The Long Search, Asceticism and the Middle Way

The Long Search

For many years he traveled, and studied with many teachers, Upanishadic Philosophers, famous Yogis.

The Buddha tried all of the "isms" and "ologies" of his day. He tried all of the paths on offer, the teachings and teachers on offer. He tried the rave culture, the environmentalists, the yogis, and the philosophers. Some of them took him a long way - but not all the way. In each case he surpassed his teachers - and any good teacher should aim that their students surpass them - to the extent that they asked him to return to teach them!

Asceticism

Eventually he became an ascetic, and his fame as an ascetic spread throughout the land. As an ascetic, for six year he and his followers lived in silence, starving themselves, mastering suffering by trying to make their minds so strong they can ignore the body.

Asceticism is a peculiarly Hindu (and Christian) phenomenon. Hinduism sees the material world, the world of the body and the senses as unreal and illusory. The task for the Hindu is to try to getaway from the distractions that the material world gives, that can lead us to get lost from our spiritual purpose. One way, they believe, to do this is to limit our pleasures, to deny them, we make our minds strong, and fix on the spiritual world which is seen to be behind the illusory material world. Asceticism is the other extreme from Hedonism.

He became a very famous ascetic, with a large following of fans. It is said that the Buddha lived on one grain of rice a day, and that he was so thin that you could see the outline of his backbone through his stomach. He was near death.

The Middle Way

One day he overheard a musician teaching his pupils, telling them that "if you tighten the string too much it will snap, if you leave it too lose it will not play". The Buddha realised that there was a grain of truth here. It is the same for people. If you are too extreme, too self disciplined and controlled, too hard working, you too will snap. If you are too slack, then you won't sound! So some practitioners are too lax (need to be more self disciplined), some are too wound up, and need to slacken off. The need is for a happy median. So Siddhartha discovered the principle of the Middle Way °© that there must be a balance in our life between extremes.

Siddhartha realised that he was wrong! He came to the conclusion that asceticism got you nowhere. He rejected asceticism; he rejected the rejection of the world!

This was brave; he realised that the last six years or so of his life had been a waste of time and had got him nowhere. But he didn't cling to this, or try to salvage it nor his reputation. He realized he was wrong, and he stopped and left. He didn't modify it, he didn't dress it up, rationalise it, give it an excuse, or to a spin-doctor...he just left it behind!

He resolved to get his health back. So he accepted help!

A village girl, the milkmaid, offered him some rice and milk.

He accepted healing from others. He took the rice and the milk from Nandabala, and later he accepted the grass for the cushion from the grass cutter. He is open to help and to the advise of others. He listened to the words of the musician.

His followers the ascetics left in disgust.