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Design Thinking
in Software and
AI Projects
Proving Ideas Through Rapid Prototyping
—
Robert Stackowiak
Tracey Kelly
 Design Thinking in
Software and AI Projects
Proving Ideas Through Rapid
Prototyping

Robert Stackowiak
Tracey Kelly
Design Thinking in Software and AI Projects: Proving Ideas Through Rapid
Prototyping

Robert Stackowiak Tracey Kelly

Elgin, IL, USA Parker, IN, USA

ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-6152-1 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-6153-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6153-8

Copyright © 2020 by Robert Stackowiak and Tracey Kelly

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
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 To Jodie, my partner over these many years,
who makes solving life's problems fun.
—Robert Stackowiak
To Dan, my husband, who shares my consuming passion for user
experience design, and my parents who encouraged my love of
technology and creativity.
—Tracey Kelly
Table of Contents
About the Authors���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ix

Acknowledgments��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xi
Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii

Chapter 1: Design Thinking Overview and History��������������������������������������������������� 1

Design Thinking and Innovation���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 2
Overcoming Fear of Failure����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
Approach Is Everything����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5
A Brief History and Frameworks��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
Stanford d.school Framework������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
IDEO Framework���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
Double Diamond Design Methodology����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10
Applying a Framework and Methodology������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 13
Design Thinking, DevOps, and Adoption�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 14
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 15

Chapter 2: Preparing for a Workshop��������������������������������������������������������������������� 17

Conveying What the Workshop Is About�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18
Roles and Responsibilities���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20
Coordination Prior to the Workshop�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22
Define Workshop Value and Outcomes���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 22
Set Guidelines and Rules for the Workshop�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
Confirm the Right Participants Will Be Present��������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
Ask for Additional Information����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 25
Facilitation and Independent Research��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26

v
Table of Contents

Top-of-Mind Industry Topics������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 29

Agribusiness�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 30
Construction and Mining������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 30
Education and Research�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 31
Finance – Banking and Portfolio Management��������������������������������������������������������������������� 31
Finance – Insurance�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 32
Healthcare Payers����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 32
Healthcare Providers and Senior Living�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 32
Hospitality������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 33
Legal Firms and Professional Services��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 33
Manufacturing – Consumer Packaged Goods����������������������������������������������������������������������� 34
Manufacturing – Equipment and Vehicles����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 34
Media and Entertainment������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 35
Oil and Gas���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 35
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 36
Property Management����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 36
Retail������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 36
Telecommunications�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 37
Transportation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 37
Utilities���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38
Workshop Facility and Supplies�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 42

Chapter 3: Problem Definition�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 43

Self-Introductions and Workshop Overview�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 44
Tool: ELMO Card��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 46
Method: Introduction Card����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 46
Method: Participant Connections������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 48
Selecting Goals and Diverse Teams�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 49
Method: How Might We���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 49
Method: Team Naming����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 51

vi
 Table of Contents

Method: Abstraction Ladder�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 52

Tool: Voting���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 54
Mapping Stakeholders and Personas����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Method: Stakeholder Mapping���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Method: Proto-Personas�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 56
Positives, Opportunities, and Negatives�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60
Method: Rose-Bud-Thorn������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 61
Method: Clustering Areas of Impact�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 62
Refine to One Problem Statement����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 64
Method: How Might We…����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 64
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 66

Chapter 4: Solution Definition��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 69

Refresher and Restate the Challenge����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 70
Getting Inspiration����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 71
Method: Beginner’s Mind������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 71
Method: Review Data and Research�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 72
Method: Outside Perspective������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 73
Method: Lightning Demos������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 73
Method: Inspiration Landscape��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 74
Understanding Innovation Ambition�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 75
Solution Ideation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 77
Method: Creative Matrix�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 77
Narrowing Solution Choice��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 79
Method: Effort Value Matrix��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 80
Method: Visualizations����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 82
Solution Evaluation��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 84
Method: Outside Feedback and Iteration������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 85
Method: Testable Hypothesis������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 86
Method: Value Map Framework��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 87
Road Map and Close������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 89
Summary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 90

vii
Table of Contents

Chapter 5: Prototype Creation�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 93

Choosing a Prototyping Approach����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 94
User Interface Prototypes����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 95
Applications vs. Custom Build��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 100
Reference Architectures������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 102
Prototype and Solution Evaluation�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 105
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 107

Chapter 6: Production Development��������������������������������������������������������������������� 109

Selling the Project��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 109
Gathering Needed Information�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 110
The Selling Message����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 114
Development Philosophy and DevOps��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 123
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 128

Chapter 7: Production Rollout������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 129

Operationalizing the Solution���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 130
Change Management Considerations��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 133
Assessing Project Success������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 136
Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 138

Appendix: Sources������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 141

Books and Printed Sources������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 141
Online Sources�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 142

Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145

viii
About the Authors
Robert Stackowiak works as an independent consultant,
advisor, and author. He is a former data and artificial
intelligence architect and technology business strategist at
the Microsoft Technology Center in Chicago and previously
worked in similar roles at Oracle and IBM. He has conducted
business discovery workshops, ideation workshops, and
technology architecture sessions with many of North
America’s most leading-edge companies across a variety
of industries and with government agencies. Bob has also
spoken at numerous industry conferences internationally,
served as a guest instructor at various universities, and is an
author of several books. You can follow him on Twitter (@rstackow) and read his articles
and posts on LinkedIn.

Tracey Kelly is the Envisioning Lead with the Catalyst

team at Microsoft. She has been leading the Design
Thinking training through North America and Europe to
help Microsoft technology-focused architects and business
leadership transition and transform to customer-centric and
business outcome solutions. Tracey is also on the board of
the Women’s Technology Coalition and a former Women in
Technology Director in Dallas. She leads design workshops
and customer strategy sessions and has a long 20-year
history of technology and design leadership at Fortune 500
companies to drive innovation.

ix
Acknowledgments
We are obviously not the first to write about Design Thinking. Because previous
practitioners shared their methodologies and approaches to problem identification
and solution definition, we were able to learn from the best and adapt the exercises,
tools, and methods into repeatable engagements appropriate to drive software and AI
projects. We list many of these sources in the Appendix of this book and encourage you
to investigate them as well.
Over the past few years, we worked in Microsoft Technology Centers and with the
Microsoft Catalyst team in implementing many of these best practices. As we delivered
Design Thinking training within Microsoft, we discovered many other practitioners of
this approach within these groups and within Microsoft’s partner community. We would
like to thank some of the early proponents of applying this methodology there, including
Craig Dillon, Carsten Scheumann, Shawna Flemming, Jennifer Kim, Jason Haggar, April
Walker, Beth Malloy, Muge Wood, Charles Drayton, Dave Wentzel, Valerie Bergman,
Sumit Wadhwa, Brandon Hancock, Jeff Hall, Daniel Hunter, Ryan McGann, Lafayette
Howell, Kate Michel, Kevin Hughes, David Brown, Paul McPherson, Kevin Sharp, Harsh
Panwar, Rob Nehrbas, Ruba Hachim, Amir Karim, J.P. DeCuire, Lora Lindsey, Susan
Slagle, Sean McGuire, Nini Roed, Chris Han, Rudy Dillenseger, Ryan Hastings, Ovetta
Sampson, Howe Gu, Aric Wood, and Thor Schueler.
As we were fine-tuning our techniques, we led workshops involving clients from
a variety of industries who faced many different and often unique challenges. Those
experiences helped us determine what worked and how to customize engagements for
unique circumstances. Our thanks to those clients for enthusiastically taking part as
we learned together. Hopefully, many of them continue to use Design Thinking as an
approach today within their organizations.
The fine folks at Apress have once again provided us with an excellent writing
and publishing experience. As he usually does, Jonathan Gennick, Assistant Editorial
Director, helped us improve the book’s original proposal by making excellent suggestions
regarding content and guided the book through the approval process there. Jill Balzano,

