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Festivals
A man who had just found the answer to suffering could have kept walking, alone with his discovery. Instead, he turned back toward five people who had once abandoned him.
Before his enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama had spent years practising extreme austerity. He did this alongside five ascetic companions. He believed that punishing the body was the path to spiritual truth. When he eventually gave up this extreme practice, he chose instead a balanced Middle Way. It sat between indulgence and self-denial. His five companions saw this as a failure of resolve. They left him. They believed he had given up on the spiritual path they had all committed to together.
Not long after, sitting beneath the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, Gautama attained enlightenment. He became the Buddha, the Awakened One.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.