FROM THE TIME Siddhartha Gautama was a young child, he burned with the essential questions: What is the meaning of life? Who am I? What is everything about? As he grew up, his contemplation of these matters became all-consuming. As we know, in adulthood he renounced the life of ease and power he’d been born into and devoted himself to seeking wisdom.
He received instruction in an array of spiritual traditions, from some of the most illustrious philosophers and meditation teachers of the time. A profoundly gifted student, he swiftly completed these various paths, and in some cases, he exceeded the teachers themselves. None of it, however, provided the kind of answers he was longing for.
Siddhartha arrived at the conclusion that learning about meditation, no matter how sophisticated the education, wasn’t enough—he should really buckle down and focus on actually practicing. In this spirit, he embarked on a retreat on the banks of the Niranjana river; for six years, he took part in no activities apart from practice. However, even after this mammoth effort, he was still not fully satisfied that he had
