mind was happy to simply be aware of and with his suffering. Nice having a long sit on a Saturday in an empty house.

Monday February 25.

I begin with deewatson, then myself, my brother Mark, my street and then my suburb. The mind is very calm and happy with this.

Wednesday February 27.

Mind is full of songs. I begin with my brother Mark, then myself and after a long break my father. The mind is happy and peaceful with this.

Thursday February 28.

I begin with my brother Mark, then myself and then my father. Whilst making my meditation solely concerned with my father is a bad idea, it doesn’t hurt at all to return periodically to him as an object of Karuna. If the mind can remain calm and happy with him then progress is being made.

Friday February 29.

I’m not a happy camper at all! We had one of those stupid arguments yesterday. Despite this the mind is happy with the meditation. I, personally, am quite annoyed, but this isn’t translated into the meditation, which is calm and pleasant. The process is identical to yesterday.

Saturday March 1.

I dreamt I had a screaming fight with my parents last night. Needless to say, I view this as some of the latent anger leaching to the surface. The mind is happy and actually no anger arises during the meditation…. I make a point of using my father in it just to see what will happen.

Monday March 3.

The mind is tired after a busy weekend. My throat is sore from talking….selling incense & books. So I’ve missed the 4 a.m. alarm, instead it is a 5 a.m. meditation. Although tired, the mind is more than a little calm. I have come to like Karuna as a practice.

Tuesday March 4.

Up at 4. I use Mark, myself and Fred. A pleasant hour long sit. The increase in exercise that I have been doing is helping the meditation….although I’m tired, I feel better physically.

Wednesday March 5.

I begin with an online friend Roberto, but soon switch to his partner Roger who has had a cancer scare recently. I then progress to myself, my friend Fred and finally Raymond. The mind is very much at peace with this and I take the time to recognise and reinforce the pleasure of the peace….Santinussati.

Sunday March 9.

A sinus infection has essentially had me off the cushion. This morning I concentrated on Fred. Fred is having a break up with his boyfriend and judging from the phone calls, the suffering he is enduring is serious. My head is full of conversations with the delightful and seriously cute young woman I spent yesterday with. A distraction and one I will have to be careful with, but still nice.

time flies

Tuesday February 5.
No meditation for the last three days due to markets and going to help at the Hermitage. This morning the mind is dull. I use Anuruddha as my object.

Wednesday February 6.
A nice long sit this morning. Unfortunately I have a song in my head and eventually give in to the Veronica’s wailing of lust for a boyfriend. Before that I use Anuruddha, myself and Ollie as subjects. The mind is calm and still. If the day is quiet and relatively cool, I intend to return to the cushion after I shake this damn song in my head.

Thursday February 7.
Up late last night, a friend phoned me very late and I was unable to go back to sleep easily. I used Anuruddha as my object. Mind is dull and cranky.

Friday February 8.
A simple sit. Mind calm. Am using Anuruddha as my main person.

Monday February 11.
I’m tired and sunburnt from the weekend….the 3.45 a.m. get up for Wantirna Market is hard. The mind is peaceful and happy to be with the meditation. I don’t get much past Anuruddha, myself and Ollie.

Tuesday February 12.
I slept long and hard last night and still feel tired. The mind is perky. I use Anuruddha, this isn’t going to be a long sit. The mind is calm and happy to be with Anuruddha.

Wednesday February 13.
A pleasant meditation. The mind wants to wander off into business….the math of ordering incense from interstate & overseas, but I do my best to keep it on topic. Anuruddha, myself, David.


Thursday February 14.
No meditation today. Heart farted, gurgled and skipped beats during an onset of tachycardia at around midnight.

Friday February 15.
Head full of songs. Mind calm.

Monday February 18.
A nice long sit….at last. I begin with Anuruddha, then myself, then David, then my house, my suburb and finally Metro Melbourne. I also recollect that I have everything I need. There is no need in my life for alcohol. Essentially a Contentment meditation. As you can imagine there are some very attractive women wandering the markets where I have my stall, the mind goes out into all sorts of stupid fantasies. The mind is calm and happy. I manage to sit for over an hour.

Tuesday February 19.
Happy 46th Birthday Christopher. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing but today is his birthday.
A three quarters of an hour sit. I begin with Mark and spend most of my time with him. I then move to myself and then my street. The mind is calm and happy. I am often tired these days….early mornings for the markets. Also I’m trying to get my weight down and that means early morning bike rides of increasing distance. I remind myself that I am on the right path and that the fear that periodically arises is a sign that I am getting things right.

