The following is something that I have been contemplating since college (back in 1988 to be specific) but never got around to writing down. Well tonight I wrote it down. So here is how I see the life of the Buddha in accord with the Major Arcana of the Tarot:
Major Arcana of the Buddha
0 The Fool
Not yet awake, the bodhisattva Siddhartha seems strangely foolish in refusing to conform to the familiar patterns of daily sleepwalking.
I. The Magician
The seer Asita weeps to see the baby bodhisattva wishing there were enough magic to enable him to live to see the day of his awakening.
II. The High Priestess
Mother Maya passes beyond the veil of worlds, bereft of her son until the day the Buddha pierces that veil to impart the secrets of the Higher Dharma.
III. The Empress
Aunt Mahaprajapati raises the bodhisattva as her own, but because of him she will come to trade crown and silk for a shaven skull and patchwork rags.
IV. The Emperor
King Suddhodana looks with pride upon his son, an emperor in the making, but the day will come when he will sees his son begging in the streets.
V. The Hierophant
The Brahmin priests train the young prince in all the arts of science and theology, but in time he will see through their fraud and reject them.
VI. The Lovers
The bodhisattva weds the beautiful Princess Yashodhara and so comes to experience what it means to be a lover, husband, and father but this too he will forsake.
VII. The Chariot
Riding in his chariot, he sees what lies in wait for all beings – old age, sickness, and death. Seeing a renunciant he realizes what course to follow.
VIII. Strength
In order to find a way to end all suffering, the bodhisattva musters his strength and resolves to leave all luxuries and worldly indulgence behind.
IX. The Hermit
He leaves the palace in the dead of night, enters the forest, casts off his finery, cuts off his long black hair, and takes up the rags of a renunciant himself.
X. Wheel of Fortune
In the forests he wanders among those who have also left home seeking to break the bonds of samsara, the wheel of perpetual gain and loss, birth and death.
XI. Justice
Driving the wheel is the inexorable law of karma, our self-created destiny wherein there is no luck but only justice.
XII. The Hanged Man
Seeking to break through all this, the bodhisattva turned his life upside down, starving himself in order to pass beyond all craving and every bodily need.
XIII. Death
But in the end, he came no closer to the answer to suffering but found himself on the brink of death, and at that point he found a new life.
XIV. Temperance
The Middle Way became clear. The path between self-indulgence and self-denial lay in living simply and seeing more clearly and deeply than ever before.
XV. The Devil
Sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree he at last aroused the devil himself. The bodhisattva was ready to let go of the world, but Mara was not about to let him go.
XVI. The Tower
The bodhisattva saw through Mara’s tricks, the tricks of his own mind, and shattered the tower of ego with his insight. It would never again be rebuilt.
XVII. The Star
As the morning star arose the bodhisattva Siddhartha was no more. In his place was Shakyamuni Buddha, and the Buddha saw a world filled with buddhas.
XVIII. The Moon
Some were submerged in ages of delusion, sleepwalking in the dim moonlight of their dreams and nightmares, not suspecting that they too were buddhas.
XIX. The Sun
Others were emerging due to ages of merit, walking in the sunshine of compassionate action and wise consideration. Suspecting but not yet knowing the truth.
XX. Judgment
Brahma himself came down to plead the world’s case for the Buddha. And the Buddha decided in the world’s favor. He would share the Wonderful Dharma with all.
XXI. The World
From that day until this the world became the Buddha’s world, a Pure Land of Tranquil Light, seeming to burn but actually filled with radiance that has no beginning or end.