King Bimbisara and the Purposeful Idle Life

The story of King Bimbisara underlines what a bugger it is when you you’re down to your last faithful charioteer, but Siddartha is committed to this path. Don’t know what my wife and kids would think if I left here to go off with James the chauffeur, but as this is the supposed Gospel of Buddha, we can cut the guy some slack.

The Three Woes

At first it might seem futile to sit under a tree, meditating in order to overcome the three woes. To our minds looking through the lens of western modernity, it seems daft to think you could sit under a tree and somehow overcome what is after all, inevitable. Many of us will get sick, most of us get old and all of us die.

So what’s the point of this, it’s insurmountable surely?

The Ties of Life

The Ties of Life. A good news story, yes. But one with deeper meaning than the event itself. OK there’s a bit of spin as you’d expect. This guy Siddhattha sounds too good to be true after all. I bet he swatted a few mosquitoes in his time, got a bit pissed off when the gardeners disturbed his meditation, had a pollen allergy. hay fever drives me nuts!

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment, purportedly from the so called Gospel of Buddha. Like Jesus Christ, Siddhartha Gautama was a real geezer, a person who walked the earth. Just so happens that the part of the earth he walked upon was a heavily religious and spiritual part. Hinduism would be ubiquitous and much would be made of the powers and preferences of various gods.

Truth, The Saviour

Truth, The Saviour. Not by accident do the English terms Selfishness and Selflessness project such strong and opposing meanings. One is hugely negative and the other somewhat immeasurably positive.