Last week

I’ve just spent a week in Bodhinyana Forest Monastery. A week where it was a case of not seeing where things were happening but where things had happened. The most obvious was that I found that I was much quieter as a person….both in volume and quantity. The other was that the “silly stores” that had gotten me into so much trouble simply weren’t there any more….no comedy routine at evening drinks.
There is a monk there, Anuruddha, who isn’t the most popular of souls. During my last visit in May of last year, I had used him as the object of Karuna because of his manifest unpopularity and suffering and gotten a lot of bliss as a result. This time I simply saw how he radiated suffering. I could see it in his body language, in his voice and above all he simply radiated suffering on an empathic level.
There was a German man, Ram, who was in the next room to me, and he also radiated a fair bit of suffering. Not as much as my friend Anuruddha, but still a lot.

It was interesting to see my reactions to these two people. I kept seeing that I was coming from and behaving in a caring position. With Anuruddha, I can’t help him, but with Ram I did spend time talking to him about his anger towards his father and where it would take him (something Seesee remarked I was well qualified to do because of my own journey with my father). I was able to simply offer my help and then leave it, if Ram didn’t pick it up or use it, I wasn’t concerned. Because of the heat, the afternoons were spent asleep…too hot to meditate, so on the cushion nothing happened.
One of the Anagarika, Ollie, who is a dear friend, made the very useful remark “Look at the feet of women, because everything from the ankles up is trouble for you”. Also, very few people have “pretty” feet.
There is something in the practice of Karuna that is quietening me. I don’t know what it is, but the change in me in the eight months between visits was palpable and obvious. I could see a change in how the Sangha behaved towards me….more open, more inclusive.

Two Very Different poems

So nice the rain
Thousands of footsteps on my skylight,
A million tiny knocks against my windows,
The endless swift patter on the road.
The quiet dripping of a leaking down pipe.
So nice the rain,
The weeds in my yard rejoice,
As they throw themselves at the sky,
In their haste to grow.
So nice the rain.
Big steps,
From little feet,
Shouts of joy,
As puddles splash,
Nine year olds again.












A poem about heroin by my brother Mark.
One Eye
One eye seek’s out soft sweet flesh,
One eye spit’s out lingering death,
One eye doesn’t care about me or you,
One eye doesn’t cry or go boo hoo.

One eye like’s you,
It likes you near,
Pick up one eye,
Have no fear,
See it’s life blood,
Nice and clear,

One eye is long,
Trim and neat,
One eye is honest,
It know’s not deceit,
Come and take one eye,
Push it in,
Go on go on,
It’s not a sin,
To want to die,
To scream and cry,
And crave yourself to death,

Listen to the nice man on the street,
The first few is free,
Till you’re on your feet,
Then you’ll pay and pay,
You’ll hate the day,
That you let one eye in,
Ah yes, One eye’s your friend,
Right to the end,
When they find you with your eye’s so wide,
When they find you on the day you died,
With one eye in your arm.
M.D.B 6/4/98

The Last Two Weeks.

Wednesday December 26 2007.
On the way home from Christmas lunch yesterday I phoned my brother and had an interesting conversation with him. It centred on my brother Christopher and his life. This morning the mind is full of Christopher. Christopher is difficult. Whilst I genuinely want the best for him, none of the news about Christopher is ever any good…. I keep waiting for him to begin to make the “smart choices”, whilst knowing in my heart that he won’t. So a lot of this mornings meditation is spent cultivating Karuna towards Christopher. I do spend time with the other subjects and the mind is calm at the end of the meditation.

Thursday December 27 2007.
I spend the meditation with Ralph and myself, with a brief trip to Ajahn Nissarano. It’s pleasant.

Friday December 28 2007.
There are days when I feel like smashing my clock radio…I have a choice between a heart attack inducing siren or the news, so it was that I awoke to learn that Benazir Bhutto had been murdered….not a good way to start the day.
The mind refuses to settle and keeps finding dramas to quarrel with. A meditation that is neither settled nor enjoyable.

Saturday December 29 2007.
A relatively short sit, but deeply pleasant. I spend most of my time with Ralph and then scurry through to “May all beings in this house be free from their pain and suffering”. I do exclaim out loud how deeply pleasant the meditation was and how much more pleasant than alcohol or sex it was. I also reaffirm that it is in my meditation that I am at my happiest. It is important to do this as it conditions the mind towards the pleasure of meditation and the unsatisfactoriness of the alternative.

Sunday December 30 2007.
This morning I change the meditation. I still begin with Ralph, then myself, but I bring in my friend Ollie as the friend, and my brother Wayne as the neutral person I really don’t know my brother….haven’t spoken to him in easily 15 years, then JT as “the enemy” and finally all the beings in the house. Pleasant.

Monday December 31 2007.
This morning I changed from using Ralph as the person who is suffering to using David Hicks. A brief search of the Internet will reveal that David does suffer terribly from being in Guantanamo Bay. Short sit, was up late at a friends.



