The Prince was aware of Death

The same sutta  “Sukumāla Sutta (A Delicate Lifestyle)” in pali canon, also explained how the prince’s father King Suddhodana facilitate him with the most luxurious lifestyle ever and how the prince didn’t fall for them from the beginning. This proves that he was a “WISE” prince who is about to be enlightened and cease the existence.  Think about you… what if you had such a luxurious lifestyle? Do you care for old age, sickness or death?  Even without having such a lifestyle, see the way you ignore the facts of aging, sickness and death… That’s the difference between being wise & being ignorant!  So, before saying Samma SamBuddha were also a normal human being like us think zillions of times.  Coz you are not even closer to the wisdom of teenage prince Siddhartha who saw the life as it is even when everyone tries to comfort him with all the possible luxuries on earth.

As a few months-old infant, the wise prince notices how an eagle capture the snake and how the life cycle float, and he began to meditate with that experience.  That’s basically the time he saw the food chain we learn in school.    Then in another occasion the prince Devadatta was trying to kill a bird while the young prince Siddhartha trying to save the bird. If he is not aware of death, he is not saving the bird from death.  The real joke is that people those who misinterpret the life story, also assuming that the young prince was not aware of his own mother’s death.

Like I said in earlier chapter, the one who try to interpret the life story must have imagined the whole story is like a movie. When it comes to the last birth, it is obvious that a person is already wise enough to capture the hidden deep meaning behind all these situations in the life.  That’s beautifully explained by the Samma SamBuddha in above sutta, how the blessed one saw the third omen of Death and how he observed other’s reactions towards death and how he felt about the life after that.

Then what must have happened with the charioteer Channa’s explanations?  Oh! Now you already know Channa was just like us on that time of being a charioteer.  He had the view of majority.  He had the knowledge about death, but not the understanding of what is death.  He didn’t see the death as an omen by that time.  But at least Channa was wise enough to end this existence before you & me.  So, in that way, he used to be wiser than we.   

Like we already discussed, the majority of ours view is delusional.  It creates stories, defining things and believe on them.  Those assumptions become the truth of our lives.  Look at the way how you miss your own death.  Can you feel that you are like a ticking bomb?  Of course not, right? Coz you assume you have more time! You have a year of long life to live.  Don’t you have any plans for next year?  See, the way you missed how fragile you are!