xi
Acknowledgments

Coordinating Editor, helped us stage content and managed the review process behind
the scenes. Having worked with other publishers where turnover is frequent, having
these two consistently involved throughout the production of this book (and several
others) is sincerely appreciated and speaks to the quality of the publisher.
Robert would like to thank Jodie, his wife of over 40 years. She has grown familiar
with the dedicated time that must be spent writing books like this one (since he has been
writing books for over 20 years). Her support and patience are truly amazing.
Next, Tracey would like to thank Robert for his friendship and collaborating on
this book. Tracey would like to thank her friends Naomi, Rebecca, Wayne, Dennis,
Erin, Jason, Mel, and Bri for constantly supporting her diverse creative endeavors no
matter how crazy. Tracey deeply thanks and appreciates her mom and dad for always
encouraging her to be creative and to invent/make things, to explore the world, to be
curious about new technology, and to see failures or mistakes as opportunities to learn
and grow.
Tracey would also like to thank Dan Kelly, her husband, who also has a love for
thoughtful, well-designed products and services. He works in design as a product
manager at Charles Schwab and has a passion for business education. She is deeply
thankful for his support. He is truly a model for investing time to deeply understand the
problem before jumping to solutions and not reacting. His kindness, wisdom, learner
mindset, and integrity make him her favorite person in the world.

xii
Introduction
We, the authors of this book, are on a journey. During much of our careers, we helped
organizations define software, analytics, and AI technology footprints that were to be put
into place to solve business problems. Some of those clients succeeded in building the
solutions, rolling them out, and gaining widespread adoption. Others stumbled. Most
often, when failure occurred, it was not due to the technology choices that were made.
Many technology people understand that the success rate of software development
projects is not as high as it needs to be. The community has tried to solve this lack of
success in various ways over many years. Most recently, there has been an emphasis
on development in shorter cycles manned by small teams leveraging reusable services.
The limited sprints in a modern DevOps approach can identify bad technology choices
and unsuccessful development efforts sooner. However, this approach doesn’t solve the
problem of misguided efforts due to bad assumptions about what the business wants or
needs.
Both of us spent significant time in recent years in front of business and IT audiences
(including executives, managers, frontline workers, and developers/data scientists).
When we got them together in the same room, magic began to happen. We were able to
mediate discussions that provided a translation between what the business needed and
what IT thought they wanted. Project goals became better defined, and success criteria
became understood by all.
As we found our way, Design Thinking gained in popularity as a technique to be
used in problem identification and solution definition. It was often applied where
organizations were seeking to develop innovative processes and products. Today,
this approach is taught in many leading universities and is practiced by a variety of
consulting companies.
Where software is concerned, Design Thinking is most closely associated with user
experience (UX) design of interfaces. However, we have found great value in using the
technique to drive a much broader array of software and AI projects in our many client
engagements.

xiii
Introduction

As we gathered our own best practices, we researched Design Thinking books and
guides that targeted all sorts of design projects. Over time, we’ve adopted a core group
of exercises and approaches that we find useful in our workshops that more often (than
not) lead to software and AI projects.
This book is primarily focused on these best practices as we describe what Design
Thinking is, preparing for a Design Thinking workshop, problem definition, and solution
definition in the first four chapters. As we proceed through the workshop content, we
apply our favorite methods and tools in a step-by-step fashion. To help you understand
the output expected in each exercise, we illustrate sample output we might obtain in
defining a supply chain optimization problem and potential solution.
In the remaining chapters, we proceed through software and AI prototype
development, production development, and production rollout. We felt it important to
show how the development process that follows the workshop is linked and note where
we believe it could make sense to reexamine the conclusions and information that we
found in the workshop.
We believe that Design Thinking is critical to defining the destination that
an organization wants to reach and why it needs to go there. Starting a software
development or AI project without this knowledge can result in many wrong turns and
possibly lead nowhere. Investing in the time it takes to run a Design Thinking workshop
should become part of an organization’s standard operating procedures for any design.
But we believe this to be especially true for software and AI projects where the goal is to
deliver business value quickly, gain widespread adoption, avoid missteps, and minimize
wasted efforts and resources.

xiv
CHAPTER 1

Design Thinking Overview

and History
Does innovation come from a big idea that comes to an organization’s leadership in
the shower? Does it only come from the organization’s extremely creative people? Does
innovation only happen within dedicated innovation teams? Does it take a lot of money
to innovate? The answer to all those questions is – not necessarily. If you want to truly
innovate by developing next-level ideas, you need to think differently about how you
approach innovation.
Many companies are in a rush for the next big idea out of fear of being disrupted,
losing market share, or losing their business’ differentiated value. We are all too familiar
with businesses that didn’t innovate well or fast enough, such as Blockbuster, Kodak,
Nokia, Motorola, Borders, Atari, Commodore, BlackBerry, RadioShack, Netscape,
AOL, Myspace, and many more. These companies couldn’t react to changing business
conditions fast enough to retain significant importance among their customers.
Surveys and news articles often note the increasing rate of change in named
companies that appear in the Fortune 500 and the frequent disappearance of many of
them. We note some of these surveys and articles in the Appendix listing sources for
this book. Research into the financial statements of many companies further identifies
disruption from non-traditional competition as providing additional risk to their
businesses.
Much has been written lately about the strategic value that design and Design
Thinking can add to organizations of any scale and type. Some articles and studies
even cite a direct correlation between revenue growth and Design Thinking. Thus,
Design Thinking has gained momentum in the business world and is mentioned in
many publications including those from the Design Management Institute, the Harvard
Business Review, and Forbes.

1
© Robert Stackowiak and Tracey Kelly 2020
R. Stackowiak and T. Kelly, Design Thinking in Software and AI Projects,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6153-8_1
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

In this chapter, we provide you with an introduction to Design Thinking. The topics
we cover are as follows:

• Design Thinking and innovation

• Overcoming fear of failure

• Approach is everything

• A brief history and frameworks

• Design Thinking, DevOps, and adoption

• Summary

Design Thinking and Innovation

Design Thinking is an innovation technique that can be adopted by anyone, anywhere,
and at little to no cost. It is a problem-solving technique that can be applied to small or
large problems. It can be used to address business or non-business problems.
Most people think that innovation requires one to be an artist or highly creative. In
our experience, we have heard people we are training to conduct these workshops say,
“I’m not really a creative person” or “I’m not an artist.”
According to Alice Flaherty, an American neurologist and author of The Midnight
Disease, “A creative idea is defined simply as one that is both novel and useful (or
influential) in a particular social setting.” Flaherty explains that this applies to every field,
including programming, business, mathematics, and the traditional “creative” fields, like
music or drawing.
Thus, Design Thinking and innovation are very misunderstood. Many people believe
that innovation occurs when brilliant ideas spring out of nowhere or that innovation
requires the right creative personality type or the right team of people and skills. While
these conditions can be beneficial and some people do use time in the shower or when
they are half asleep to come up with great ideas, Design Thinking is a much more widely
inclusive approach.
The Design Thinking approach to innovation combines intent, exploration, and the
views of a diverse group of people. People taking part should have an open mindset and
be willing to fail in order to learn. More brains working on a problem enables focus on
the problem from different perspectives and results in creation of a multitude of possible
solutions. Diverse groups of people can think about and sort out complex problems,