Tuesday January 1 2008.
I begin with David Hicks as my object for Karuna. I “linger” with David. As my Teacher Ajahn Brahm teaches, it is important to build a solid foundation in the meditation, so I keep returning to the first three people in the practice. There is a logic to this. I feel a deep outrage at how David Hicks has been treated, I know that there will be long lasting effects from his stay at Guantanamo Bay, therefore David suffers. It is easy to have Karuna towards myself and my friends. As I deepen the pool of Karuna in myself, I know that very soon that there will be enough to share with everybody.

Wednesday January 2.
I spend most of the meditation with David Hicks, then myself, then Fred. I then jump to everybody in my house. Pleasant.

Thursday January 3.
I commence with David, then myself, Fred, neutral person, my street and then my suburb. I’m leaving out “the enemy” on purpose as there is no one I genuinely have issues with at the moment. I am extending the boundary of the meditation, I have reached my suburb and for a while will go no further. I’m spending a week in Bodhinyana Monastery later in the month, and if anything, the meditation will contract, as I keep my mind and body within the monastery.

Friday January 4.
David, myself, Fred, every being in my house. The meditation is pleasant.

Saturday January 5.
I spend time with David. I move to myself & then Fred. Then I jump straight to “All beings in my house”. After about 10 minutes I move to my street. This is pleasant. You will notice that I’m avoiding any potential for discontent to arise by simply not concentrating on those who may cause it. I’m making a point of concentrating on the pleasant.
Even within the house there is potential to diversify the practice. We have a Huntsman spider in the house (helps control web spinning spiders and flies), so I could practice Karuna along the lines of “May all the Huntsman spiders in this house be free from suffering and pain.” “May all the cockroaches…..”. Even “May all the dust mites….” The practice is what ever works to encourage a mental position of Karuna.

Monday January 7.
This morning I simply recollect how nice it is to have good sila. How nice it is to be generous. I also manage to have time for David Hicks. A very pleasant meditation.

Tuesday January 8.
I feel like I’m hung over….yet I’m not. I spend the entire meditation with David Hicks. I feel like going back to bed. But still whilst not as pleasant as yesterday, it is hard to find fault with the meditation.

Wednesday January 9.
The mind is quite dull. I simply sit and do the meditation.
Thursday January 10.
I begin with the recollection of sila. The mind is very happy with this. I move to David and then myself, followed by all beings in my house. A happy meditation.

My new book: "It isn't rocket science".

My new book "It isn't rocket science".

The Buddha

When did he live?

The best available evidence has the Buddha living and teaching in the fifth century before the Common Era. The evidence for this is perhaps remarkable in its completeness, I’m aware of only one other ancient religious figure having such a reliable fix in time and that is the Buddha’s contemporary the founder of Jainism, Jaina Mahavira and this is because he is so frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts. And to this we curiously enough owe the English and the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. Because at this time there was an outbreak of curiosity in Europe. This was due in part to the English, the French and the Dutch acquiring empires in Asia (the English hit the jackpot and got India, Sri Lanka, Burma and Malaysia, the French picked up Indo-China, the Dutch Indonesia). The Spanish had the Philippines which they had turned 90% Catholic, also by the time that serious questions were being asked, Spain was essentially not in the empire building business. So there was this outbreak of curiosity, that resulted in things being dug up and translations of indigenous religious texts being made. Including significantly the travel journals of some Chinese monks who had made pilgrimages to India.

The English, we may remember, were the colonial masters of the Indian sub-continent for a century. They were also the rulers of Sri Lanka, Burma, and Hong Kong. They were also travellers and traders and travelled to China and Japan. The English and other Europeans kept seeing amazing similarities in the local religion. The Japanese had similar statues to the Sinhalese, which bore more than a passing resemblance to the statues in Tibetan monasteries, the Vietnamese had statues that looked like the Japanese. Not surprisingly a penny dropped and the question was asked “Are all these “idols” from the same religion?”

Now parallel to this dropped penny, the English were engaged in surveying and mapping their newly acquired Empire in India. Sooner or later the two worlds were going to meet. They met in the form of Alexander Cunningham. The English by this time had established that there was a Pan Asian religion called “Buddhism”. They were also furiously digging up every ruin they came across and translating the inscriptions they found on coins, on rocks, on pillars. Sooner or later someone was going to “test drive” what the translations of Buddhist texts were telling them….that when the Buddha had died that his ashes were distributed to eight different places. They had the translations of Venerable Fa Hien who very considerately included accurate descriptions and distances in his journal. Once the English had converted Venerable Fa Hiens ancient Chinese measures to English miles, yards and feet, the rest, so to speak was easy.

