The Buddha Story Continues ~ A Song of Beauty

In earlier posts, we have followed the story of the Buddha: Birth of the Buddha, The Young Prince, The Wise Men's Predictions,  The Marriage Contest, and The Pleasure Palaces.  Today the story continues.

One evening after dinner, Prince Siddhartha lay reclining on his couch, his head resting in the lap of his beautiful bride, Yasodhara.

His musician was playing beautiful songs.  The servant girls were  whispering to each other.  It was another beautiful evening, like so many others, inside the Pleasure Palace where Siddhartha's father wished his son to stay, isolated from the world.

But on this evening, Siddhartha was feeling restless.  He turned to the singer and made a request,  "Help me fall asleep with a song you have never sung for me before."

The musician, of course, did as she was asked.  Quickly she began to compose a new song with the words and images floating through her brain, all the while strumming along on her instrument.  She sang of the beautiful things to be found in the world, of the distant lands where she had once traveled,and of golden cities where people lived happily.

The prince was enchanted by the song, and asked the singer, "Are there really places of beauty outside these palace walls?"  When the singer assured him that there were, he asked more questions.  "What kind of lives do the people there live?  Are there things more lovely than what I see before me each day?"  He begged the singer to tell him everything she knew of the world outside.

And so she told him of cities and towns, mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, lands where people spoke in different languages.  She told him that these were only things she had seen; she heard that there were more places and people she had not even imagined.  "Though your place and gardens and walls are beautiful," she told the prince, "there is much to see outside these walls."

The prince, of course, now wanted to see and experience all these strange and wonderful things himself.  He had lived in the pleasure palaces for so long, he had forgotten about the world outside, as his father had wished.

The prince was content in his palaces, sitting in his garden. listening to beautiful music.  But now it was time to travel and see what lay beyond.

That very night, the prince sent a message to the King.  He asked that a travel party be arranged, to that he might go out into the city and learn what lay beyond the garden walls.

Next: An Unexpected Sight

Buddha charms here and here.  Buddha bracelets on eBay and on etsy.

The Buddha Story Continues ~ The Pleasure Palaces

In earlier posts, we have seen the story of the Buddha: Birth of the Buddha, The Young Prince, The Wise Men's Predictions, and The Marriage Contest.  Today, The Pleasure Palaces.

Having won the marriage contest, Prince Siddhartha and Princess Yasodhara were married. The King wanted to be sure his son would never wish to leave the kingdom, and so he had three palaces  built for the young couple.  He wanted them to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that anyone who entered would think he was in heaven.

He commissioned a summer palace with pools and fountains, a warm and luxurious winter palace, and a palace for the rainy season.  The palaces were to be placed in a park, with scenery wherever one looked.  Each would be surrounded by a large wall, so that nothing unpleasant would ever be able to enter.  That way, Prince Siddhartha would never be tempted to leave.  

The King did not stop there.  He hired the best musicians to play all day and all night.  

The servants were beautiful dancing girls.  The chefs were trained to make an endless variety of delicious and tempting foods.  Nothing was allowed inside to disturb the prince in any way.

For many years Prince Siddhartha lived in these heavenly surroundings, entertained from morning until night.  He never heard or saw anything even slightly unpleasant.  If one of the servant girls fell ill, she was taken from the palace and not allowed to return until she was in the bloom of health once again.  If a plant began to droop, it was quickly replaced with a strong healthy plant.

The Prince knew nothing of sickness or sadness. He never even saw a wilted plant.  Thus he was kept ignorant of all the suffering and unpleasantness of the world.  

Soon Yasodhara gave birth to a son, who was named Rahula. Everything was perfect and the King felt sure that his plans to keep the Prince interested in the royal life were working perfectly.

 Buddha charms here and here.

Next:  A Song of Beauty

The Buddha Story Contined ~ The Marriage Contest

In earlier posts, we have learned the story of the  Birthday of the Buddha, followed by A Fortunate Birth, and then the story of The Young Prince. 

Here, then, is the story of The Marriage Contest.

As the Prince grew older, his kindness made him well-loved by everyone who knew him. But his father worried that the young prince was too gentle and sensitive.  In order to be a great king, his King Shuddhodana reasoned, he needed to be strong and powerful.

 

The Prince Siddhartha, it seemed, preferred sitting along in the garden to learning how to rule a kingdom.  His father fretted that his son would leave the palace to follow a life like that of the holy man Asita.  And if he did that, he would never be a great king.

