Chapter 4: The Wrong Path

Siddhartha stayed with Alara Kalama for six months.

He learned to sit. He learned to breathe. He learned to watch his mind without touching it.

The practice worked. His mind became calm. The questions became distant. The stone in his chest grew lighter.

But they did not disappear.

After six months, he could sit for hours without moving. He could enter states where his body felt like air. He could find peace that lasted as long as he stayed still.

But when he stood up, the questions returned.

Old age. Sickness. Death.

The calm was temporary.

Siddhartha went to Alara Kalama.

"Teacher," he said, "I have learned what you teach. I can reach the states you describe. But when I return from those states, suffering is still here."

Alara Kalama nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Does the suffering ever end?"

The teacher looked at him. His eyes were kind. "I do not know."

Siddhartha bowed. "Thank you for your teaching."

"Where will you go?"

"To find the answer."

Alara Kalama smiled. "Then you have learned what I had to teach."

Siddhartha left the community.

He walked for two days. The path led through fields and villages. People gave him rice. He ate. He walked on.

On the third day, he met a group of five monks.

They were thin. Thinner than Alara Kalama's monks. Their ribs showed. Their cheeks were hollow.

"Brother," one of them said. "Where are you going?"

"To find the end of suffering."

The monk's eyes brightened. "Then walk with us. We have found the way."

"What is the way?"

"Discipline. The body is the enemy. It craves food. It craves comfort. It craves pleasure. If we starve the body, the mind becomes free."

Siddhartha looked at their thin faces. Their shaking hands. Their slow movements.

"You are free?" he asked.

The monk hesitated. "We are becoming free."

"How long have you been practicing?"

"Three years."

Siddhartha thought about this. Three years of hunger. Three years of shaking hands.

"Show me," he said.

The monks took him to their camp. It was not in a clearing. It was in a cave. Dark. Cold. Damp.

They sat on stone. They ate one meal a day. Rice. A handful. Sometimes less.

They did not speak. They did not smile. They sat and breathed and counted their breaths and tried not to think about food.

Siddhartha joined them.

On the first day, he ate one handful of rice. His stomach hurt. He ignored it.

On the second day, he ate half a handful. The hunger was louder. He ignored it.

On the third day, he ate three grains.

The monks watched him. Their eyes were impressed.

Siddhartha sat and meditated. His body screamed. His stomach twisted. His head ached.

He ignored all of it.

One week passed.

Then one month.

Then six months.

Siddhartha became thin. His ribs showed. His arms were sticks. His face was hollow.

He could barely stand. When he walked, he had to hold the cave wall.

But his mind, he thought, was becoming clear.

He sat and meditated. Hours passed. His body faded. He felt like he was dissolving.

This was it, he thought. The answer.

He sat for days. He did not eat. He barely drank.

His body was dying.

That was the point.

On the seventh day, he tried to stand. His legs would not hold him. He fell.

The five monks rushed to him. They lifted him. His body weighed nothing.

"Brother," one said. "You have gone further than any of us. You are close."

Siddhartha looked at him. The monk's face was blurry.

"Close to what?" Siddhartha whispered.

"Freedom."

Siddhartha closed his eyes.

He saw the old man. The sick woman. The body on the platform.

He saw his father's walls. The painted stars. The silk curtains.

He saw the rice fields. The bent backs. The tired faces.

And he understood.

Starving the body was just another wall.

His father had built walls of comfort. These monks had built walls of pain.

But walls were still walls.

And freedom was not inside walls.

"No," Siddhartha said.

The monks stared at him.

"This is not the way," he said.

"But you have come so far—"

"The wrong way."

Siddhartha pushed himself up. His legs shook. His vision blurred.

"I need food," he said.

The monks stepped back. Their faces were shocked. Disgusted.

"If you eat," one said, "you will lose everything you have gained."

"I have gained nothing. I am destroying the hardware. The problem is in the software."

They did not understand. Siddhartha did not explain.

He walked out of the cave.

The sun was bright. Too bright. He could not see. He held his hand up to block it.

A village was half a mile away. He walked toward it. Each step was agony. His feet barely lifted. His body wanted to stop.

He kept walking.

At the edge of the village, a woman sat under a tree. She was young. Maybe twenty. She had a basket of rice balls beside her.

She saw him and stood. Her face was alarmed.

"Sir," she said, "you look—"

"Hungry," Siddhartha said. "I am hungry."

She picked up the basket. She brought it to him. "Please. Sit."

Siddhartha sat. The ground was soft. Grass. It felt like a bed.

The woman handed him a rice ball. "Slowly. If you have not eaten, you must eat slowly."

Siddhartha took the rice ball. It was still warm. It smelled like sesame and salt.

He bit into it.

The taste was overwhelming. His body shook. Tears ran down his face.

He was not crying from sadness. He was crying because the rice ball was the most beautiful thing he had ever experienced.

He ate three rice balls. The woman watched him with concern. She brought water. He drank.

His body remembered what it was.

A body.

Not an enemy. Not a prison.

A body.

"Thank you," he said when he finished.

"What is your name?" the woman asked.

"Siddhartha."

"I am Sujata."

"You have saved my life."

She smiled. "I have given you rice balls."

"Same thing."

She laughed. It was a small sound. Kind.

"Will you be all right?" she asked.

"I think so."

She stood. She picked up her basket. "There is a tree near the river. A large one. Bodhi tree. The shade is good. If you need to rest."

"Thank you."

She walked back to the village.

Siddhartha sat under the tree where she had found him. He rested. His body was weak but no longer dying.

He had tried comfort. That was his father's way.

He had tried pain. That was the monks' way.

Both were wrong.

The answer was not at the extremes.

It was in the middle.

A body that was fed. A mind that was calm. A system that was stable.

He thought about the rice ball. The taste. The warmth.

Destroying the body was not the answer.

Understanding the mind was.

And to understand the mind, you needed a mind that could think.

Not a mind that was starving.

That evening, Siddhartha walked to the river. The bodhi tree was where Sujata said it would be.

It was enormous. The trunk was wide. The branches spread like a roof. The leaves rustled in the breeze.

Siddhartha sat beneath it.

He crossed his legs. He placed his hands in his lap. He closed his eyes.

He was not dissolving anymore. He was here. Solid. Real.

His body was weak but alive. His mind was clear but not empty.

He breathed in.

He breathed out.

And for the first time, he felt like he was on the right path.

Not the comfortable path. Not the painful path.

The middle path.

The stable system.

The one where the hardware could support the software.

He opened his eyes. The river flowed past. The sun was setting. The sky was orange and pink and purple.

Real colors.

Not painted ones.

Siddhartha looked at the tree. The trunk. The branches. The roots that went deep into the ground.

This was it.

This was where he would find the answer.

He did not know how long it would take.

He only knew he was not leaving.

Not until he understood.

He closed his eyes again.

The river ran.

The leaves rustled.

The sun went down.

And Siddhartha sat.