A Detective

Pedro has a friend named Mary who is a psychologist. She enjoys reading mystery stories and pretending to be a detective. Lately, she's been very interested in the story of the Buddha Boy, Ram Bahadur Bomjon. She watched a video on the internet that showed the Buddha Boy sitting still and meditating under a tree in Nepal for many months without food or drink. Many people watched him meditate.   

Because so many people were around all day and night, it seemed impossible for anyone to secretly give him food or water without anyone noticing. But no one could be completely sure, because it was very dark at night.   

The video got attention from people all over the world. Many people, especially scientists, didn't believe that someone could live without food and water for so long. So, the people who made the video set up a camera to record what happened all the time. After recording for four days, the video showed that the Buddha Boy didn't eat or drink, and his body didn't get weak like scientists thought it would if someone didn't eat.   

People wondered if the Buddha Boy had magic powers or if he was tricking people to get money and fame. He didn't take any money, but he did become famous. Meditating is hard. It's painful to sit for many hours without moving. Doing it for many days is hard to imagine. But this young man had been doing it for months! People wondered why he would do something so difficult. He said he wanted to become a Buddha, like the Buddha from 2,500 years ago.   

Mary looked up the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, whose teachings became a big religion in Asia. Before he was the Buddha, Siddhartha was a prince in Nepal who lived in a palace. He had the best food, clothes, education, exercise, and fun. He didn't know anything about the world outside the palace. One day, he went outside and saw very old and sick people in the street. Later, he saw a dead body being burned at a funeral. He had never seen these things before. Seeing people suffer made him want to leave his home and find a way to stop the pain of old age, sickness, death, and having babies.   

His father, the king, didn't want his son to leave and give up being king. But Siddhartha was determined, so his father let him go. Then, Siddhartha started his journey. For many years, he traveled through forests and wild areas, found teachers, and practiced what he learned. But he couldn't find the answer he was looking for. Finally, he decided to stop traveling and learning from others. He sat down under a Bodhi tree and meditated for 49 days and nights. During this time, a demon named Mara appeared and tried to tempt him with beautiful women and make him doubt himself. At the end of this spiritual struggle, Siddhartha defeated Mara and found the answer he was looking for! From then on, he shared what he learned with the world. He was called the Buddha, which means "the enlightened one" or "the awakened one".   

The Bible tells a similar story in Matthew 4:1, where Jesus Christ spent 40 days and nights in the desert.   

Mary wondered what enlightenment was. She wanted to know how it could stop the suffering of death, birth, old age, and sickness. She did more research and found out about Zen Meditation. "Zen" is the English word for the Chinese/Japanese word "chan" or 禪, which is a Chinese word for the Sanskrit word "dhyana". The words are similar in sound, but they don't explain the meaning. Dhyana means "absorption" or "meditative state," which doesn't explain much, just like the word "enlightenment".

Patriarch Huineng

Mary wondered what the Buddha Boy had learned about enlightenment.