Breath of Sages Lecture - August 03, 2026

Emaciated Buddha. Photo by Wat Suthat

Saint Francis of Assisi. Painting by Philip Fruytiers

Surrender and Sacrifice
The Buddha and St. Francis of Assisi

The story of The Buddha Gautama as it was told to me:

Some 2,500 years ago in the area we now call Nepal, there lived a pampered prince. The child of royal parents, he lived in a great palace and was lavished upon by luxury, comfort, and pleasures. After a drama-free, problem-free youth, however, the prince—named Siddhartha—grew bored.

Well, perhaps less bored and more curious. See, he lived only within the palace and palace walls. His father kept him cloistered and away from the rest of the kingdom where his father ruled. Siddhartha had no idea what lie beyond the palace gates and sought to petition his father to venture out.

His father, at first, denied him but after much pestering from his son, acquiesced. The king then hurried to build what we call today a Potemkin village. Outside the palace gates, he had his subjects paint the main avenue with bright colors. The people were then ordered to dress in their finest and to don gold and flowers. Walt Disney couldn't have done a better job at this, for once Siddhartha was allowed to leave the palace grounds, there was a great parade. Upon an elephant, the prince rode down the avenue and watched his father's people sing and dance. They were alive and well, youthful and happy. It was far more beautiful than the prince could have ever imagined.

Like all illusions, however, this facade would fail. Across the way, either down the street, or perhaps around a corner, Siddhartha spotted two old men in rags. Amidst all the feasting and festivities, the prince would steal away to follow them, past the colorfully-painted walls, past the lavish display of faux prosperity. Siddhartha would find himself in the real world, in the slums of his father's kingdom where sickness, hunger, aging, suffering, and death resided. Shocked and incensed by what he saw, he returned to his father, who was quite flippant about the prince's discovery.

Disgusted by his father's complacence, he prepared to leave the palace once again. Enraged, his father would deny his freedom. The king would even set guards upon the prince to ensure the prince could never leave the palace again, but that night a strange fog descended upon the kingdom, putting everyone into a deep slumber. Well, everyone except Siddhartha, who then took the opportunity to escape the confines of the palace.

"It's as if the whole world is asleep," he noted as he tiptoed past guards, servants. He made his way out into the city to see the kingdom's subjects, who were once celebrating him, now splayed out in the streets as if they had dropped right where they stood.

Realizing his father would be even angrier when the world awoke, Siddhartha then and there renounced his royal birthright, renounced his family, and went out into the world to become an ascetic. That's to say, he gave up everything and chose a life void of material wealth and pleasure in search of spiritual fulfillment.

After many years of extreme abstinence and discipline--akin to eating a single grain of rice a day or only taking mere sips of water or sitting in a single pose without moving for months on end, Siddhartha finally arrived at the conclusion that the Middle Path was the way to spiritual enlightenment, that the paths of extremes only led to more suffering and sorrow.

About 1,800 years later, St. Francis of Assisi also took this route to illumination. Born the son of a wealthy silk merchant, Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone also lived a privileged life. He had throngs of well-off friends, and he desired to be a performer. Little Giovanni wanted to be on the stage!

His abusive and controlling father had other plans, however, and he was dragged along to tend to his father's market stalls, becoming an apprentice in textile sales. Or cheap labor, depending on how you viewed it.

One day while selling to a customer, Giovanni was approached by a beggar asking for alms. The appearance of this haggard, old man tugged on the heart of the young merchant, and Giovanni would chase him down to give him everything in his pocket.

Upon hearing the recounting of the encounter, his friends ridiculed him. He was severely admonished by his father, who was furious.

It wouldn't take long for Giovanni to realize something was very askew in his world. He would set out in search of answers, turning deeper into his faith and seeking out The Church.

There were several missteps in Giovanni's journey--stealing his father's inventory to donate to a church after hearing a divine voice commanding him to help fix said church, for example. After the church's rebuke, he remained undaunted, but he would find himself homeless and living in the countryside, in caves, hungry and exposed to the elements.

After a severe beating from his father, being locked in a closet, and being dragged into trial for the theft where he was to relinquish his inheritance as repayment to his father, he stripped himself naked before everyone, renouncing his father and the life he once had.

Born into wealth, Giovanni had now lost everything.

Like Siddhartha, Giovanni would also turn to a life of asceticism in search of spiritual enrichment. Like Siddhartha, he would make it his life's goal to help alleviate as much suffering in the world as he could by leading others to enlightenment, illumination.

When thinking on these two historical figures, I can't help but remember Matthew 19:16-24 (KJV, edited).

