Chapter 3: The Great Departure

Siddhartha could not sleep.

He lay in bed for three nights and stared at the ceiling. The painted stars. The silk curtains. The perfect room.

On the fourth night, he got up.

Yasodhara was asleep. Her breathing was slow and even. Rahula was in the next room. Seven months old. Too young to understand what his father was about to do.

Siddhartha stood at the foot of the bed and looked at them.

His wife. His son. His family.

He loved them.

That was not enough.

He dressed in simple clothes. Not the silk robes he wore during the day. Plain cotton. Brown. The kind the servants wore.

He walked through the palace. The halls were dark. The servants were asleep. The guards were on the walls, facing out.

No one looked in.

Siddhartha reached the stables. His horse, Kanthaka, was awake. The horse always knew when something was happening.

Siddhartha saddled him quietly. His hands shook. Not from fear. From something else. Something that felt like fear but was not.

He led the horse out of the stable. The courtyard was empty. The fountain ran. The peacocks were asleep in the garden.

The gate was closed.

Siddhartha stood in front of it. The gate was wood and iron. Locked from the inside. The key hung on a hook near the guardhouse.

He could take the key. He could open the gate. He could ride through.

Or he could go back to bed.

He thought about Yasodhara's face when she woke and found him gone.

He thought about Rahula growing up without a father.

He thought about his father's anger.

Then he thought about the old man. The sick woman. The body on the platform. The monk under the tree.

He took the key.

The lock turned without sound. The gate swung open.

Siddhartha led the horse through. He did not look back.

Once outside, he climbed onto Kanthaka. The horse moved forward. The palace walls grew smaller behind them.

At the edge of the city, Siddhartha stopped. He dismounted. He took off his cotton clothes and put on the orange robes he had brought in a bag. The same color as the monk's robes.

He took his knife and cut his hair.

The hair fell in black pieces on the ground. Long hair. Prince hair. Hair that had been washed with oils and combed by servants.

Gone.

He looked at Kanthaka. The horse watched him.

"Go home," Siddhartha said.

The horse did not move.

"Go," he said again. He slapped the horse's flank.

Kanthaka turned. He walked back toward the palace. Slowly at first. Then faster.

Siddhartha watched him go.

When the horse was out of sight, Siddhartha turned the other way.

The forest was dark. The path was narrow. He walked.

He did not know where he was going. He only knew where he was not going.

Back.

The sun rose. The forest became visible. Birds called. Insects hummed. The air smelled like earth and leaves.

Siddhartha's feet hurt. The sandals he wore were thin. Not the sandals he wore in the palace. Those had cushioned soles.

These were just leather and string.

He kept walking.

By midday, he reached a village. Small. Maybe twenty houses. A well in the center. Children playing near a pile of stones.

An old woman sat outside one house. She was grinding grain with a stone. Her hands moved in circles. The sound was steady. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.

She looked up when Siddhartha approached.

"You're new," she said.

"Yes."

"A monk?"

"Yes."

She studied him. His robes were too clean. His face was too smooth. But she did not ask questions.

"Hungry?" she asked.

"Yes."

She went inside. She came back with a bowl. Rice. Plain. No saffron. No butter.

Siddhartha ate. The rice was cold. It tasted like nothing.

It was the best thing he had ever eaten.

"Thank you," he said.

The woman nodded. She went back to grinding.

Siddhartha finished the bowl. He set it down. He bowed to the woman and walked on.

The path led out of the village and into more forest. The trees were tall. The shade was cool.

He walked for three days.

On the fourth day, he met another monk.

The monk was older. His robes were faded. His feet were bare and cracked.

"Where are you going?" the monk asked.

"I don't know," Siddhartha said.

"Then you're going the right way."

They walked together for an hour. The monk did not ask questions. Siddhartha did not offer answers.

At a fork in the path, the monk stopped.

"That way," he said, pointing left, "is a community of monks. They study under a teacher. His name is Alara Kalama."

"What does he teach?"

"Meditation. Discipline. How to calm the mind."

"Does it work?"

The monk smiled. "For some. For a while."

"And you?"

"I'm still walking."

Siddhartha looked at the left path. Then the right.

"Thank you," he said.

The monk nodded. He took the right path. Siddhartha took the left.

Two days later, he reached the community.

It was not a palace. It was not even a village.

It was a clearing in the forest. Huts made of bamboo and thatch. A fire pit. A stream.

Fifteen monks sat in a circle. They were silent. Their eyes were closed.

Siddhartha stood at the edge of the clearing.

One monk opened his eyes. He was older than the rest. His beard was white. His back was straight.

"You are welcome to sit," the monk said.

Siddhartha sat.

The monk closed his eyes again. The circle was silent.

Siddhartha closed his eyes.

He tried to calm his mind. But his mind would not calm. It showed him Yasodhara's face. Rahula's cry. His father's anger.

The old man's hands. The sick woman's breath. The body on the platform.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

The forest was quiet. The monks were still.

Siddhartha sat.

An hour passed. Maybe two.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was lower. The monks were standing. The circle had broken.

The old monk approached.

"I am Alara Kalama," he said.

"I am Siddhartha."

"Why are you here?"

Siddhartha thought about the question. There were many answers. All of them true.

He chose the simplest.

"I saw people suffer. I want to understand why."

Alara Kalama nodded. "Then you have come to the right place. Or the wrong one. You will find out which."

Siddhartha stayed.

That night, he lay on a mat in one of the huts. The mat was thin. The ground was hard. The hut smelled like smoke and grass.

It was nothing like his bed in the palace.

He slept better than he had in years.

When he woke, the painted stars were gone. Above him was thatch. Through the gaps, he saw the sky.

Real stars.

They moved.

He watched them until dawn.

Then he got up.

He joined the monks at the fire. They ate plain rice. They drank water from the stream.

No one spoke.

After breakfast, they sat in the circle. They closed their eyes.

Siddhartha closed his eyes.

He breathed.

The questions in his mind did not disappear.

But they became quieter.

For the first time since leaving the palace, the stone in his chest felt lighter.

Not gone.

Just lighter.

He breathed in.

He breathed out.

And somewhere far away, in a palace with silk curtains and painted stars, his wife woke and found him gone.

His father stood at the gates and stared at the empty road.

His son cried in a room that smelled like jasmine.

But Siddhartha did not know any of that yet.

He only knew that he had pressed the exit button.

And that, whatever came next, he could not go back.

The path only went forward.

So he walked.