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embrace of Contact to Tarot's Lovers, and Death to Death. Most contemporary Tarot decks have no
equivalents to the Wheel's concepts of Sensation, Desire, Sex, Marriage or Birth-which suggests that
these may have been lost in the translation of forms. Perhaps in due course they will be restored, possibly
by the addition of new cards to the Tarot deck. Meanwhile, Tarot's Wheel loosely represents the concept
of Chance.
Near a river stood a huge handsome tree whose thick foliage extended irregularly outward and cast a deep
shade. It seemed to be a fig tree.
Brother Paul walked toward it. Could this be the Tree of Life? That would be as sure a route as any to the
God of Tarot. His companions had disappeared, but he knew they would reappear when summoned for
their roles.
Beneath the tree sat a man who might have been in his mid-thirties. It was hard to tell, because he seemed
small and old before his time. He was emaciated. His hair and beard had been shaved, and he was garbed
in rags. He did not avert his eyes as Brother Paul approached.
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"May I join you?" Brother Paul inquired.
The little man made a gesture of accommodation. "Be welcome, traveler. There are figs here enough to
sustain a multitude, and water is in the river."
Brother Paul sat down beside him and crossed his legs. He picked up a fig when the man did so and
chewed its somewhat tough flesh slowly. "You are an ascetic? I do not mean to intrude on your privacy if
you prefer to be alone."
"I tried asceticism until I very nearly wasted away," the man said. "I gained no worthwhile insights. I
decided it was useless to continue starving and torturing myself. Then I discovered that when I ate and
drank, and became stronger, my thoughts became clearer. I realized that the teaching which says that a
man must starve himself in order to gain wisdom must be wrong. It is the healthy man who is best able to
perceive the world and contemplate religious truth." He glanced at Brother Paul. "By this token, you must
be a very perceptive man, for you are the healthiest I have encountered. May I inquire your name?"
"I am Brother Paul of-a distant culture. And you?"
"I am Siddhattha Gotama, once a prince, now a beggar-monk."
Siddhattha Gotama-the man known to history as the Buhhda, the Awakened One, the Enlightened. The
founder of one of the greatest religions of all time, Buddhism. He had indeed been a prince and had
renounced his crown voluntarily to seek revelation.
"I-am honored to meet you," Brother Paul said humbly. Though he regarded himself as Christian, he had
deep respect for Buddhism. "I too am a seeker of truth. I have not yet found it."
"I have looked for seven years for enlightenment," Siddhattha said. "Often I have been sorely tempted to
desist from begging and return to my wife and son. Always I remind myself that I could never be happy
again in the palace, so long as I knew others existed in hardship and misery. Yet I seem to draw no closer
to any insight how to enable others to be happy."
This, then, was before the Buddha had attained his revelation. "Have you inquired of teachers, of wise
men?"
Siddhattha smiled ruefully. "I visited the great teacher Alara. 'Teach me the wisdom of the world!' I
begged him. He said to me 'Study the Vedas, the Holy Scriptures. There is all wisdom.' But I had already
studied the Vedas and found no enlightenment. So I wandered on until I encountered another great
teacher, Udaka, and I asked him. He told me 'Study the Vedas!' Yet I knew that in them was no
explanation why the Brahman makes people suffer illness and age and death. I am also doubtful that one
can attain wisdom by hurting himself or sitting on sharp nails."
"In my culture," Brother Paul agreed, we are told much the same. 'Read the Bible.' Yet human warfare
and misery continue, even among those who profess to hold the Bible most dear. I suspect we shall not
find the ultimate truths in any book. Yet life is often a difficult tutor."
"That is true," Siddhattha agreed reminiscently. "When I was a prince, I went out hunting. I saw a man,
all skin and bones, writhing in pain on the ground. 'Why?' I asked. 'All people are liable to illness,' I was
informed. But in my sheltered life I had not been exposed to this, and it made me very sad. Next day I
met a man so old his back was curved like a drawn bow, and his head was nodding, and his hands
trembled like palm leaves in the wind so that even with the aid of two canes he could hardly walk. 'Why?'
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I asked. 'He is old; all people grow old,' I was told. Again I was saddened, for I had known only youth.
Next day I saw a funeral procession, with the widow and orphans following behind the corpse. 'Why?'
'Death comes to all alike.' This horrified me, for I had never contemplated the reality of death in man. I
knew so little of life and of people; I had spent my life in foolish pleasures. Why was I so well off, while
others suffered? I understood now that I was the exception and that the great majority of people in the
world were ill and poor. This did not seem right. Yet even as I contemplated this, my lovely wife was
giving a party with many pretty girls singing and dancing, and that music only heightened my confusion.
When my family observed this, it was assumed that the entertainment was not sufficient, and so the girls
were made to perform with such vigor and endurance that they dropped from exhaustion. How their
loveliness had changed! Next day I went to the market place, and there among the merchants I saw an old
monk dressed in coarse yellow robes, begging for food. Though he was old and sick and poor, he seemed
calm and happy. Then I decided to be like him."
"I think you found much enlightenment at that moment," Brother Paul said. "Maybe the ultimate truth can
be found only in one's own heart." That was the Quaker belief, he recalled.
Siddhattha turned to him. "That is a most intriguing thought! I wonder what I might find, if I simply sit
here under this Bo Tree until I have plumbed in my own soul this truth."
The Bo Tree! Now Brother Paul remembered: it was called the Tree of Wisdom, for it was where the
Buddha had spent his Sacred Night and attained his crucial Enlightenment. "I had better leave you alone,
then."
"Oh, no, friend! Stay here with me and search out your own truth," Siddhattha encouraged him.
Well, why not? This might be the most direct route to his answer. The God that Buddha found-that had to
be a major contender for the office of God of Tarot.
Dusk was rising. The sun descended. But they were not allowed to meditate in peace. A group of people
approached the Tree, and it was obvious that they intended mischief. Three were young and quite pretty
women; the rest were motley ruffians of assorted appearance.
Brother Paul jumped to his feet, about to warn off the intruders, but Siddhattha stopped him. "These are
the cohorts of Mara, the Evil One, who seeks to dissuade us from our pursuit. For seven years he has
followed me. But he cannot harm us physically so long as we remain under this Tree. Do not try to fight
him; that is what he wants. It is futile to oppose evil with evil."
Could this be true? Brother Paul backed off, yielding to the Buddha's judgment. Mara the Evil One-the
Buddhist Devil. This was to be no ordinary encounter!
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