Lenny Lee Fest: This One's Just for Lenny

This is for the coolest kid I know. It's not my place to throw Lenny's business up on the internet, but suffice to say that the bravest young man I know is struggling right now. He could use some love.

The best way to reach out to him is to just visit his blog, become a follower, and begin to interact with him. Lenny is a writer, and he wants to grow up to be an author, so he loves to learn from, and get to know, each and every one of us.

Here is something just for him, for the aptly titled Lenny Lee Fest:

The young man left his father's home at an early age. His father was a Brahmin, a religious leader in their village. But the young man wanted more, he had to seek truth, find another Way.

He left bearing only the robe on his back, and a satchel full of dates. He walked long. He ranged over hills of grey and brown and through valleys far and green.

The rains came. The rains went.

Still he strode across the lands of his country.

One day he came to a forest. It was deep and dark, but filled with strong trees and fragrant wild flowers. In the middle of the forest, their bodies ravaged by starvation, he met a sect of ascetics. They did not eat, they did not sleep, they did not speak.

They barely breathed.

These men sought truth through denial of the body, the senses, the physical realm of the world as perceived by others realities.

The young man joined them.

He sat, meditating, at the root of a fig tree, his mind wandering the astral planes, for so long his beard grew down onto his lap. His stomach shrank, receded back against his spine. His flesh devoured itself, leaving only bony knees, knobby elbows, and sharp blades of shoulder bones showing prominently through his waxy skin.

And yet he discovered nothing.

That life of denial steeled his consciousness toward truth seeking, but it revealed nothing of the Way.

The young man bowed goodbye to the ascetics, left the forest, and traveled to a city. There he gorged himself on wine, and food, and excess in the pleasure houses. He fell in love with a woman, and they met in orange grove each night. Her hair was oiled, and smelled of marigolds.

He found no answers in her arms.

He bought a bushel of rice, an ox, and a cart. He began to make his way home.

Halfway to his father's house he met a river. It was was not deep or wide, but it was too large to cross, so he sat down, and ate some rice. He sat and gazed at the river, watching as the water followed its current effortlessly.

He sat pondering the river until the ox wandered off with the cart. He did not notice. He watched the river, and considered its flow as he meditated.

Then a leaf came floating down. It balanced and spun lightly on top of the water. Its stem twirled happily as the river bore it down toward him, it passed his position, and then floated on into infinity.

It was in that moment that the young man discovered the Way. He knew he could not escape the suffering of the flesh in his lifetime, but he stood up, and carried his discoveries to the world anyway.

His name was Siddhārtha Gautama, and he was young no more.

NOTE: Please forgive the raw nature of this piece, as it is written off the top of my head, and has not been given the care of a keen editorial eye. Besides, it's not for you, it's for Lenny.