Blog
Buddha beneath the jambu tree
Tuesday 8th July 2025
Mike Mullins
When he was a child of just seven Siddhartha Gautama (later the Buddha) sat in the cool shade of a rose apple, or Jambu tree, in Kapilavastu, northern India, while he watched his father, King Śuddhodana, plough the first furrow in the field ready for planting.
It was a festival for the whole tribe to mark the start of the annual ploughing season that came after the monsoon rains, when the land was moist and firm. The festival involved a ritual to ask the gods for fertility and prosperity. As Śuddhodana, initiated the ploughing Hindu religious verses were recited:
“Successfully let the good ploughshares thrust apart the earth, successfully let the ploughman follow the beasts of draught, Shu Nashira do ye two dripping with oblation make the herbs rich and berries for this man”.
As he rested beneath the peaceful shade of the Jambu tree, while the royal court and the community enjoyed the festivities, Siddhartha was more reflective, observing what was really going on. As he quietly watched the ploughing festival, he could see the struggle of the ox pulling the plough being whipped by the ploughman. He saw the suffering (dukka) of tiny creatures. Earthworms and insects being cut or unearthed by the plough and birds swooping down to eat them. A child of great compassion, he was moved and upset by their suffering and death. Disturbed by this he began to contemplate the cycle of life and death in nature.
Siddhartha soon found himself entering a deep state of meditation (first jhāna), serene, absorbed, calm, and joyful. As he entered this state the shade of the apple tree he was sitting under stopped moving, with the sun and three gods (or devas) flying overhead were stopped in their flight, unable to move. Time had stood still. It was a moment of great spiritual significance in the universe.
When his father returned from ploughing the first furrow and found his young son deep in stillness, he suddenly saw his spiritual gift and potential and began to worry that Siddhartha might abandon the royal life for a spiritual path.
Buddhist monks would later say: “In that moment, beneath the rose-apple tree, the path of the Buddha began.”
Here’s a poetic version of this story.
Under the Rose-Apple Tree
—The Young Prince and the Turning Heart—
In the season when the earth is dressed for sowing,
the royal fields of Kapilavastu stirred.
Men gathered in proud procession,
oxen yoked with ribbons,
ploughs gleaming in the morning sun.
It was the Ploughing Festival—
a celebration of toil,
of kingship over soil,
of blessing the land with furrow and seed.
Prince Siddhartha, still a child,
hair dark as raven’s wing,
eyes like pools of moonlit thought,
was brought to watch,
seated in silks beneath a canopy of gold.
Music played.
Drums beat.
Nobles laughed.
The king smiled upon his only son.
But while joy swelled in the festival’s heart,
the boy’s gaze drifted away—
away from dancers and jewels,
toward the fields.
And there,
he saw a truth that no one else noticed.
He saw the blade of the plough split the earth,
saw tiny worms sliced in two.
He watched birds swoop to claim the exposed,
saw ants crushed beneath careless feet.
Where others saw bounty,
he saw suffering—
small, silent, easily missed.
The laughter faded from his ears.
He slipped quietly away.
to sit beneath the cool shade
of a rose-apple tree.
There, alone in the hush of green,
he folded his legs,
his back straight as the mountain’s spine,
his breath soft as falling petals.
And there—
for the first time—
his mind stilled.
His heart opened,
not with sorrow,
but with knowing.
Then the air held its breath.
The shadow of the tree that should have crept.
with the arc of the sun—
stopped.
It remained fixed around the boy
as if Time itself bowed its head.
And far above,
in the invisible sky between worlds,
Devas, radiant beings of light,
flew on their errands through the heavens—
and halted mid-flight.
Their eyes turned downward,
astonished.
“A great one is awakening,”
they whispered across the winds,
“even now, though yet a child.”
The servants found him hours later,
eyes wide with wonder,
body aglow with peace.
The interconnectedness of all beings
The story of the young Siddhartha Gautama during a ploughing ceremony holds deep spiritual and environmental significance, especially in early Buddhist thought.
This is Siddhartha’s first experience of meditation. He entered a state of deep meditative absorption quite spontaneously. A sign of his innate spiritual sensitivity even as a child and a foreshadowing of his future enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. After his attempt at extreme ascetism failed Siddhartha, he remembered this experience and realised that natural meditation was a healthy, balanced middle way to enlightenment.
As the plough cuts through the earth, Siddhartha sees the ox struggling and worms, insects, and small creatures being killed or disturbed. He feels a profound awareness of suffering (dukkha) in the natural world. Coupled with a deep empathy for all beings, not just humans but animals and insects. Presaging his later teachings on universal compassion and non-harming (ahimsa).
Siddhartha’s attention to the disturbance of soil and harm to tiny creatures during ploughing highlights an early ecological sensitivity. He recognised the interdependence of all life forms and that human behaviour, even farming, have consequences for other beings.
His reaction as a child implies a deep reverence for all living things. This later formed the basis for Buddhist environmental ethics. A mindfulness in how we use land and resources. The importance of promoting harmony with nature, not dominating or exploiting it. That awakening occurred in nature and not in a temple. The sacredness of the natural world and the need to respect and love nature as a sources of spiritual insight.
This early moment in the Buddha’s life is quietly profound. It connects spiritual awakening with ethical sensitivity to suffering and a deep respect for nature. It invites us to be mindful, attentive and compassionate even in ordinary moments. See meditation and insight as grounded in the rhythms of the living world. Think carefully about our impact on nature guided by mindfulness and care.