And, behold, one came and said unto him, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" 

And Jesus said unto him, "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments."

He saith unto him, "Which?" 

Jesus said, "Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

The young man saith unto him, "All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?"

Jesus said unto him, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me."

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, "Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

​​When Jesus asks this of the rich man, and when Siddhartha and St. Francis actually committed to it, it wasn't just about money.

It was about sacrifice and discipline.

It was about full and total surrender to the will of God...or the Creator...or the Cosmos. You fill in the blank.

And here this word is again. Surrender. It's all throughout my books, it's been a repeated theme throughout thirty years of lectures.

Still, we're oh so afraid of it! That poor kid said, "Jesus, I'm a good person! I go to church, I pay tithes, I donate, I obey the Ten Commandments." But after Jesus asks him to surrender, he walks away distraught.

To the tune of that Meatloaf song, "I can do anything for [Heaven], but I won't do that."

Honestly, I would have been distraught, as well. I think most of us would.

That's why some of us get dragged into it instead.

Like me lol. Yes, I'm laughing because if pampered and privileged 1998-Chantel saw modest-living 2026-Chantel, she'd throw herself off a bridge. It's amazing how much we can weather, how much we can endure when we must.

When there's no other option, and you're forced to travel the road of sacrifice and surrender, you begin to see the world in a different light. Now, perspective here is everything. One perspective can easily cause one to become bitter, angry, and driven to regain all that was lost. Another perspective, the one I chose, was seeing that the road of sacrifice and surrender is laden with divine miracles around every corner, proof that the divine truly is in our lives. It's proof that we can only see when we slow down, when we are bereft of distractions, when we are forced to sit still and pay closer attention to the world around us.

The ascetic life, the vow of poverty, of course has its downsides. I won't sugar-coat this at all for anyone. It is hard! Still, I'm certain that all that I have gleaned from the angels, the gods, and guides could not have been gleaned otherwise.

Year after year of cloistered and meditative isolation—the very thing people feared during the Covid lockdowns--are gifts that are darn near impossible to find in a capitalistic world. I got lucky to have gained all of this without having to live under the thumb of organized religion. It's through the ascetic life that I've found that in the hardest, most difficult trials and challenges, we discover our greatest strengths. We discover our true selves beyond this physical, material world. No life of privilege or comfort can lend unto one the spiritual enrichment that quietude, stillness, and extended pauses for deep introspection can lend.

We'd be fools to think otherwise, but the illusion in which we live would have us walk that fruitless path anyway. It would have us running on that treadmill, all the while gaining no sense of peace, no sense of self, no sense of understanding this world and this life that we live.

No sense of purpose.

For all of those, sacrifice and surrender are key. It is through the pain of sacrifice and surrender that we gain empathy and compassion. Then through those, we awaken to the truth of our existence:

We all are spiritual beings, nay, divine beings on a human journey. We're all here to learn more about our individual self, as well as the whole of our species. 

And no, there's no promise of comfort after you take that leap of faith. After you give up your riches and follow the long-haired hippy, there is no promise of some drug-induced bliss. Remember, you're moving against the illusion that would have you running everywhere and doing everything in an effort to escape or ignore yourself. The illusion will punish you...if you let it. It will tempt you as hard as Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the desert. It will show you all the things "you could have had" if you just gave up this silly folly of asceticism and jump back into the rat race. It's brutal! But when you arrive at the understanding that peace is more than just going to a ten-thousand-dollar ashram, that it's more than moving to the country and starting a homestead, that it's more than that block of yoga classes you purchased and never attended, that it can never be found by buying and only by doing, then the illusion has no power over you.

None. 

The peace that comes with discovering and knowing who and what you are down to the molecular level cannot be rattled. Inner peace is just that, it can only come from within. Make no mistake, however, the illusion will always be there, beckoning you. It never sleeps because it's so busy trying to keep you asleep, keep you blissfully oblivious of your spiritual self, keep you from awakening to your spiritual purpose.

Stay strong in your resolve. Siddhartha was undaunted. St. Francis was undaunted. They were mere humans. It can be done.

I write this for those who see what lies on the horizon for the USA, for the world. For those of us in the USA, we know a very different country awaits in the short few years to come. Surrender and sacrifice for many won't be an option, but a new reality. I write this so that when that moment arrives, you'll know what to do. It won't be a time to tighten your fist and hold onto the dust of what was, or take that same fist and shake it furiously at Heaven in spite.

Stop. Breathe. Recalibrate. Trust your path and surrender.

​Choose peace and be peace. In your stillness, stripped of all distraction, trust that you will awaken, even as the world continues to sleep around you.