Week 4 Story: The Life of Buddha Retold

The boy lived here peacefully until his death.

(Photo by Albert Bierstadt) 

There once was a wealthy couple who wanted a child very badly. Their dreams finally came true when they learned they would soon have a baby boy. They had big plans for their son. They wanted him to always be happy and so after he was born they made sure he never knew anything bad.

When the boy would go out and play, his father, a very powerful man in the town made sure the streets were clear of bad things. The boy never heard the words no. His parents sheltered him into thinking the world was perfect and nothing bad ever happened. He was spoiled on end and never experienced a moment of sorrow. The world was his oyster, until one day he came out and saw a strange man standing in the foyer.

He ran over to the man and asked him who he was. The man told the boy he had some very bad news. His parents were in a car accident, a very bad one and they did not survive. The boy did not understand what that meant. The man told the boy that sometimes people die sooner in life than expected. This is when the boy was introduced to death for the first time.

He was sent to live with his uncle. He was sad to learn that people did not live forever. Why didn’t his parents ever tell him? He was finally old enough to go to school. His first day was strange. Everyone was nice, but all he could think about was that one day these people would die, which made him very sad. He made a friend, a girl in his class. They were very close.

One day, his friend came to school with no hair. He was confused and asked her why she didn’t have hair. She told him that she was sick and that this sickness made her lose her hair. He was even more confused. He came home and asked his uncle about sickness. His uncle told him that people are not always healthy and sometimes it’s not their fault. Sometimes their bodies start to give up on them and it can happen at any given time. This was when the boy was introduced to disease and sickness.

His friend got worst. She started coming to school less and less. Eventually she stopped coming entirely. He missed her. He cried because he did not understand. Why was the world suddenly so sad? He could not understand. He would walk down the street and people would ask him for food and money. He didn’t know that not everyone had homes.

When he grew into his teenage years his uncle began to act strange. Sometimes he wouldn’t know who he was. He took his uncle to the doctor and the doctor told him that he was in the early stages of dementia. The boy did not understand. The doctor explains that with age, people’s minds sometimes grow weaker along with their health. He didn’t know the people got weaker as they grew older. He had only been getting stronger. He was then introduced to aging.

His uncle became so sick, he was bed ridden and the boy was distraught. He could not handle the evils of the world and he was angry at his parents for warning him about these evils. He ran away from home. He left his lavish lifestyle, because he realized that when his body gives up on him, he could not take any of it with him. He ran so far into the woods until he came across this beautiful valley. There animals, fruit trees, and a waterfall the fell right into a calm river. He made a home for himself and lived there until his last breath, away from all the evils of humanity.

Bibliography. Andre Ferdinand Herold. "The Life of Buddha." Web Source. 

Author's Note: The original story was basically about a prince whose parents sheltered him from all evil because they were told that he was sent from the Gods and he was omnipotent. They told him he had a great future so anytime the prince left his house the king would demand that the streets be cleaned up of evils (homeless people and sick people). The Gods didn't like that so they sent death, disease and aging his way. He couldn't take the evils and ran away to become a hermit. He found mediation and found he was powerful and he eventually became Buddha and found nirvana. I wrote my story about a wealthy boy who was so wealthy and spoiled by his parents that he couldn't adapt to the real world. I didn't give them names because I wanted the lesson to be more important than the characters. I just want to spread the message that it's normal to feel unhappiness and sometimes protecting the people you love from it can hurt them more in the future than it can help. I made the ending more realistic by letting him die because in reality we don't all get to turn into Buddha.