56 Ancient Ideals
when by pressing on his belly, he can feel his backbone behind him.
He subsists on six or seven grains of rice a day. He mortifi es his fl esh
in the way that only a man of the most ferocious— that is perhaps to
say “aristocratic”— strength of will can do. Yet the transformation
that he seeks is still not to be had: old age, sickness, and death, fol-
lowed by birth back into the world of suff ering, continue to loom.
Lost, unable to break through, Gautama does something sur-
prising. He sits down. He begins meditation under a Bo tree, and
as the hours pass and he drops more deeply into his spirit’s life, re-
markable events take place. He comes to see that suff ering is not
accidental. Suff ering is essential. It is the fundamental condition
of being. Suff ering is life / life is suff ering. In the unenlightened
state there is no remainder. And yet— the second of the Buddha’s
truths— the source of suff ering is discernible. Gautama’s medita-
tions reveal it to him. The reason for suff ering is desire, selfi sh
desire, the desire for private fulfi llment. The hungers for primacy,
possession, safety, security: these strivings lead to inner turbu-
lence, which is the core of human unhappiness. Can such desires
be overcome? The third of the Buddha’s truths proclaims that they
can. There is in this world the prospect of overcoming suff ering,
because there is the possibility of overcoming desire. And how is
this overcoming possi ble? It becomes not a possibility but a reality
when one follows the eightfold path: right views, right intent, right
speech, right action, right livelihood, and the rest.
Gautama believes he has broken through. He has found the way
to redeem the life of suff ering. It is nonattachment to the things
of this world, the admission of impermanence, and the cessation of
selfi sh desires. The way to enlightenment is through overcoming
ego— destroying the misleading fi ction of Self.
Is all this an aff ront to the warrior ethos of Achilles? Yes and no.
Achilles strives always—he hungers for the fi rst place. But he is not
obsessed by most forms of worldly desire— possession, prosperity,