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THE STRESS OF STORMS THE NIGHTMARE |
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THE STRESS OF STORMS THE NIGHTMARE |
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BUDDHA
(556-486 B.C.)
The word Buddha comes from the Sanskrit word for “Enlightened one”. This was the name given to the Hindu prince Siddhartha Gautama Sakyamuni, founder of Buddhism. The Buddha was born in Kapilavastu around the year 566 before Christ.
He was the son of the Shakyas King and therefore
heir to the throne.
Siddhartha married the princess Yasodhara and had an only child called Rahula.
At the age of twenty-nine he gave up the throne and abandoned his family to embrace a hermit’s life and look for enlightenment. He reached this state in a place called today Bodh-Gaya.
He gave his famous speech to the five ascetics (also his teachers) for the first time in Benares. Then they recognized Siddhartha as the Buddha and from that moment on they followed him.
He preached for forty years around the whole northeast of India. He died of dysentery at the age of 80 in the city of Kusingara around the year 468 B.C.
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THE NIGHTMARE
The voluptuous moon danced over the gems of the sacred waters of the Ganges that flowed through the Kapilavastu plains. On the shore stood the magnificent palace of the king of the Shakyas.
Inside, in one of the exquisite chambers covered with embroidered silk and gold tapestries scented with sweet sandal, Prince Siddhartha tossed and turned on his nuptial bed soaked in feverish sweat. His youthful body jerked restlessly in his deep sleep. Behind his eyelids, the prince’s tormented eyes darted from left to right.
His beautiful companion, Yasodhara, was watching over him. The prince had been struggling in his sleep for over a month.
She glided her soft hands over her lover’s naked, gleaming body. Placing the fullness of her lips on Siddhartha’s face she woke him up with her kisses.
The young prince looked at her and his face regained its peace. He wrapped his long arms around her and he took refuge in her body.
Calmed now, Siddhartha drank more of the wine that Yasodhara had poured in his royal glass.
Caressing his forehead, his intuitive wife asked him tenderly, “Tell me about your dreams. Why do you hide them from me?”
“You, my beloved Yasodhara, know all my dreams because you and our little Rahula are the inspiration of all of them. We will soon rule over the Shakyas and….”
“No, Gautama. You are not going to avoid my questions again. Tell me about this dream that upsets you so much.”
“Oh, my dearest! That is no dream; it is a terrible nightmare that has come to gnaw on me!”
“So disclose your grief to me.”
Uncertainty darkened the prince’s face and the light in his eyes transformed into tears that ran down his cheeks. He hugged the waist of his loving wife and he gave vent to the pain that tormented him as he confessed weeping, “I do not understand, Yasodhara. I truly don’t. I see myself in this ongoing nightmare where I turn my back on my father and the Shakyas’ clan. I abandon my destiny and I abandon you and our son. I become an enemy of the gods and of each of the wise Brahmin. I wonder throughout India as a ragged beggar. Thousands follow me. The image of my body sitting over a lotus flower is reproduced infinitely in stone, bronze, wood, gold and bone. I don’t know what it means. You know I love you, Yasodhara, that I adore little Rahula and that I also love the king, my father. I love Maya my mother as well as the Shakyas clan. I am not a traitor! I am a Sakyamuni! What mad reason could there be to abandon you?”
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Morning’s song flooded the prince’s room, so he rose determined to wash away the shadow that had soiled his dreams. He opened the silk curtains of his window, looked at the remoteness of his land and discovered a beautiful fig tree. At that moment he promised his wife, “Today I am going to give up the pain inflicted by that horrible vision. Do not let it trouble you anymore. I will sit under that fig tree and not move until I discover what these nightmares are about.”
Yasodhara said good-bye to the prince while holding sweet Rahula in her arms. Siddhartha gazed upon them for a long time, and he hugged and kissed them.
Then he walked towards the fig tree, happy and determined to do his task.
Following the already distant image of her loved one with her eyes, the intuitive Yasodhara saw in it the glimmer of a Buddha walking towards Nirvana. She could also see how the terrible Mara, lord and ruler of all demons, worried and restless, followed Prince Siddhartha’s firm steps. She then realized that her beloved prince would never return to her arms.
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| ANTERIOR | ÍNDICE | SIGUIENTE |
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© Alberto Sibaja Álvarez. San José, Costa Rica
® The Stress of Storms
