Nicholas Weeks
Bodhicitta
“The world is built on pain and its foundations laid in agony. O Gods, most cruel and unjust, if there be a way, where is it? If there be a Law of Peace, where shall I find it? For I am bound in the dungeons of despair.”
And, nobly moved to sympathy, he dismounted from the chariot, forcing himself to look steadfastly upon the sufferings of man and beast, and he sat down beneath a jambu tree, reflecting on the ways of death and birth. And he desired his companions, the Sakya lords, to leave him and wander where they would, and they went away laughing with each other and talking, costly umbrellas borne over them in the heat until they should reach the shade of the forest and there rest beside their wines and fruits. And then, as was now his wont, he gave himself to deep meditation on life and death, on transiency, and the progress of all to decay, desiring with all his soul that somewhere, anywhere, he might behold the changeless, the Abiding and in that find rest. And he asked of his soul:
“Is there safety in riches? Are the rich exempt and high in the Gods’ favour. No—no, indeed,—for their very luxuries consume them body and soul, making their bodies the home of disease and death, and their souls the harbourage of cowardice and terror. For it is harder to leave a Palace of gold than a mud hovel, and these are the spoilt children of the universe. There is no refuge in riches. In all the Three Worlds I see no refuge at all from the three Enemies—death, old age, and disease.”
From Chapter VI of Beck's Splendour of Asia
And, nobly moved to sympathy, he dismounted from the chariot, forcing himself to look steadfastly upon the sufferings of man and beast, and he sat down beneath a jambu tree, reflecting on the ways of death and birth. And he desired his companions, the Sakya lords, to leave him and wander where they would, and they went away laughing with each other and talking, costly umbrellas borne over them in the heat until they should reach the shade of the forest and there rest beside their wines and fruits. And then, as was now his wont, he gave himself to deep meditation on life and death, on transiency, and the progress of all to decay, desiring with all his soul that somewhere, anywhere, he might behold the changeless, the Abiding and in that find rest. And he asked of his soul:
“Is there safety in riches? Are the rich exempt and high in the Gods’ favour. No—no, indeed,—for their very luxuries consume them body and soul, making their bodies the home of disease and death, and their souls the harbourage of cowardice and terror. For it is harder to leave a Palace of gold than a mud hovel, and these are the spoilt children of the universe. There is no refuge in riches. In all the Three Worlds I see no refuge at all from the three Enemies—death, old age, and disease.”
From Chapter VI of Beck's Splendour of Asia