2
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

even when they haven’t experienced the problem before or have limited information or
context about the problem.
The mind is an amazing problem-solving organ. There are different parts of the
brain that are activated when intentionally focused on a problem (prefrontal cortex) vs.
not focused on a problem (anterior cingulate cortex). Our brains are always working on
sorting out challenges and problem, even when we aren’t focused on it.1
The belief that innovation can spring out of anywhere is true, but it’s way more
valuable and exciting when used to solve a critical or pressing problem. As Plato has
stated, “Necessity is literally the mother of all invention.” A need or a challenge is the
spark that ignites the imagination to create and invent ways of solving a problem.
Additionally, one idea alone is good, but the power of multiple ideas to solve a problem
exponentially increases solution quality.
The authors believe that the first idea generated isn’t always the best idea. A volume
of ideas or solutions promotes the opportunity for careful consideration of the best fit to
solve a problem. It can take many people to create the needed volume even in situations
where some individuals are gifted in creating such volume.
In Buzan’s Book of Genius (1994), Leonardo da Vinci was ranked in first place for
the top ten thinkers of all time. da Vinci was a prolific inventor that was truly ahead of his
time because he was great at thinking and pondering problems and considered a variety of
ways to solve those problems. He was a thinker and prolific sketcher. Of the 13,000 pages
of sketches of images and ideas, he only had 30 finished paintings and 16 inventions, but
some have changed history forever. Among da Vinci’s notable inventions are

• Parachute

• Diving suit

• Armored tank

• Flying machine/glider

• Machine gun

According to the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius
Every Day, we should be curious, test knowledge, learn from mistakes, improve our
experiences, embrace ambiguity or paradox, use whole brain thinking, use the physical

1
 he brain and problem-solving: https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-brain-problem-
T
solving-areas-process.html

3
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

world, and see the interconnections between things. Specifically, we should use the
creative and evaluative sides of our brains to solve challenges.
Picasso was a prolific producer of artwork with 147,800 completed projects. Picasso
once said, “Give me a museum and I will fill it up.” The Louvre exhibits 35,000 pieces
of art; thus, he could fill this museum more than four times over. But not every one of
his pieces is in a museum. Quantity doesn’t equal quality. But quantity ensures a better
selection pool for the best ideas.
Many people think art is the same thing as design. While both share a need for
creativity, they are not the same. Good art inspires and pushes one to ask questions,
to ponder, to feel, and to respond with emotion and thought. Artists use their own
perspectives, feelings, emotion, insight, and experiences to create, but their creations do
not need to solve problems or answer questions. Rather, their creations pose them.
In comparison, design’s purpose is to function well in solving problems. Design has
both purpose and intent. It must meet requirements to be successful, and it must serve
a purpose in order to derive value. Good design is more restrained and focused on the
best way to solve a problem so many draft versions or iterations are typically created and
tested before a final solution is employed.
Everything is designed – cars, chairs, tables, clothes, software, roads, services …
everything. Thus, adopting Design Thinking can be a widely applicable and powerful
tool.
When organizations build products and services, some don’t realize they need to
include in their designs how to attract, retain, and support their clients and customers.
Lack of thoughtful design is still design, but it is neglected design. Good design is
outcome-oriented and process-driven. The intent guides the process and direction, but
the path taken should be very flexible and considered a learning opportunity.

Overcoming Fear of Failure

Many people fear a structured approach to design because they don’t want to fail. They
are afraid to start because they want their design to be perfect. Perfection paralysis is a
real problem for many. It can stop many entrepreneurs and software developers from
doing anything.
Failure is a recognized ingredient in Design Thinking. It is seen as presenting an
opportunity to learn what doesn’t work. Designs evolve using new insights and parameters
that failures uncover. Thus, one needs to embrace failure as part of the process.

4
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

Failure using this approach is sometimes referred to as failing forward. As John

C. Maxwell writes in Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success,
“I want to help you learn how to confidently look the prospect of failure in the eye and
move forward anyway… Because in life, the question is not if you will have problems, but
how you are going to deal with them. Stop failing backward and start failing forward!”
Innovative design should be a purposeful learning opportunity with the expectation
that you won’t get it right on the first try. It likely won’t feature gifted artistry, perfection,
or a clear upfront definition. However, it does require a thoughtful and creative approach
to problem-solving that we are going to discuss throughout this book.
During our lives, solving problems is how we experience the world. From our
first moment of learning to walk, eat, and play, there are problems to be solved. Early
learning challenges such as how one should move, where one might go, where one
places a foot when walking, and how one makes shapes with a pencil to write letters or
words are examples of areas where we make mistakes and eventually succeed. Those
incremental steps in problem-solving are what helps us learn new skills.
As we age, the challenges become more complex. Examples include social situations,
applying for and keeping jobs, financial responsibilities, and physical challenges. All
these provide opportunities to learn and grow.
When we face business challenges, collective teams working to solve problems might
appear to increase complexity. But a richer base of experience grows as teams learn from
failure, adapt to new insights, and evolve their thinking to make things, processes, and people
better. Design Thinking is all about improvements – making things better, more useful, more
functional, more beautiful, more usable, more valuable, and/or more important.

Approach Is Everything
Since one can choose from many approaches to solving problems, some tend to go with
what has worked for them in the past. However, not all past experiences produce the best
results. The authors believe that some approaches are productive while others are not.
The approach used, either individually or as a team, impacts the results and efficacy of
the solution produced and must be taken seriously.
Behavior and psychology play a big role in Design Thinking and problem-solving
and can impact individuals or a whole team dynamic. Before embarking on the Design
Thinking journey, consider the benefits of taking a productive approach over one
considered as non-productive.

5
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

A non-productive approach can result in missed opportunities for success, frustration,

less impactful results, solving for the wrong problem, dissention in teams, a breakdown in
communication, and not partly or fully solving the problem. Bias might come from a single
person or from the collective group. One should try to identify any of these signs early and
instead adopt a creative, proactive, curious, humble, and service-­oriented mindset.
Non-productive approaches to solving problems include

• Reactionary – Taking the first idea and going with it

• Isolative – One person believing their expertise is the only way to

solve a problem

• Indecisive – Spending too much time on the problem and having the
inability to decide (also known as analysis paralysis)

• Stalling/avoiding – Deciding not to solve a problem now and hoping

that it might go away despite evidence to the contrary

• Prejudice – Bias in favor of one thing, person, group, or idea without

the consideration of other ideas or opinions

• Persecuting – Using blame, anger, and aggression to persuade, defend,

or argue to an idea or solution that benefits that one person or group

• Victimizing – Complaining without solving and denying

responsibility/ownership of the problem and dwelling on complaints
vs. solutions

• Rescuing – Taking on all the responsibility for solving problems

regardless of boundaries and solving problems out of fear,
resentment, or a self-serving desire to be needed and not including or
holding others responsible

Productive approaches to solving problems include

• Contemplative – Prolonged thought processes with the intent to

weigh all the options carefully before deciding by using critical
thinking, specifically analyzing and assessing pros and cons and
patterns for success or failure

• Curious – Research unknown areas shining light upon blind spots to

uncover additional information

6
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

• Empathetic – Understand and share the feelings of the individuals

and teams who experience the current problem and will be impacted
by the future solution

• Collaborative – Using a group of people to solve a challenge who have

different ideas, perspectives, opinions, or investment stakes in the
solution

• Diverse – Gathering a mix of perspectives and views that challenge

the value, benefit, and status quo impacts of various ideas generated

• Contextual – Using people who are affected by or impacted by the

change

• Challenging – Using healthy conflict to ensure the best possible

solution can occur – not to be mistaken for bullying behavior – but
healthy and productive debate

The way you approach solving problems can affect the outcome or solution you
end up with. Design Thinking employs productive and systematic methods. It requires
more than one person to consider the problem more thoroughly prior to jumping into
considering solutions.

Note The authors believe that Albert Einstein had it right when he said, “If I had
an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and
five minutes thinking about solutions.”

