“Buddha’s thoughts” is a project that I started in 2004, I wanted to give an homage to this childhood “hero” because, people told me this story thousands of times to soothe my asthma attacks, a bit like how we tell children here the story of Robin Hood.

Even more than the divinity that he became, the nobility of humankind took its meaning from him. Siddhartha Gautama was above all a man endowed with sensitivity, certainly more than anyone in this world, but he wasn’t so different from us. Facing the painful realities of the human condition, sickness, ignorance, old age, poverty, death, he did an experiment to feel all of these pains like no one else.

Although he was a prince and therefore lived protected for part of his life, when he was 29, his meetings with an elderly person, a sick person and a beggar profoundly upset him. This upset him to the point that he decided to renounce his life as a warrior prince, his role as a father, husband, lover, and finally the promise of a glorious future to set out on a quest to seek the truth. Over the course of many years he met many people and had spiritual experiences but they did not bring him total satisfaction. One day, he decided to sit at the foot of a tree (ficus religiosa) and made a vow not to move from that spot until he had attained Enlightenment.

Through this journey, which is not any less exceptional, one has to remember the hope that everyone is allowed to have, that of being human like him, of accepting our human condition. Our reality is neither bad nor good. Like Siddhartha Gautama it will make of us what we are:  a being sensitive to both happiness and pain for whom the truth isn’t so hidden, is revealed by the simple desire to come as close to it as possible. Access to the path of fullness is not reserved only for divinities. Of course it is long and difficult, but the beings we are, as predisposed by our nature, will meet the required qualities for the most beautiful journey that will come true for each life.