While sleeping soundlessly in her champers, Queen Maya
experienced the most magnificent dream that elated her spirits as she awoke.
The dream must have been from the gods because an extreme amount of peace
covered her soul, mind and body as she lived out her dream during her sleep.
However, this wondrous thought made a turn for the worse as she continued on
her day. As the saying goes, be careful what you dream for.
Due to her
restful sleep, her bedding stayed pristine. Queen Maya woke up with escalated energy
levels, so she decided to head to her husband’s office headquarters in the
castle. Their home was made of the purest gold and could house close to a 1,000
people with the amount of room is encompassed.
Stepping out of her immaculate bed and slipping on her house shoes, she rushed to her husband, King Suddhodana, to tell him her dream.
She began to explain, but became unsure of what she was about to say. Her dream
had slipped her mind in the midst of her excitement.
Beating her head with her hands, she tried to remember the
picturesque scene in the dream to help her remember the purpose of it all.
“Tap, Tap, Tap, “ went her knuckles to her pale forehead.
King Suddhodana, now annoyed by her interruption, dismissed
her from his office, for he had a meeting with the King of Japan within the
hour.
Queen Maya pleaded, “You have to believe me when I say I
have never experienced this much serenity in my lifetime. Please, give me time
to remember the dream. I long to tell you.”
Navel-gazing, she left his headquarters and headed toward
her chambers to sit and ponder. After sifting through ideas for a couple of
hours, she thought of one that might work!
“Wala!” Queen Maya exclaimed. I will enter my sleep again
and the dream will come back to me.
At the same time, King Suddhodana had finished his
stressful meeting, and decided to take a nap before he had to present an award
just after lunch time. The king and queen had separate sleeping chambers, so
the king headed to the third wing on the second floor, far away from his
wife.
As they both simultaneously entered their sleep, the dream
re-entered Queen Maya’s mind. She remembered the elephant, the gods, her
pregnancy, once again. The gods were telling her she would give birth to a son,
who would bring peace to the whole world. Standing on a cloud, she looked over
her left shoulder to see her husband making his way toward her cloud. With
their eye’s locked; they both understood what their future held. They would
become the parents of the Buddha. But the price of his existence was for Queen
Maya to die during childbirth, a sacrifice she needed to make to help save the
world.
The dream became the most frightening blessing.
Author's Note: I created this story after being inspired by Maya's Dream in the Buddha unit. The original story is about Queen Maya having a dream from the gods about giving birth to the Buddha and telling her husband, King Suddhodana. For my version of the story, I decided to focus strictly on the first few paragraphs and make it more of a mystery of what all the dream entailed. The couple then meets in the dream.
Bibliography: This story is part of the Buddha unit. Story source: The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922). Maya's Dream. Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.
Hey, Brooke! I really like how you wrote your storytelling post. My favorite thing about it is that you chose to focus on a small part so that you could fill it with all sorts of details, which you did very well! I think it was really neat to read your version of the story and the image is a nice touch. Keep up the good work!
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