While Design Thinking can be done by anyone and can be done anywhere at
minimal cost, it requires teams with dedicated time to think, discuss, and define
problems carefully before working on solutions. It enables and encourages collaborative
understanding and alignment and ownership of problems and solutions and drives
ownership of next steps.
The recommended size of the teams varies from two to twenty people. However,
keep in mind that as more people take part, it will take more time for groups to hear
everyone’s ideas. The ideal or optimal group size in our opinion is four to eight people.
All voices can be heard in conversations without taking too long, and ideas and concepts
can be tested more rapidly. As an additional benefit, it can be inexpensive to feed them
with a pizza or two!

7
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

A Brief History and Frameworks

Design Thinking developed as an approach to problem-solving beginning in the 1950s
within the industrial design, science, and technology communities. In the 1960s,
inclusive and collaborative problem-solving began to replace a closed-off and selective
approach. Gathering of user feedback in the design process became popular. Increased
usage of computers and technology led to the start of human-computer interaction
design in the 1970s.
Beginning in the 1990s, a shift to specialization within the design process made its
presence apparent as the so-called wicked problems in Design Thinking. In 1991, IDEO
was formed as a company, resulting from a three-way merger, and invited diverse experts
from anthropology, business strategy, and other disciplines to create design teams.
For the past 20 years, the Design Thinking approach and its ability to drive
innovation in business and drive revenue has caught the eyes of many executives.
A variety of frameworks have appeared that define the phases and steps used in Design
Thinking engagements and workshops (as a search for “Design Thinking” via an Internet
search engine will readily demonstrate).
Each framework should be evaluated for its effectiveness in solving your problems
and for your situations. Additionally, the methods and time spent within each phase of a
framework might also be different from project to project. You could find that you might
go in reverse or skip phases depending how the problem and information unfolds.
Keep in mind that a framework is simply that. It should be flexible to bend to what
you need and help to drive proper outcomes. Additionally, the methods within each
phase of the framework should be just as flexible.
Methods can be thought of as exercises or activities that produce insight or
information. There are thousands of methods that can be applied within each phase,
and each phase is subjective to the outcome you need to achieve. For example, in
the Stanford d.school framework (described in the next subsection), you could use a
persona, empathy map, interviews, surveys, and data on website visits or do shadowing
to gain outcomes involving a group of people during the define phase.
Each method will yield only a portion of information needed. Interviews provide
qualitative data such as sentiment or why someone does something. But you might
not see hard numbers or facts. With surveys, you will get the numbers and quantitative
facts, but not the why. Carefully consider what information you need before you invest
time, money, and resource in a method that doesn’t yield the full view of results and
information you need for decision-making.
8
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

Stanford d.school Framework

As you might expect given Stanford University’s long history of teaching Design Thinking
in its Institute of Design, it has defined one of the more popular frameworks being used.
Key phases in the Stanford d.school framework are empathize, define, ideate, prototype,
and test. These are illustrated in the diagram in Figure 1-1.

ŵƉĂƚŚŝnjĞ /ĚĞĂƚĞ

ĞĨŝŶĞ WƌŽƚŽƚLJƉĞ

dĞƐƚ

Figure 1-1. Stanford d.school Design Thinking framework

During the empathize phase, the focus is on interviews, shadowing, seeking to

understand, and non-judgmental methods. In the define phase, the focus moves to
understanding personas, role objectives, decisions, challenges, and pain points. In the
ideate phase, ideas are shared, all ideas might be considered worthy, a diverge and
converge method can be used, ideas might be extended using a “Yes and” method,
and prioritization frequently takes place. During the prototype phase, mockups and
storyboards might be created, a “keep it simple” approach might be applied, and methods
of failing fast and quickly iterating might also be applied. In the testing phase, gaining an
understanding of impediments, an understanding of what works, evaluating tests through
role-plays, and performing tests in fast iterations are the methods that might be used.

I DEO Framework
Another popular framework is IDEO’s Design Thinking methodology. Key phases in
this framework are discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution.
These are illustrated in Figure 1-2 using a representation like that in Figure 1-1 so that
you can see the similarity to the Stanford d.school version.
9
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

ŝƐĐŽǀĞƌLJ /ĚĞĂƚŝŽŶ

/ŶƚĞƌƉƌĞƚĂƚŝŽŶ džƉĞƌŝŵĞŶƚĂƚŝŽŶ

ǀŽůƵƚŝŽŶ

Figure 1-2. IDEO Design Thinking framework

During the discovery phase, the focus is on understanding the approach to a

challenge by understanding what it is, preparing research, and gathering inspiration.
In the interpretation phase, stories are told, there is a search for meaning, and
opportunities are framed. In ideation, creation ideas are generated and refined. The
experimentation phase consists of making prototypes and getting feedback. Evolution
includes tracking learnings and moving forward.

Double Diamond Design Methodology

At the heart of the original framework that most other innovative design frameworks are
based upon is the UK Design Council’s design methodology, the Double Diamond – a
clear, comprehensive, and visual description of the design process. Launched in 2004,
the Double Diamond has become world-renowned with millions of references to it on
the Web. (See the Appendix for a reference that we used in this book.)
The Design Council’s Double Diamond clearly conveys a design process to designers
and non-designers alike. We illustrate the Double Diamond in Figure 1-3.

10
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

WƌŽďůĞŵ^ƉĂĐĞ ^ŽůƵƚŝŽŶ^ƉĂĐĞ

ZĞƋƵŝƌĞŵĞŶƚƐ
WƌŽďůĞŵ ^ŽůƵƚŝŽŶ
ŽůůĞĐƚŝŽŶ
ĞĨŝŶĞĚ ĞĨŝŶĞĚ
ĞŐŝŶƐ

ŝƐĐŽǀĞƌ ĞĨŝŶĞ ĞǀĞůŽƉ ĞůŝǀĞƌ

ƌŽĂĚĞŶŝŶŐ EĂƌƌŽǁŝŶŐ ƌŽĂĚĞŶŝŶŐ EĂƌƌŽǁŝŶŐ

^ĐŽƉĞ ^ĐŽƉĞ ^ĐŽƉĞ ^ĐŽƉĞ

Figure 1-3. Double Diamond Design Thinking methodology

The two diamonds represent the problem space and solution space in this approach.
The left portion of each diamond represents a process of exploring an issue more widely
or deeply (divergent thinking), while the right portion of each diamond represents taking
focused action (convergent thinking).
Key phases in the Double Diamond are discover, define, develop, and deliver.
Discover and define are part of the problem space, while develop and deliver are part of
the solution space. The phases are fixed within this methodology; however, the objectives
or intent within these phases can change depending upon what we know (or don’t
know).
Within the problem space diamond, we gain an understanding, rather than simply
assuming, what the problem is. We begin collecting requirements within the discover
phase. Typical objectives in this phase include

• Setting scope – Defining an initial problem or vision statement

• Determining people/stakeholders – Who is impacted or influenced

• Determining what is the current state – Good or bad

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Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

During the define phase, we seek to understand what problem we really need to
solve for. The insight that we gained from the discovery phase should help us to define
this challenge in a new way, and we should leave this phase with our problem much
better defined. It is important to remember that the first problem that was identified
might not be the most important problem to solve for. We must also understand why
solving a specific problem really matters.
We are now ready to enter the solution space. We focus in the design phase on
ideating on ways to solve the defined problem. Our diverse attendees are encouraged to
provide a wide variety of potential solutions. During the determine phase that follows,
we prioritize these solutions around their value and effort required. We then begin to
iteratively test the ideas to figure out which one(s) might work and would be best to
improve upon and which ones will not. After going through these iterations, we will have
a solution defined.
Solution design and determination is not a linear process. Many organizations learn
something more about the underlying problems using this methodology, and this gained
knowledge can send them back to the beginning. Making some assumptions and testing
of early stage ideas can be part of discovery. And in an ever-changing and digital world,
no idea is ever “finished.” We are constantly getting feedback on how products and
services are working and iteratively improving them.
The design principles behind the framework describe four core principles for
problem-solvers to adopt so that they can work as effectively as possible. These are

• Put people first – Start with an understanding of the people using a

service, their needs, strengths, and aspirations.
• Communicate visually and inclusively – Help people gain a shared
understanding of the problem and ideas.

