May 02, 2026  

The Story Beneath the Story: What the Buddha Saw

A young man walks out of a palace and into a village. He is twenty-nine years old. He has been protected from the rough edges of life since...

A young man walks out of a palace and into a village. He is twenty-nine years old. He has been protected from the rough edges of life since the day he was born. His father, fearing a prophecy, made certain his son would never see anything that might lead him toward spiritual questioning.

The village does not cooperate with his father's plan.

Within a single afternoon, the young man sees an old person, a sick person, and a dead person. The smells, the sounds, the unfiltered chaos of life rush in all at once. He sees something else too: a monk, sitting peacefully while the world goes on doing what the world does. Something inside him shifts. He wants what the monk has. He wants everyone to have it.

This is the beginning of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who would later be called the Buddha, the awakened one. Twenty-five centuries later, his teachings still travel from culture to culture, settling into the rhythms of practice for millions of people. They have a particular gift for traveling lightly. A person can bring Buddhist meditation into a Christian life, weave Buddhist mindfulness into a Jewish practice, sit with a Buddhist teacher while remaining whatever they already are.

Continuing with the Theme 

This Sunday at the Center, we open a series on the world's faith traditions with a look at Buddhism. We will spend time with the story at its heart, the one about the young man and the village. We will look at the Four Noble Truths he is said to have received under the bodhi tree, including the one that can be the hardest for those of us in metaphysical traditions to hear: suffering is a reality of life.

We will also consider the question that the Buddha's encounter with aging, sickness, and death raises for our own time. How do we, individually and as a society, respond to the rough edges of life? What might shift if we leaned in rather than turning away?

Ernest Holmes spent years examining the world religions, the great thoughts of the ages, and the emerging ideas of science, searching for a common thread. His vision was that we would keep doing the same. We study other traditions to build bridges, to soften the suspicion that grows in unfamiliar soil, and to find ourselves a little more inspired than when we arrived.

Come and join us as we begin.

Sunday, May 3, 2026, at 9:00 and 11:00 AM, in person and on our YouTube channel.