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Buddha

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Submitted By milonea
Words 656
Pages 3
Anthony Milone
9/28/14
Dr. David Carpenter
Response paper
Against the Stream
Summary: The first part of against the stream “Basic Training’’ is about the beginning stages of Siddhartha Gautama who is the Buddha’s life. For the book the author calls him Sid. While Sid was a baby there was an astrologist/fortune teller who had said that Sid would grow into an enlightened being. He would either become a great-enlightened spiritual master or a powerful warrior king. The problem with this is that Sids parents who were the rulers of a small kingdom did not want this to be true because they knew that Sid would leave them because spiritual masters do not hang around there families and almost never go into the family business. And being that he was there only child they knew they needed to keep him around. His parents being very powerful decided that they were going to keep Sid away from anything that would make him want to become a spiritual master or powerful king. He always had everything he wanted, he was surrounded young beautiful people all the time and never saw anyone that was old, sick, or dying. They thought that if he thought his life was perfect he would never have to leave. When Sid got older he eventually realized that he was not allowed to leave his palace with out guards and he had started to feel like prisoner even though he had everything he needed. Then one day Sid had convinced one of his guards to sneak him out and let him see the real world. So they went out and Sid had experienced “the four messengers” these included what he wasn’t allowed to see before. He saw the old, the sick, the dying and he saw a corpse. “ As soon as Sid saw the spiritual seeker, he had a new sense of hope and faith that he would be able to come to a solution for the endless cycle of birth and death” (p.6) Sid chose to leave his family and seek answers. Sid began living on

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