I am fortunate to receive an issue of the Smithsonian magazine every month, courtesy of a gift subscription. (Thanks, Mom!) Each issue brings well-researched, well-written, and beautifully illustrated stories on a rich variety of topics that takes the reader on journeys around the world; into the past, present, and future; and through every imaginable field of study, from art to zoology. Last month’s issue, for example, included a story on the places and events in northern India and southern Nepal believed to have played a role in the life of Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha (the Enlightened One).

Archaeologists and scholars still debate whether Siddhartha Gautama, sometimes known as Prince Siddhartha, was an actual historical person. It’s possible that the person of Prince Siddhartha was created by spiritual leaders and scholars to make Buddhist teachings more accessible. It’s also possible that the life stories and teachings of several spiritual leaders were woven together to create a fictional Prince Siddhartha. But it’s also possible that Prince Siddhartha was an actual historical person who lived in northern India and southern Nepal sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BC.

While scholars may not agree on the exact nature of the Buddha—historical person? creative conglomeration of wise teachers? a fiction devised to aid spiritual growth?—they do agree on one of the key stories about the life of Prince Siddhartha.

Prince Siddhartha is purported to have grown up in a wealthy family. His father was most likely a king or warrior with a good deal of social status and influence. His parents are said to have intentionally shielded him from encounters with the harsh realities of life: poverty, hunger, illness, suffering. Prince Siddhartha lived contentedly within this sheltered world until about the age of 30, when he ventured outside the palace walls and encountered suffering in the form of old age, illness, and death. These encounters opened his eyes to human suffering. But his encounter with an ascetic—a person who does not indulge in life’s luxuries—led him to hope that suffering is not—or at least doesn’t need to be—the norm.

To Prince Siddhartha, it seemed that a life of simplicity and humility could very well be the antidote to human suffering. Thus, he renounced his family’s wealth, departed from the palace, and adopted a contemplative life of simplicity. Eventually, he was joined by others who shared his beliefs about the value of a simple, humble life. Community became another part of the antidote to suffering.

As I read this story, I couldn’t stop thinking about St. Francis of Assisi. Like Prince Siddhartha, St. Francis was born into a life of ease, comfort, and wealth. Like Prince Siddhartha, St. Francis encountered suffering in the form of illness. Indeed, Francis encountered suffering in one of the most poorly understood and terrifying illnesses of his time: leprosy. Leprosy not only caused physical suffering but also sentenced the sufferer to a life of isolation and exclusion on both the literal and metaphorical margins of society. Francis’ encounter with suffering-as-illness was, like Prince Siddhartha’s encounter with suffering-as-illness, a transformative experience. And just as Prince Siddhartha did after his encounter with suffering, Francis rejected the wealth and comfort of his childhood home, exchanging them for poverty, humility, and simplicity in community with a company of like-minded brothers and sisters.

While the details differ, the stories of St. Francis and Prince Siddhartha are both rooted in the same general principle. Namely, the main character of each story rejected not just wealth but also the power of wealth to sanitize reality, concealing both the sufferings and the joys of the human experience behind a façade of ease, control, predictability, and manufactured perfection.

It’s striking that key stories from two completely different spiritual traditions in different parts of the world and different points in time explicitly reject wealth and the superficial comforts made possible by wealth. The similarities between the stories suggest that humans, in order to enjoy spiritual fulfillment, must stop prioritizing the superficial comforts and securities afforded by material wealth. Meanwhile, the distance in time, space, culture, and philosophy that separates these stories suggests that humans in every conceivable time and place are still struggling to get the point.

Why is it so hard for us to remember that acquiring material wealth is not the most crucial component of the human experience? Why is it so hard for us to let go of power and prestige? Why is it so hard for us to embrace the joy of community, simplicity, and humility? How much longer will we need stark reminders like the conversion stories of St. Francis and Prince Siddhartha? How long will it be before we take these stories to heart, opening our lives to the fullness of human experience instead of hiding behind temporary material pleasures? Will we ever stop needing stories that remind us to step out boldly from the shelter of material comforts, so that we can see the world clearly and live joyfully and fully within it, embracing simplicity, humility, and community with all?

-Lori Randall, on a warm June day filled with the simple authenticity of flowers in bloom and birds in flight

Click here for a song to accompany this reflection.