Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

For these reasons I had two fears, death and poverty. So
while I was young, I saw that the world was very painful
and remember once after one of my parents' frequent
quarrels, that my father brought out a knife threatening to
kill my mother.
Seeing so much suffering in my youth, these words now
came from a heart knowing well the universality of
dukkha and tears were in our yogi 's eyes.
During my young days I had the duty of looking after my
old grandfather. He had a shop and very early in the
morning I would get up and go some distance to open it.
He became very fond of me because of my diligence but
as he grew older practically everything had to be done for
him when he became nearly blind, even to putting the
lighted charcoal in his pipe. The old man was always
coughing and spitting for he had severe consumption and,
when I was ten, he died from this.
As a young prince, the Buddha-to-be saw the four great
sights in the city outside his home, but I saw three of
them inside my own house. The fourth, a bhikshu, I did
not see at that time. I had no need to read the Hinayana
books to be convinced of the first Noble Truth of dukkha;
it was my own early experience. But I could not give up
the world in any case as I had still to care for my parents,
for there was no one else to look after them.
B. Inward Biography
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