• Collaborate and co-create – Work together and get inspired by what

others are doing.

• Iterate, iterate, iterate – Do this to spot errors early, avoid risk, and
build confidence in your ideas.

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 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

The Design Council has authored, adapted, or adopted a portfolio of design

methods, which help clients to identify and address their challenges and achieve
successful outcomes. They have structured these methods in three areas to help in using
the design process to explore, shape, or build in order to create a culture of success:

• Explore – Challenges, needs, and opportunities

• Shape – Prototypes, insights, and visions

• Build – Ideas, plans, and expertise

So, you might now be wondering which framework to choose and what methods and
approaches might be applied to meet your own objectives.

Applying a Framework and Methodology

The problems that we face today commonly require the ideas and buy-in from diverse
stakeholders who must also be part of the solution. Equal in importance to the process
and principles we adopt is the culture of the organization and how it connects with
consumers/citizens and its business partners.
Leadership is needed to encourage innovation, build skills and capability, and
provide permission for experimentation and learning. Strong leadership also allows
projects to be open and agile, showing results along the way and being able to change.
Engagement is needed with people who are delivering the ideas and receiving them,
but also with other partners who might have other ideas. Developing these connections
and building relationships is as important as creating ideas.
If you line up all the frameworks and methodologies, you will notice they are similar
with subtle differences. For the purposes of cohesiveness in this book, we will use the
Double Diamond as our standard when referencing a singular methodology.
The alignment is also reflected in our recommended methods (activities, exercises,
and outputs) that can be employed in each phase of the Double Diamond framework. We
will walk you through some of the popular methods for meeting objectives aligned to the
problem space in Chapter 3 and aligned to the solution space in Chapter 4 of this book.

13
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

Design Thinking, DevOps, and Adoption

Design Thinking helps organizations discern unmet needs, create value from these
insights, and create competitive advantages. Today, it is often used in conjunction with
the DevOps approach adopted by many software and AI developers.
While DevOps has helped teams of developers organize around their development
challenges, Design Thinking helps businesses solve real business complex challenges
using innovation. Change is hard for many, but Design Thinking gives order to chaos.
It’s a way to navigate, explore, and test ideas to ensuring value, business viability, and
technical feasibility. Combining the two approaches fosters a collaborative and user-­
centered culture with an iterative approach to fail forward with change.
In the past, innovation was often approached from the top down. This approach
was omnidirectional and not very scalable at any level. Incorporating Design Thinking
removes silos, invites healthy conflict in discussion to challenge the norms, and creates
ideas that are valuable. These, in turn, help businesses create revenue and deliver
customer and/or employee satisfaction.
Many organizations do not do this well. The transition to Design Thinking needs to
be driven from an executive level to help build innovative design into an organization’s
DNA. It should trickle down into every software or AI project being considered along
with the challenges those project charters are trying to solve.
How long might such cultural change take? Leveraging some earlier work by
Jakob Nielsen, Gena Drahun estimated the average time it would take to develop a
user-driven culture in 2015. According to Drahun, the typical phases and adoption
periods are as follows:

• Stage 1 – Developer-centered

• Stage 2 – Skunkworks (2 years)

• Stage 3 – Dedicated budget (4 years)

• Stage 4 – Managed (7 years)

• Stage 5 – Systematic process (13 years)

• Stage 6 – Integrated user-centered design (20 years)

• Stage 7 – User-driven corporation (40 years)

14
 Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

However, in the authors’ view, proven benefits from leveraging a Design Thinking
approach (and the necessity to react more quickly to emerging business challenges) are
helping to speed adoption in many organizations. In Chapter 7, we describe how change
management is an important part of speeding this adoption.
One advantage to using a Design Thinking approach is that it helps an organization more
deeply understand the root cause of problems, the contributing factors, context, and reasons
for the problem. Learning about the cause can sometimes point to a solution. Such insight
may not have been available during earlier approaches used in addressing the problem.
Design Thinking also creates a sense of ownership for the teams working in
collaboration to help solve the problem. This unified approach can create alignment.
Specifically, as the team works together to understand and clarify various points of
information, perspectives, opinions, and thoughts, they can synthesize the information
in to a collective and more holistic point of view.
Additionally, Design Thinking ensures that the final product, service, or solution
meets the initial objectives or client requirements. Since part of the process is defining
success and testing if ideas deliver success, the value of results is ensured. Since Design
Thinking is iterative, continuous iterative loops through changing information, ideation,
validation, and implementation can result in a continuous improvement process that
builds on the success and failure of the last iteration.
The ultimate benefit is the solution continually gets better as more information,
knowledge, and ideas are applied.

S
 ummary
As we come to the end of this chapter, you should better understand how Design
Thinking helps organizations identify and solve problems more rapidly and helps drive
innovation. You should also see how this iterative approach provides a means to get
beyond setbacks that occur in projects and use those setbacks as learning experiences.
You should now recognize some keys to taking a productive approach (as well as
some of the non-productive methods and approaches that should be avoided). You also
had a brief introduction to popular frameworks that help ensure a productive approach
will be taken. We’ll explore methods and exercises in typical Design Thinking workshops
in Chapters 3 and 4 that neatly align to the Double Diamond.

15
Chapter 1 Design Thinking Overview and History

Finally, you should now think of Design Thinking as complementary to a modern

DevOps approach. And you should understand its benefits and how those can help drive
adoption.
We begin a deeper exploration of applying the methodology in Chapter 2 as we
discuss preparing for a Design Thinking workshop.

16
Exploring the Variety of Random
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Title: Siddhartha: A Poem of India

Author: Hermann Hesse

Translator: David Wyllie

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SIDDHARTHA
A poem of India
by Hermann Hesse
Translated into English by David
Wyllie
PART ONE
Dedicated to my revered friend, Romain Rolland

THE BRAHMIN’S SON

In the shade of the house, in the sunshine on the river bank where
the boats were, in the shade of the forest of shala trees, in the
shade of the fig tree, this is where Siddhartha grew up, the
brahmin’s most handsome son, the young falcon, alongside his
friend Govinda, the brahmin’s son. His pale shoulders were bronzed
by the sunshine on the river bank, when he was bathing, when
performing ceremonious ablutions, when making holy sacrifices.
Shadow flowed into his dark eyes in the mango groves, when
playing boyish games, when his mother sang, when he talked with
the wise ones. Siddhartha spent many hours in conversation with
the wise ones, he practised his skills of rhetoric with Govinda,
practised the art of thought with Govinda, in order to achieve mystic
contemplation. He was already able to utter the holy word, Om, in
silence, the word of words, in silence to utter it and draw it in with
his breath, in silence to utter it and send it out with his breath, his
mind collected, his brow surrounded with the light of the clear-
thinking soul. He was already able to understand, in his innermost
being, the nature of Atman, indestructible, at one with the universe.

Joy sprang up in his father’s heart when he saw his son, the learned
one, the one with a thirst for knowledge, joy sprang up when he
foretold that he would grow into a wise man and a priest, a prince
among the brahmins.

Bliss sprang up in his mother’s breast when she saw her son, when
she saw him walk, when she saw him sit down and stand up,
Siddhartha, the strong one, the handsome one, walking on his
slender legs, when, with perfect decorum, he her offered her his
greetings.