So, once again, King Shuddhodana sent for his trusted advisers, asking them what to do.  One pointed out that the Prince sat and dreamed of other worlds because he was not attached to anything in this world.  The solution, said the adviser, would be for the Prince to find a wife and have children.  This would quickly cure him of his dreaming, and he would be forced to learn how to rule the kingdom.

The King was intrigued by this idea.  He arranged a sumptuous banquet and invited the young women from all the noble families.  At the end of the evening, the Prince would give gifts to each of the guests while the advisers watched closely, hoping to see which of the young women Siddhartha favored.

The women, who were really still girls, were embarrassed.  Each grew even shyer when it was her turn to accept the Prince's gift.  Finally only one girl was left ~ Yasodhara, the daughter of a neighboring King.  Yasodhara was not shy, and when she approached, for the first time,  Siddhartha looked into her eyes.  Yasodhara was very beautiful and the Prince was attracted to her.  When Yasodhara asked where her gift was, the Prince realized he had given away all the gifts on the table.  Instead, he took the ring from his own finger and gave it to her.

This was all the advisers needs for encouragement.  They ran to the King and announced that Yasodhara was the prefect bride for his son.  But when her father met with the King, though he acknowledged that Prince Siddhartha was a fine young man, he was not willing to give his daughter up so easily.  Other young Princes wished to marry her, as well: young men skilled in riding and archery and other sports.  Yasodhara's father sad that, if  Siddhartha wished to marry Yasodhara, he would have to compete against the others.

And so a contest was arranged, with Yasodhara as the prize.  King Shuddhodana was worried. The Prince, after all, had never shown an interest in any games.  How could he ever win a competition?  But the prince assured his father that he would do whatever was necessary to win Yasodhara as his bride.  The first event was archery, and all the others did well.  Devadatra, Siddhartha's cousin, was one of the suitors, and his arrow not only hit the bull's eye; it went clear through the target.  As the crowd cheered,  even Yasodhara worried. How could Siddhartha beat that shot?  Would she be forced to marry Devadatra?

Siddhartha, however, was confident.  He set the target at the greatest distance.  When he pulled the arrow back on his bow, he was so strong that the bow snapped in half and he had to request a stronger bow.  The advisers conferred, finally offering an old bow in the palace that belonged to one of the greatest warriors.  Since his death, no one had been strong enough to string it, much less shoot it.

Siddhartha immediately agreed to use the historic bow.  He bent it and strung it easily, to everyone's amazement.   When he shot the arrow, it made a sound so loud it was heard in faraway villages, and the arrow hit the target so hard and fast that it didn't even slow down but, instead, continued until it was out of sight.

The crowd went wild.  But other contests remained.  Next was a contest of swordsmanship.  Each of the suitors chose a tree, and then slashed through it with his sword.  Each chose a bigger tree.  Each succeeded.  Finally it was Siddhartha's turn and he chose a tree with two trunks growing side-by-side.  When he cut through, he was so strong and his sword was so sharp, the tree didn't even fall.  It remained standing.  At first Yasodhara worried that Siddhartha had failed.  But a breeze swept through and blew over the trunks.  Again the crowd went wild, insisting that Siddhartha had won.  But a final contest remained: horsemanship.

There was a horse so wild it had never been ridden before.  Each suitor tried to mount the horse but none could remain on the horse's back for more than a few seconds.  One, in fact, was nearly trampled by the horse after he was thrown.   The crowd began to shout, urging the King to stop the contest before someone was killed.  But Siddhartha was not afraid. for he believed that gentleness was more powerful than brute strength.  Slowly he reached out and touched a tuft of hair on the horse's forehead.  Then speaking in a quiet voice, he calmed the horse, who began to lick Siddhartha's hand.  Still whispering,  Siddhartha climbed on the horse's back, paraded before the cheering crowd, and bowed to Yasodhara.

Siddhartha won the contest, not only through power and strength, but through gentleness and kindness.  And in winning the contest, he won the hand of Princess Yasodhara.

Buddha jewelry here.

The Buddha story in greater depth here.

To be continued...

Musings from Land of the Lost

I lost a lot of stuff last week.  I lost my gold Swarovski crystals.  I lost my bag of things I was going to ship.  I lost the bag of pieces I was going to blog about.  It all got lost in a great big Christmahannukwanzadan chaos.

