When The Buddha Met The Devil II
He could've been the man anyone wishes they were, instead he became the man anyone could become.
When Siddhartha Gautama was born, his father had his fortune told. The boy would have a remarkable life. He would either become a great king, a Chakravarti, who would found a vast empire and do great things for his people, or he would become a great spiritual leader.
Like any parent, Siddhartha’s father chose for his son the path of riches and power, shielding him from all unpleasantness so that he would love the sweet life and never want to be without it. In the end, the plan foiled itself. Siddhartha was so sheltered that when, as an adult, he finally saw his first victims of age, illness, poverty, and death, they shocked him into a nervous breakdown that would drive him to seek a solution to human suffering. Siddhartha renounced his cushy life of leisure, and became an ascetic.
But the temptation to take up the crown and conquer the world did not abate. It is said that when Gautama first took up the alms bowl and set out on his journey, Mara appeared to him arrayed in the garments and trappings of a Chakravarti, the universal ruler.
“You could be me,” said the great king. “Think of all the good you could do, the people you could inspire, how far your peace could spread if you gave up this pauper’s quest and returned to the warrior’s household of your father…”
2500-year-old spoiler alert: he doesn’t go for it.
I talked last week about how the whole story may not have happened “historically” and how that doesn’t matter. What matters is the archetypal story and what it means to you.
We live in a world filled with temptations and idols. Only we call it “social media”, “capitalism”, and “celebrity”. Much as we might bemoan our fates as inheritors of devices socially engineered to distract us with dopamine addiction and advertising, Siddhartha’s palace had a nightly orgy room filled with impossibly beautiful people, the best food, and endless music. Struggling to do right by your loved ones because you’re also trying to get fame and status at work? Siddhartha was promised a kingdom that would be remembered for generations if he just gave up his spiritual pursuits.
The point isn’t to tell us that we have it much easier than our millennia-old ancestors. It’s that however insignificant your challenges may seem to others, they are as impossibly difficult for you as Siddhartha’s challenges were for the future Buddha. Because he was always a great person destined for more greatness, the question of ‘what kind of greatness’ becomes the central problem. For someone like Siddhartha, leaving his personal pleasure palace is no more or less difficult than giving up smartphones or [insert addiction here] would be for the rest of us.
At this point, it might be worth noting that the Chakravarti isn’t necessarily an evil conqueror, either. That would be too easy. Telling a peace-loving hippie ascetic like Siddhartha who’s out to solve world suffering that he could be who Donald Trump dreams he could be isn’t worthy of demonic intelligence, it’s sub-moronic. Instead, a Chakravarti is a peaceful ruler, who unites the world through benevolence and governs justly so that his people are inspired to be virtuous. A king whose chariot and armies can travel unimpeded to any corner of the globe. Kind of like the vision statements of any tech startup or how the world of Hollywood or fashion might look from the outside. It’s the best of all worlds.
Siddhartha rejects this impossibly-good job offer.
Why? Because he knows it’s impossible.
Fantasies are great until we start thinking them through or living them out. Like dreams, they fall apart once you really notice them. Like, what’s a world-uniting king need an army for? What kind of virtue are you getting out of people if it must be backed by force? How long’s this ‘reign of peace’ enterprise going to last once the army gets tired of enforcing it? What about that whole absolute power corrupts absolutely thing? How long before I start worrying about people who can do this job better than me and how to stop them from taking it?
There will always be more to want. Because even if we get everything, we’ll want to not lose it.
Even if you tell yourself you’re doing it to save others, it won’t work unless they want to save themselves. We went for millions of years without social media and the Kardashians and people were miserable. Then a bunch of geeks and nerds started connecting super-advanced calculators together in the belief that hyper-communication and infinite knowledge would make us kinder, more tolerant, happier people. Instead, we got The Social Dilemma explaining how we’re more miserable than ever because you’re not just trying to get a better car than the Joneses next door, now you have to suffer through their posher vacation-spots, costlier lunches, happier kids, and higher like-counts.
The real problem, Siddhartha realized, was in the wanting.
Instead of getting everything he desired, he would get rid of his desire. Then he would show as many people as he could how they could do the same. In doing so he would become a totally different kind of person. Not a great king whose possessions make him the envy of everyone else, nor a holy man whose status comes from some special connection to divine beings. Instead, he would be the example of what one could be if they lived in such a way as to always be perfectly content with what they had.
Easier said than done. But it might just be why, even though India did get an enlightened ruler in the form of Asoka, said to be a real-life Chakravarti, he’s all but forgotten today, while people continue to admire and venerate Siddhartha Gautama, the first in recorded history to become the Buddha.
But here’s the thing: we know the demon Mara continued to dog Siddhartha throughout his quest, challenging him one final time just before his awakening. While the texts say that like the Buddha, those who follow his path would completely extinguish desire upon attaining enlightenment, history would differ. One of Buddha’s own disciples attempted to usurp his position as leader of the fledgling religion later in his life. Perhaps the demons of desire are never fully vanquished. Perhaps you don’t really ‘get rid’ of desire so much as find a way to deal with it. Some ideas on how the sages did just that next week.
“ Siddhartha rejects this impossibly-good job offer. Why? Because he knows it’s impossible.”
I agree with your view, so this isn’t refutation but extension. The fact is that for a few people, it isn’t impossible at first. The temptation to be special and the exception never dies. It’s just that the contradictions appear much later for the conquerors—when it’s too late for them and after most have murdered and ruined the lives of millions. Yes: far better to walk the holy path.