Love was stirred in the hearts of the brahmins’ daughters when they
saw Siddhartha walk through the streets of the town, his luminous
brow, the eyes of a king, his narrow hips.

But the one who loved him more than all the others was Govinda,
his friend, the brahmin’s son. He loved Siddhartha’s eyes and his
noble voice, he loved his walk and the perfect grace of his
movements, he loved everything that Siddhartha did or said, and
most of all he loved his soul, his lofty and fiery thoughts, the bright
glow of his will, his lofty vocation. Govinda knew that Siddhartha
would never become a mediocre brahmin, no lazy officiator of
sacrifices, no greedy peddler of magic spells, no rhetorician of vain
and empty speech, no sly or malevolent priest, and also never
become a good but stupid sheep in the flock of many. No, and he
too, Govinda, had no wish to become one such, not one of those
brahmans that are numbered in their thousands. He wanted to be a
follower of Siddhartha, the beloved, the noble. And if Siddhartha
ever became a god, if he ever went to join the luminous ones, then
Govinda would follow him, as his friend, as his companion, as his
servant, as his spear carrier, his shadow.

Everyone loved Siddhartha in the same way. To everyone he brought

joy.

To himself, though, Siddhartha did not bring joy. Wandering between

the roses in the fig garden, sitting in the bluish shade in the grove of
contemplation, washing his limbs in his daily act of atonement,
performing sacrifice in the dark shade of the mango wood, all his
movements as they should be, loved by all, joy to all, he nonetheless
carried no joy in his own heart. Tears came to him, restless thoughts
came to him from the water of the river as it flowed, from the stars
of the night as they sparkled, from the rays of the Sun as they
blazed, dreams came to him and a restlessness of the soul, from the
smoke of his sacrifices, from the verses of the Rig Veda as he
breathed them, from the teachings of the ancient brahmins as they
seeped into him.

Siddhartha had begun to nurture discontent in himself. He had

begun to feel that his father’s love, and his mother’s love, and the
love of his friend, Govinda, would not always and for all time bring
him happiness, calm him, satisfy him, be enough for him. He had
begun to see that his venerable father and his other teachers, the
wise brahmins, had already given him almost all of their wisdom, all
the best of their wisdom, that their fullness had already been poured
into his vessel, receptive and ready to accept it, and that the vessel
was not full, the spirit was not satisfied, the soul was not quieted,
the heart was not at peace. The washings were good, but they were
water, they did not wash sins away, they did not assuage the thirst
of the soul, they did not dispel the pain of the heart. Most important
of all were the sacrifices and the call of the gods - but was that all?
Did the sacrifices bring happiness? And how did the gods feel about
that? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not
Atman, him, the only one, the all-in-one? Were the gods not forms
that had been created like you and me, subject to time, mortal? So
was it good to make sacrifice to the gods, was it proper, was it a
meaningful and elevated act? Whom else would you make sacrifice
to, whom else should you offer your veneration to other than Him,
the one and only, Atman? And where was Atman to be found, where
did He live, where did His eternal heart beat, where else but in the
Self, in the Deepest, in the Indestructible that every man carried in
himself? But where, where was this Self, this Deepest, this Ultimate?
It was not made of flesh and bone, it was not thought or
consciousness, that is was the wisest men taught. Where, where
was it then? To pierce through to the Self, to me, to Atman - was
there any other way worth seeking out? But no-one showed him this
way, no-one knew it, not his father, not his teachers or the wise
men, not the sacred songs of sacrifice! They knew everything, the
brahmins and their holy books, knew everything, they had made
great efforts into everything and into more than everything, the
creation of the world, the origins of speech, food, breathing in and
breathing out, the hierarchy of sins, the acts of the gods - their
knowledge was boundless - but was it worth knowing all of this
when there was one single thing they did not know, the thing of
highest importance, the only thing of importance?

It was true that many verses in the holy scriptures, magnificent

verses such as the Upanishads of the Samaveda, spoke of this
deepest and ultimate thing. “Your soul is the entire world,” was
written there, and it was written that man in his sleep, deep sleep,
enters into his deepest part and lives in Atman. Great wisdom was
written in these verses, all the knowledge of the wisest was collected
here and presented in words of magic, as pure as the honey
collected from the bees. No, the enormous amount of knowledge
here, assembled and preserved through countless generations of
wise brahmins, was not to be under-valued. - but where were the
brahmins, where were the priests, where were the wise men and the
penitents who had succeeded not only in learning this deepest
wisdom but in living it? Where was the gifted one who, by his magic,
would draw the essence of Atman out of its sleep and make it alert,
something that was alive in its coming and going, in word and deed?
Siddhartha knew many venerable brahmins, most of all he knew his
father, the pure one, the learned one, the most venerable of all. His
father was an admirable man, quiet and noble in his manner, pure
his life, wise his words, in his brow lived fine and noble thoughts -
but even he, who had so much knowledge; Did he live in holiness,
was he at peace, was he, too, not just another seeker, just another
thirsty one? Did he not, over and again, need to go to the well to
assuage his thirst, did he not need to make sacrifice, read books and
debate his beliefs with the brahmins? Why did he, the immaculate
one, need to wash his sins away every day, strive to become pure
every day, every day again and again? Was Atman not a part of him,
did the source not flow into his heart? The source of all things had
to be found, the source within us all, it had to be taken into
ourselves! All else was mere seeking, mere straying from the path,
mere delusion.

These were the thoughts of Siddhartha, this was his thirst, this was
his sorrow.

He would often recite the words from one of the Chandogya

Upanishads: “Forsooth, the name of Brahman is Satyam - forsooth,
he who knows such things goeth daily into the world of Heaven.”
The world of Heaven often seemed near to him, but he had never
quite been able to reach it, never been able to quench the ultimate
thirst. And from all the wise men he knew, even from the wisest of
all, whose teachings he enjoyed, there was not one who ever had
quite reached it, the world of Heaven, which would have quenched
the ultimate thirst for him.

“Govinda,” said Siddhartha to his friend, “Govinda, dear friend, come

with me under the banyan tree, we have to nurture our skill of
contemplation.”

They went to the Banyan tree, they sat down beneath it, Siddhartha
here and, twenty paces away, sat Govinda. As he sat down in
preparedness to utter the word ‘Om,’ Siddhartha repeatedly
muttered the verse:

Om is the bow, the arrow is the soul,

Brahman is the arrow’s goal,
The goal to reach directly.

After they had practised contemplation for their usual length of time
Govinda stood. The evening had come, it was time to wash in
preparation for the evening. He called out Siddhartha’s name.
Siddhartha gave no answer. Siddhartha sat deep in contemplation,
his eyes were fixed on a greatly distant object, the tip of his tongue
protruded slightly from between his teeth, he seemed not to be
breathing. So he sat, engrossed in contemplation, his mind fixed on
Om, his soul as the arrow sent out to Brahman.
One day samanas came through the town where Siddhartha lived,
travelling ascetics, three men wizened and close to death, neither
old nor young, their shoulders were bloody and dusty, they were
nearly naked and they were scorched by the sun, an air of loneliness
about them, alien to this world and the enemy of the world,
strangers, emaciated jackals in the empire of man. The odour of
quiet suffering blew in from behind them, of service that destroyed,
of pitiless loss of self.

That evening, after their hour of contemplation, Siddhartha said to

Govinda, “Tomorrow morning, my friend, Siddhartha will go to the
samanas. He will become a samana.”

When Govinda heard these words and saw the unshakable resolution
in his friend’s face he turned pale. Siddhartha could no more be
dissuaded from his course than the arrow speeding from the bow.
Just as soon as he saw this, Govinda knew that this was where it
started, Siddhartha would now go on his way, now his destiny would
begin to grow, and with Siddhartha’s destiny so would Govinda’s.
And he became as pale as a dried banana skin.

