During our pilgrimage we travelled to Nepal to visit the birthplace of the Buddha, Lumbini. The Buddha was born a prince and was named Siddhartha. It was foretold by the royal astrologers that he would become either a great king or a great saint. It was here also that after having been sheltered in the palace for all of his youth that he first witnessed the sufferings of human life in the form of aging, sickness, and death which inspired him to become a spiritual seeker. Looking around Lumbini, it was hard for us to imagine there once being a kingdom with a palace nearby, however the sufferings that the Buddha witnessed are grossly apparent 2,500 years later in this impoverished region.
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