Within 20 years the English had located the birth, enlightenment and death places of the Buddha. They had also excavated the stupa they found their and translated the inscriptions that they found. Significantly in 1851 at Sanchi the reliquaries of the Buddha’s disciples Maha Sariputta and Maha Moggallana. In 1897 at Piprahwa the relics of the Buddha himself were found exactly where both Fa Hien and the suttas had said they would be.

Evidence, including I believe, carbon dating has placed the objects found at Piprahwa and Sanchi to the 5th Century BCE + or – 200 years.

Who was he?

The person we know as The Buddha came into the world on the full moon in what is now our month of May somewhere around the year 560 BCE . His mother Maha Maya was following the custom of her time and returning to the village of her birth to give birth to her child. There are legends of her dreaming that a white elephant had entered her womb and of the newly born child taking seven steps and declaring that this was his last lifetime and that he was a Buddha…..which notably conflicts with another essential (and to my mind seriously inspirational) part of the Buddhas biography. His father Suddhodana was a governor of the expanding Koliyan kingdom . He was also eventually the father of at least one son, the Arahant Rahula, and an unknown number of daughters…..daughters not being important in the succession of power, are therefore unlikely to be mentioned by ancient chroniclers, but nevertheless, there is no mention of a daughter of the Buddha.

Ultimately, as the son of a governor, Gotama would have entered the administration of the Koliyan kingdom, led a normal life of marriage, work and a death in his late 60’s.

Fortunately for us, this was not to be so. At the time of his birth, the infant Gotama’s horoscope was drawn up (proof that not a lot has changed in India in 2600 years), the hermit Asita predicted/saw in the horoscope that the boy currently only interested in his next feed, was someone very special indeed….a Wheel Turning Monarch. You get the impression that Dad was wildly happy about the news….not what the Old Man had in mind for junior.

You can almost imagine the scene:

Asita: Ah, sir, I’ve ah done young Gotama’s horoscope

Suddhodana: Yes! My son will conquer the world, have 50 wives and leave 300 children!

Asita: Ooh, ah!

Suddhodana: Well? Out with it man!

Asita: I’ve done the horoscope, it does say that there is a very good chance that he will conquer India and have 50 wives and 300 children, but there’s something else in his chart.

Suddhodana: Something else? What something else? I didn’t pay you for “something else”.

Asita: Sir, ah, would it upset you all that much if he was to become one of those forest ascetics and become a Buddha?

Suddhodana: WHAT?

You can imagine crockery being thrown at this point and Asita looking very carefully at where the guards hands were in relation to their swords. Clearly the second aspect of the horoscope wasn’t the desired outcome, because the decision was made that absolutely everything possible to prevent its occurring must be done. Young Gotama was to have a good education, he was to live a life of total pleasure, he was never to be exposed to anything that might remotely trigger a spiritual question in his young mind, including seeing old people….which means that after a while he stopped seeing Dad and they became pen-pals. This was the Grand Plan, and like all Grand Plans it had a serious flaw.

You can imagine the life that the young Gotama was living….endless sex, great food, and enough alcohol to drown in. But sooner or later the boy needed to have some time on his own. He asks to be taken for a drive. Along the way he sees something that he has never seen before: a sick man. He asks “What’s wrong with that person, they look pale, they’re unsteady on their feet, hell they look like shit?” Now the bodyguard/chaperone/charioteer has been ordered to say nothing, but he responds “That person, sir, is sick, he is unwell”.

“What’s “sick”?”

You can imagine that there followed a pretty long question and answer session between Gotama and the other person. At the end of it, the boy isn’t happy. He gets taken home, he thinks it over, he most likely corners a couple of people and asks them about this thing called “being sick”.

Some months later he gets taken for another drive. This time he sees an elderly person. Again the same Q & A session results. He gets taken back home. It’s a repeat of before. The Grand Plan is getting shaky.

Gotama gets taken out for a third drive….you can imagine by now that no one is volunteering for the job. They see a corpse. This time a serious Q & A breaks loose because in the space of about a year the young Gotama has seen three things that he never even guessed existed and he has some serious questions that need to be answered.

The fourth and final trip is the decider. A wandering ascetic is seen. Now this is just the sort of person that the Old Man didn’t want junior to become. To make it worse the ascetic is happy. There is a chance that the young Gotama saw this ascetic on his alms round.

“So who’s that guy with the shaved head, brown robes and bowl, the happy one?”

“That would be a wandering ascetic sir. Someone who seeks the ending of birth and death.”

So by now Gotama is a seriously troubled young man. The Grand Plan has come apart at the seems and Gotama has seen exactly the things that Dad didn’t want him to.