Oh, Siddhartha,” he exclaimed, “will your father allow that?”

Siddhartha looked back at him as one who was awakening. With the
speed of an arrow he saw the fear, saw the resignation in Govinda’s
soul.

“Oh, Govinda,” he said gently, “let us not waste words. Tomorrow, at

the break of day, I will embark on the life of a samana. Let us talk
no more about it.”

Siddhartha went into the room where his father sat on a raffia mat
and stood behind him until his father could feel that he was there.
The brahmin said, “Is that you, Siddhartha? Say what it is you have
come to tell me.”
Siddhartha answered, “If you will allow it, father, I have come to tell
you that I have been called on to leave your house in the morning
and to go among the ascetics. It is my vocation to become a
samana. I hope my father will not be opposed to this.”

The brahmin was silent, and remained silent so long that, before the
silence in the room came to an end, the stars outside the little
window had moved across the sky and formed new shapes. His son
remained there, speechless and immobile, his arms crossed, the
father sat there on the mat, speechless and immobile, while the
stars made their way across the sky. Finally, Siddhartha’s father
spoke. “It is not seemly for a brahmin to speak loud and angry
words, but my heart is moved to oppose this. I do not want to hear
this request from your mouth a second time.”

Slowly, the brahmin got to his feet, Siddhartha stood in silence, his
arms crossed.

“What are you waiting for?” his father asked.

Siddhartha said, “You know what I am waiting for.”

Displeased, his father left the room, displeased he went to his bed
and lay himself down.

An hour passed, as no sleep came to his eyes, the brahmin stood

up, paced to and fro, left the house. He looked in through the little
window of the room, there he saw Siddhartha standing, his arms
crossed, unchanged. His upper clothing shone palely. Unease in his
heart, Siddhartha’s father went back to his bed.

Another hour passed, as no sleep came to his eyes, the brahmin

stood up again, paced to and fro, went to the front of the house,
saw that the moon had risen. He looked in through the little window
of the room, there he saw Siddhartha standing, resolute, his arms
crossed, moonlight reflecting from his bare legs. With worry in his
heart, Siddhartha’s father went back to his bed.
He came again after an hour, and came again after two hours,
looked in at the little window, saw Siddhartha standing there, in the
moonlight, in the starlight, in the darkness. He came again hour
after hour, in silence, looked into the room, saw the resolute one
standing there, it filled his heart with anger, filled his heart with
anxiety, filled his heart with doubts, filled it with sorrow.

And in the last hour of the night, before the day began, he went
back again, entered the room, saw the young man standing there.
He seemed great to him, and like a stranger.

“Siddhartha,” he said, “what is it you are waiting for?”

“You know what I am waiting for.”

“Will you persist in standing like this and waiting until day comes,
midday comes, evening comes?”

“I will stand and wait.”

“You will become tired, Siddhartha.”

“I will become tired.”

“You will fall asleep, Siddhartha.”

“I will not fall asleep.”

“You will die, Siddhartha.”

“I will die.”

“And would you rather die than do as your father tells you?”

“Siddhartha has always done as his father has told him.”

“So will you give up this idea?”

“Siddhartha will do as his father says.”

The first rays of daylight fell into the room. The brahmin saw that
Siddhartha’s knees were trembling slightly. He saw no tremble in
Siddhartha’s face, his eyes fixed on the far distance. Then his father
realised that Siddhartha was no longer with him in his native
country, that he had already left him.

His father touched Siddhartha’s shoulder.

“You will go into the woods and become a samana,” he said. “If you
find holiness in the woods come and teach me about holiness. If you
find disappointment come back and we can make sacrifices to the
gods together again. Now go and kiss your mother, tell her where
you’re going. For me, it is time now to go down to the river and start
the first washing of the day.”

He took his hand off his son’s shoulder and went out. Siddhartha
staggered to one side as he tried to walk. He forced his limbs to do
as he wanted, bowed to his father and went to his mother to do as
his father had told him.

The town, in the light of early morning, was still quiet as Siddhartha
walked out of it, moving slowly on his stiff legs. As he passed the
last hut a shadow rose from where it had been crouching and
approached the pilgrim - Govinda.

“You have come,” said Siddhartha with a smile.

“I have come,” said Govinda.

AMONG THE SAMANAS

They reached the samanas that evening, the emaciated samanas,
and offered them their company and their obedience. They were
accepted.
Siddhartha had given his coat to a poor brahmin on the way there.
All he wore now were his loin cloth and an earth coloured, untailored
cloak. He ate just once a day and never had cooked food. He fasted
for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh
disappeared from his limbs and his cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered
from his bulging eyes, the nails grew long on his desiccated fingers,
a dry, unkempt beard. When he encountered a woman his eyes
became icy; his mouth twitched with contempt when he entered a
town and saw the people in their fine clothes. He saw businessmen
doing business, he saw noblemen go hunting, he saw the bereaved
grieving for their dead, whores offering their bodies, doctors taking
care of the sick, priests saying when to sow crops, lovers loving,
mothers feeding their babies - and none of this was worth a glance
from him, all was lies, everything stank, everything stank of lies,
everything made a pretence of good sense and happiness and
beauty, all was in decay and none could see it. The world tasted
bitter. Life was a torment.

Siddhartha had but one objective: to empty himself, to empty

himself of thirst, of desire, of dreams, empty himself of joy and
sorrow. To die away from himself, to no longer be himself, to find
peace by emptying his own heart, to stand open to the miracle by
alienating his own thoughts, that was his objective. Once the whole
of his self had been overcome and destroyed, once every need and
every drive of his heart was silent, that was when the ultimate had
to wake, the deepest part of his being, that which is no longer the
self, the great secret.

Siddhartha stood silent in the vertical glare of the Sun, aglow with
pain, aglow with thirst, and he stood there till he no longer felt pain
nor thirst. He stood silent in the time of rains with the water flowing
from his hair onto his icy cold shoulders, over his icy cold hips and
legs, and the penitent remained standing there till his shoulders and
his legs no longer felt icy cold, till they became silent, till they were
at peace. He crouched silent in the thorny bushes, blood dropping
from his burning skin, pus dropping from his wounds, and
Siddhartha remained rigid, remained motionless, till the blood no
longer flowed, till the thorns no longer pierced his skin, till nothing
more burned him.

Siddhartha sat up straight and learned to control his breath, learned

to need little air, learned to stop his breath. He learned, starting with
his breath, to still the beats of his heart, learned to reduce the beats
of his heart till they became fewer and then till there were almost
none.

Siddhartha was taught by the eldest of the samanas, he trained in

losing the self, he trained in contemplation, learned new samana
rules. A heron flew out of the bamboo forest - and Siddhartha took
the heron into his soul, he flew over the woods and mountains, he
was a heron, he ate fish, he hungered as a heron hungers, he spoke
the heron language, he died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay
on the sand by the water, and Siddhartha’s soul slipped into the
corpse, he was entirely a jackal, he lay on the shore, he bloated with
gas, he stank, he decayed, he was torn apart by hyenas, he lost his
skin to the vultures, he became a skeleton, became dust, blew in the
wind that crossed the meadows. And Siddhartha’s soul came back to
him, died, decayed, crumbled, it had tasted the dark inebriation of
the circle of life, again endured thirst like the hunter in the
wasteland where the circle of life might be left behind, where cause
and effect ended, where eternity without pain began. He brought
death to his senses, brought death to his memory, slipped out of his
own self and into a thousand alien forms, he was an animal, was
carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and each time found
himself ever more aware, light of sun or moon, became again
himself, swang in the circle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt the
thirst anew.

