The Buddha as an Archetype

We could easily describe the story of the Buddha going forth from his home as an archetypical experience, where the story of the Buddha was not only ascribed to him, but to previous Buddhas. It seems that everybody “who seeks enlightenment must go through this transformative experience when he or she embarks on the spiritual life.” The story of the Buddha leaving his family, leaving the protection of a home and going to the world, seems to me to be an experience that we all at some time take in one way or another in finding ourselves. Carl Jung, when visiting the place where Buddha gave his first speech, agreed completely: “I grasped the life of the Buddha as the reality of the self…Buddha became as it were, the image of the development of the self.” The Buddha isn’t a God, a profit, someone who was able to commune with God, but just a guy not that different than the rest of us , and thus his story makes him more accessible than perhaps Jesus or Mohammad. “We can then view the Buddha’s life not as an abstract, removed story of somebody who lived twenty-five hundred years ago, but as one that reveals the nature of the universal in us all. This becomes a way of understanding our own experience in a larger and more profound context, one that connects the Buddha’s journey with our own. We have undertaken to follow the same path, motivated by the same questions: What is the true nature of our lives? What is the root cause of our suffering? The basic of the story of Gautama seems at the outset very simple. He was the son of a very wealthy King, had all the pleasures of the world, had all the benefits that one could expect. His father attempted to hide the problems of the world from him, in order that he would not have to face the reality of the world. Despite this, he had opportunities to see reality, to see what was going on, and to think that perhaps not all was perfect. This is no different than what most parents do, in trying to protect their children from the dangers in the world, but more often than not the similar pain that they went through. Parents tend to say that they want their kids to have a better life than themselves, almost as if they don’t want their children to learn from their own mistakes, learn to walk by themselves. Instead, parents almost always put a protective barrier, a castle of sorts, in which usually from an early age they try to hide the realities of the world from the kids. Being overprotective of children seems to be a growing norm in America. Child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University says “We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope.” Psychological studies show that overprotective parents can cause a wide range of problems in children, including, interestingly enough, the inability to internalize thoughts. The need for Buddhist thought, self-introspection and meditation seems all the more relevant in this context. According to the texts, after Buddha started to notice the pain and suffering in the world, his father did all he could to distract him with pleasures, including minstrels, dancers and beautiful women. The attempt to prevent suffering or more importantly to block the reality of suffering is an essential part of the human psyche. It seems that in our overprotective world, drinking and drug use as a coping mechanism is on the rise, especially in a college setting where kids, as young adults, are often faced with the realities of the world for the first time after going forth. Jung would indeed argue that the a father in general, and in the story of the Buddha, acts as a bridge to society, working with a child the fundamental processes of becoming an adult, and teaching how to deal with the pains of the world, often by ignoring them. Once the Buddha realized that everything was hidden from him, he could never see the world again in the light his father wanted him to be. He had seen the truth of society, and had “permitted the spectacle of suffering to invade his life and tear his world apart.” (Armstrong, Buddha) How many children, faced with college, faced with the realities of everyday life, rebel against their parents, seeking salvation in a variety of ways?