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 During his youth, Prince Siddhartha received intellectual
and physical training in preparation for his eventual succession to the
throne. Separation anxiety caused by the death of his birth mother more
than likely weighed heavily on his mind, but in any event, from an early
age, Siddhartha spent much of his time lost in thought, and he was often
troubled by such mysteries as the impermanence of life.
At age sixteen, Siddhartha married a girl named Yashodhara,
who gave him a son, Rahula. Having taken care of his responsibility to
produce an heir, Siddhartha felt free to act upon his long-cherished
desire to take the tonsure, and on December eighth of his nineteenth
year, the prince stole out of the palace in the dead of night to pursue
the path to spiritual awakening.
Reasons for
Siddhartha’s Renunciation of Secular Life
Shakyamuni had
secretly left
Kapilavastu
Palace
on several occasions to catch a glimpse of life outside the palace. On
each of these excursions, he passed through one of the gates that looked
out onto the four directions and witnessed incidents that profoundly
disturbed him.
 At the east gate, he saw a person hunched over with age, and at the
south gate, he
observed another who was wasting away from disease. At
the west gate, he witnessed the cremation of someone who had recently
died. These observations awakened the youth to the impermanence of life
and the fact that everyone who is born must suffer the sorrows of aging,
sickness and death. Then, when Siddhartha left the palace through the
east gate, he was confronted by the sight of a lone ascetic who had
renounced the secular world. It is said that this encounter with one
sincerely seeking the path to freedom from the sufferings of life and
death inspired the prince to seek that path for himself. Siddhartha's
Practices
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