format_quote Originally Posted by
Zulkiflim
As for you assertion that it is noble of Siddaharta to leave his coutnry wife and son ,,,,leaving bereft a coutnry without it's future leader,a wife her husband and a son his fahter............which you say is noble is otherwise repugnant to me.
In legend at least, King Suddhodana was indeed a powerful king (although in reality, as has been said, he was more likely to have been a local chieftain of some sort, or even just a prominent citizen). After Gotama was born the sage Asita visited King Suddhodana to see the baby, and recognised from certain signs that Gotama was
destined to become a Buddha A total of four sages agreed, but Suddhodana wished his son to become king in turn. That was why the young 'prince' was surrounded by as much over-the-top luxury as he was - his father wished to keep him away from the suffering of the world and in particular to stop him go wandering off as an ascetic or mendicant. It backfired totally, as finally it was Gotama's disgust of that luxury and his discovery of the death, disease and poverty he had been hidden from that made him certain he had to leave. It was inevitable it would happen that way - he was destined to become a Buddha.
Both wife and child were well cared for (and became followers of the Buddha themselves), and as far as we know the family or town suffered no great loss as the result of not having Gotama as a leader. We do not know what would have happened if that would not have been the case, but my own view is that it never could have been. Gotama's
karma, after many lifetimes of strenuous effort, dictated the position he found himself in, so there is no point in speculating "what if", for example, his family had been poor and needed him to support them. Aside from which,from a practical point of view, do you really think he was likely to make a good leader in matters of politics and war? I very much doubt it! In the first case he wasn't interested, in the second he would have been completely incapable.
As has been said, there is perhaps a difference in cultural values here, too. What Gotama did was probably by no means unusual, although in the Hindu tradition it was probably more frequent later in life once householder duties had been completed and handed on to sons. It was accepted that to achieve spiritual progress it is necessary to make great sacrifices; Buddhism is a religion of self-effort, not of theistic intervention and judgement. People still do the same today if they know their family can look after itself, or will be cared for if necessary, and at the risk of being controversial didn't even Jesus suggest disciples might need to do the same? (Luke 9:57-62).
Who the Buddha was or what he did are unimportant - he made that point frequently himself. It is his teachings rather than him which are important... but eventually even they must be abandoned. There is an old proverb... which must be taken in context, "
if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him". Can you imagine anything similar in Islam or Christianity?! The point is that if you "meet" the Buddha, that is achieve a level of spiritual progression approaching his, you no longer need him, or even his teachings. Clinging to them will only hold you back. When you no longer need the stick to walk, you must throw it away and keep going.