Finally I found the gold Swarovski crystals.  They were in my box of angel parts.  (Bet you didn't know angels had parts.)  And then I found the BLOG bag, which was tucked in with the various earrings bags, right behind the CHRISTMAS bag, and in front of the WINTER BAG.  And finally I found the SOLD bag.  I had tucked it into the box of bracelets.  But when I started going through the bracelets, I realized that a lot of their listings were gone.

Vanished!  POOF!  Gone!  Not on ebay.  Not on etsy.  Not anywhere.  So I went through my box of bracelets (which, I guess, is my inventory of bracelets, but I'm trying not to get too technical here).  And I made a BIG pile of bracelets that were no longer listed and were, therefore, lost.

Happily I could find photos of most of them.  So I relisted all of them (except the ones I need to re-photograph) and here they are, so you can see how lost I really was.  All of them are now in my eBay store.  At least, they'd better be, or I'll know that even more mysterious forces are at work.



A Springlike Bracelet...





A Hanukkah bracelet done in blue gemstones and sterling charms:





A fertility bracelet.  (Alas, it didn't breed in the box and make new fertility bracelets.)





TWO bracelets of Buddha' Blessings.  Does that mean two people went un-blessed?









A bracelet about the Ghosts of the California Gold Rush, in pyrite and hematite.





A St. Patrick's Day bracelet:





And the snowman bracelet that was in last week's blog post.  It was lost, I found it and re-photographed and re-listed it, did the post, and promply lost it again. 





My mother used to tell me I'd lose my head if it weren't attached to my body.

Turns out she was right.

Headlessly yours,

Cornerstoregoddess

The Buddha Story Continued

Continued from here.

At the moment of the Buddha's birth, throughout the land, there was peace and happiness. People stopped fighting with their neighbors and suddenly felt great love for the very person at whom they had been shouting the day before.  Some saw rainbows and other unusual and beautiful events.  Wise men assured each other that something fortunate had happened.  The signs made it clear.



It was the full moon day of the fourth month.



Queen Maya, who herself was filled with joy at the birth of her child, took the baby and returned to the king's palace.



With great rejoicing, King Shuddhodana greeted Queen Maya and their new son.  Festivals were held, and the kingdom was decorated.  It was a time of  happiness and peace. Because of the good feelings, his parents named the Prince "Siddhartha" ~ the one who brought all good.




The wise men made predictions.  They told the king thay his son would grow up to be even geater than the king himself.  This pleased the king greatly.  He was sure that one day Prince Siddhartha would be ruler not only of the king's small kingdom, but of the world.




Many visitors came to see the child.  One was an old man named Asita, a hermit who lived in the distant forest and was known to be a holy person.  The king and queen were honored by his visit and asked the purpose of his journey.



Asita told them that he had traveled there because of the signs that he had seen.  The signs told Asita that the new prince would have great spiritual knowledge that would benefit everyone.  Asita, who had spent his entire life searching for such wisdom, wanted to see the child himself.

But when the king brought the prince to Asita, Asita began to cry.  The king and queen were frightened.  What did this mean?  Was there something wrong with their child?

The king fell to his knees and begged Asita to tell him what he saw in the infant's face.

Was the prince to die soon?

Asita calmed the parents.  He told them he was not crying because of anything bad.  He was crying for himself.



"You see," he told the king and queen, "I have spent my entire life seeking the truth and searching for a way to end all suffering."  When he saw the child, he knew that some day this child would teach everything Asita wanted to learn, but by then, Asita would be dead, and would never be able to learn from him.

He told the king and queen that their son would grow up to be a great man.  If he stayed with the king, the prince would become the greatest king of all time, and would rule over a vast realm, bringing peace and happiness.



But if the prince chose not to become a king, his future would be even greater, for then he would become a great teacher and show people how to live with peace and love in their hearts.  He would leave the palace behind and discover a way to end the world's suffering, and this, he would teach to all who would listen.

With that, Asita turned and slowly left the palace.



The king was greatly relieved.  Even more so, he was thrilled, for he was now sure that, one day, his son would be ruler of the world.  He could always become a holy man when he was quite old, the kimg reasoned.  And so he stood happily, his son in his arms, awaiting the future.

To be continued...

But the necklace with the story is here.