The Enlightened Man's Last Regret

When Siddhartha was a small child, he enjoyed playing in the courtyard, he explored the recesses of the weather worn brick that made up the walls of his father’s palace. He listened intently to faint echoes of whispers spoken long ago in the ancient well at the courtyard’s center. And he enjoyed watching the wind make the courtyard’s plants dance together and sway their boughs and leaves in unison.

One warm spring day he went outside to play his solitary games. But he quickly realized he was not alone. A blur, like a falling shadow rustled behind a tree. Siddhartha walked nimbly towards it, like a curious fawn. He delicately pushed a branch aside, and between the twigs was a silver cat with pale blue eyes. Its qualities were nebulous yet sleek, the cat was part animal, part apparition, with the air of an ancient and forgotten deity. The cat meowed, showing its white teeth and moist bristled tongue.

The cat’s shadowy quality was subdued by the sun. Siddhartha was hesitant, but his fear was overcome by curiosity. He reached his princely jewel-spangled hand towards the cat, it was met by the cat’s back, its fur was soft like cashmere. The cat trembled and purred, being well pleased. It was then that the cat spoke. It said, “young prince, for your gentle touch I will reward you by telling you a secret. But you must never tell anyone. If you repeat my words to another, you will instantly lose all of your memories.” Siddhartha’s eyes widened, he stared at the cat in wonder.

“Promise I won’t tell,” said Siddhartha. “The secret to long life is living life well,” said the cat. “Is that all? How do I live life well?” asked Siddhartha. “That I cannot tell, but do as you must, and you will do well.” Siddhartha wanted to inquire further, but just then, a beautiful silk-laden servant girl came to the courtyard to relay a message. “The King would like you to join him for the midday’s meal,” she said. Being a polite and obedient child, he turned to say goodbye to the cat before joining his father, but the cat had vanished.

The next day Siddhartha returned to the courtyard before midday. He searched behind the pear tree where the shadow had fallen the day before. But the shadow cat was not there. Siddhartha returned every day for many months, but the mysterious feline never came again.

King Śuddhodana loved Siddhartha, and being King, he proved his affections by feeding him the finest fruit from the most excellent harvests, and the freshest milk from the most robust animals, and exquisite honey extracted from the sweetest and most fragrant flowers. Siddhartha slept on plush ornamental pillows filled with the feathers of exotic birds, and luxurious linens, painstakingly weaved by the kingdom’s best weavers. Siddhartha was tended to by a procession of young beautiful women who bathed him daily, in petal-strewn baths. His only work consisted of learning, being tutored by the kingdom’s brightest minds.

Despite his royal privileges, Siddhartha dared not talk to the wise King about the shadow cat’s message, or his tutors, because if he did, he knew that he would instantly lose all of his memories. Over time, Siddhartha disregarded the cat’s secret. He grew older, and his childhood memories faded, including the chance encounter with the shadow cat.

Having never left his home, he had never seen the ugliness that existed outside the palace. When Siddhartha finally came of age, he was overcome by a longing for adventure. One morning, he awoke earlier than the servants, it was still night. He snuck into the servants’ quarters and took one of their garbs. Wearing it, he placed a large burlap sack over his shoulder, as if he were going to the market for supplies. With trepidation, he walked past the guards standing watch at the palace's grand entryway.

He walked through the marketplace stepping over garbage and waste that littered the streets. The nauseating scent of decay was unfamiliar to him. A beleaguered man with a shanty cane limped towards him. His face was covered with bandages, and puss-filled pimples, he begged Siddhartha for alms, coughing into his face. Siddhartha used his arm to shield himself from the splatter of phlegm and disease; until that moment, he had never been exposed to sickness. Seconds later, a burly man shoved passed him, calling him a pariah, and pushing him forcefully into an old tradeswoman. The pain of violence and brutality had never besieged him before then. The old tradeswoman, blind and toothless, wheezed out a complaint with a raspy voice. “No one respects the poor and elderly." She was standing near a stall where she was peddling a pile of spoiled fish swarming with flies. The reality of poverty and old age dizzied him.

Overwhelmed by his senses, he retreated through an alleyway. He passed by a fat and grotesque man, he was muttering belligerently, and urinating in the shadows. Nearby, half-naked and emaciated children scavenged through rotting garbage searching for food. The alley way led him to a family lamenting by the river. They gathered around a man on a stretcher. The man’s feet were in the water. The family was ceremoniously washing and bandaging his body. The man’s eyes were closed, he was pale, and unnervingly still. Two children decorated their father with wilting white flowers. Siddhartha recoiled in horror; he had never seen death before.

Siddhartha wept, overcome by emotion, and pure solemn compassion. Witnessing suffering in all of its manifestations, Siddhartha fell to his knees, and declared, “I must find a cure for all suffering.”

Siddhartha returned home, but he discarded his royal robes, rejecting the duties of his lineage, and rebuffing his father’s wishes. Soon after, Siddhartha left the palace with nothing. He started a life-long journey, doing what he must, in search for the antidote to suffering. In contrast to his formerly lavish lifestyle, he immersed himself with the ascetics. And for many years, he sat in the lotus position, in front of a tree, enduring the elements, and denying himself the gratification of food and drink.

The decades passed, and Siddhartha made great discoveries about the very nature of life, including the noble path to transcending suffering. With time he gained disciples, and he became known as the Buddha, “the Enlightened One.”

Siddhartha did indeed have a long life. When he was old and grey, he returned to his father’s palace, now abandoned and dilapidated, and he walked into the courtyard of his youth. He used his spotted wrinkled hands to take a cool drink from the ancient well. With his one good ear, he heard a faint echo of a cat’s purr, and the sharing of a secret to a gentle young prince, Siddhartha once the observer, was now among the voices of the sagacious well. The memory of the chance encounter with the shadow cat returned to him, as if he had experienced it just then. But with a life of experiences, he finally understood the significance of the cat’s secret.

That very evening, Siddhartha fell gravely ill. The wise man tossed and turned in bed. He thought, how unfortunate that only late in life did he recall the shadow cat, and his secret. So, he summoned his closest followers to come to his bedside. He said to them: "one of the most important things one can do, is pass on knowledge." It was then that he told this story, revealing the secret that transformed his life. The knowledge his followers would now beget, the enlightened man would at last forget. With the Buddha’s tale concluded, his memories unraveled into the ether. But the lesson lived on.