Out riding in the countryside one day, he chanced upon an old person, a sick person, and a corpse—sights he had never before seen. The feelings aroused in him by these sights were so disturbing that they prompted him to forsake all that his father had created for him. He left his palace and his family and began a search for peace of mind. He later called those images of old age, illness, and death the “three messengers” that awaken people to the spiritual life.