Among the samanas Siddhartha learned many things, he learned

many ways to leave his self behind. He learned the way of self-
alienation by pain, by voluntary suffering and how to overcome pain,
hunger, thirst, fatigue. He travelled on the way of self-alienation by
meditation, by removing from his thoughts any sense that he was
perceiving what presented itself to him. This he learned, and he
learned many other ways to travel, he left his self behind a thousand
times, he persisted in the not-self for hours, for days. But although
these ways led him away from his self they always, at the end, led
him back to it. Siddhartha fled from his self a thousand times, spent
time in nothingness, in the animal, in a stone, but he was never able
to prevent his return, the hour of his return was not avoidable, and
he would find himself, once again, in the light of the sun or the
moon, in shade or in rain, and Siddhartha and his self were there
once again, once again the suffering of the circle of life was placed
upon him.

At his side lived Govinda, his shadow, travelling the same road,
undergoing the same trials. They seldom spoke to each other, only
when it was needed for their service and their exercises. At times
they would go together to the villages in order to beg for food for
themselves and their teachers.

“What do you think, Govinda,” Siddhartha once asked him as they

were on their way to beg. “Do you think we have made any
progress? Have we reached any of our targets?”

Govinda answered, “We have learned things, and we continue to

learn. You will be a great samana, Siddhartha. You have learned
every exercise very quickly, and the old samanas have been amazed
at you. One day, Siddhartha, you will be a holy man.”

Siddhartha said, “That is not how I see it, my friend. All that I have
learned so far I could have learned much faster and much easier in
any bar where the whores are, my friend, among all the cheats and
the gamblers.”

Govinda said, “That is what you say, my friend, but you know that
Siddhartha is not some cattle driver, and that a samana is not some
drunkard. The drunk can numb his senses, he can find escape and
rest for a short time, but then he comes back from his stupor and
finds that all is as it was before. He makes himself no wiser, he has
gathered no knowledge any sort, he has climbed not one step
higher.”

Siddhartha smiled and said, “I don’t know, I’ve never been a

drunkard. But I do know that in all my exercises and contemplations
I have only ever found a brief respite from suffering, and remained
just as far away from wisdom and liberation as a child in its mother’s
womb. I do know that, Govinda, I do know that.”

Another time, when Siddhartha and Govinda came out of the woods
together and down to the village to beg for food for their brothers
and teachers, Siddhartha began to speak and said, “What about
now, Govinda, do you think we are on the right path? Are we getting
any closer to knowledge? Are we getting any closer to liberation? Or
are we just going round in circles - we, who are trying to escape the
circle of life?”

Govinda said, “We have learnt many things, Siddhartha, and there is
still a lot more to learn. We are not going round in circles, we are
mounting higher, the circle is a spiral, we have already climbed up
many steps.”

Siddhartha answered, “How old do you think our eldest samana is,
our venerable teacher?”

Govinda said, “He must be about sixty, our eldest samana.”

And Siddhartha, “He has reached the age of sixty, and he still has
not reached Nirvana. He will be seventy, and then eighty, and you
and me, we will become old in the same way and we will do our
exercises, and we will fast, and we will meditate. But we will never
reach Nirvana, he will not, we will not. Govinda, of all the samanas
that there are, I do not think any one of them is likely to reach
Nirvana. We find consolation, we find respite from pain, we learn the
skills with which we deceive ourselves. But that which is essential,
the way of ways, that is what we are not finding.”

“Do not utter such shocking words, Siddhartha!” said Govinda. “We
are among so many learned men, so many brahmins, so many strict
and venerable samanas, so many seekers, so many who strive with
such effort, so many holy men; how could it be that none of these
finds the way of ways?”

But Siddhartha replied in a voice that was sad as much as it was

mocking, a gentle voice, a somewhat sad voice, somewhat mocking,
“Soon now, Govinda, your friend will be leaving the way of the
samanas along which he has travelled so far with you. I suffer from
thirst, Govinda, and my thirst has not become any the less on this
long way of the samanas. I have always been thirsty for knowledge,
always been full of questions. I questioned the brahmins year after
year, I sought knowledge in the holy vedas year after year, and I put
questions to the pious samanas year after year. Perhaps, Govinda, it
would have been just as good, just as clever and just as healing to
go and put questions to the rhinoceros birds or the chimpanzees. I
have taken much time to learn this, Govinda, and I am still not at
the end of it, I have learned that learning is impossible! I believe
that in fact there is nothing in anything that we could call ‘learning.’
There is only a kind of knowledge that is everywhere, my friend, and
that is Atman. Atman is in me and in everything else that has
existence. And so now I am beginning to believe that this knowledge
has no worse enemy than the pursuit of knowledge, than learning.”

At this, Govinda stopped walking, raised his hands and said,

“Siddhartha, please do not make your friend anxious with talk like
this! What you are saying really does make me anxious in my heart.
Think what you are saying; where would that leave the holiness of
prayer, where would that leave the dignity of being a brahmin,
where would that leave the holiness of the samanas if it were as you
say, if it were not possible ever to learn?! Siddhartha, where would
that leave anything on Earth that is holy or valuable or venerable?!”
Govinda quietly muttered a verse, a verse from one of the
Upanishads:

The purest soul that deeply thinks and sinks itself in Atman, His
blessed heart will have no words to tell it to the world.

Siddhartha, though, remained silent. He thought about the words

that Govinda had just said to him, he thought about the words to
their end.

Yes, he thought as he stood there with his head lowered, what

would be left of all the things that seem holy to us? What would
remain? What would be preserved? And he shook his head.

At an earlier time, when the two young men had lived with the
samanas, and performed their exercises together for about three
years, there came to them through many ways and turnings a
message, a rumour, saying; One has appeared that will be called
Gotama, the noble one, the buddha. He will have overcome the pain
of the world in himself and brought the wheel of rebirth to a halt.
With his followers he travels through the land, teaching as he goes,
without property, without a home, without a wife, wearing the
yellow garb of an ascetic but with joy on his brow, a holy man, and
brahmans and princes bow their knee to him and become his pupils.

This legend, this rumour, this folk tale sounded out, raised itself like
a scent far and wide, brahmins spoke of it in the cities, samanas
spoke of it in the woods, the name of Gotama, the buddha, was
repeated over and again in the ears of the young, in the good and in
the evil, in praise and in contempt.

As when the plague is raging through a country and a rumour arises

that somewhere there is a man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man
whose word and whose breath alone is enough to heal anyone
afflicted with it, when this rumour spreads through the land and all
are talking of it, many believe it, many doubt it, but many set
themselves straight on the road to seek out this wise man who can
help them, so it was with the fragrant rumour of Gotama, the
buddha, the wise man from the line of the sakyas. He possessed, so
the believers said, the highest enlightenment, he remembered his
previous lives, he had attained nirvana and would never more come
back to the cycle of rebirth, never more submerge in the dark waters
that carried the forms of the lower world. Many things majestic and
incredible were reported of him, he had performed miracles, had
overcome the Devil, had spoken with the gods. His enemies,
however, and those who did not believe, said that this Gotama was a
vain seducer, he spent his days in comfort, despised the acts of
sacrifice, was without learning and performed neither exercise nor
self-castigation.

Sweet was this legend of the buddha, magical was the aroma of
these rumours. Diseased was the world, hard to bear was life - and
look, there appeared to flow water from a new spring, a call of good
news seemed to be heard, reassuring, mild, and full of noble
promises. Everywhere that the rumour of the buddha was heard, in
every part of the lands of India, the young men listened, felt
longing, felt hope, and every pilgrim or stranger who came to the
sons of brahmins in the towns and villages with news of him, the
noble one, the sakyamuni, was welcome.

This legend even penetrated into the woods where the samanas
lived, even to Siddhartha, even to Govinda, slowly, drop by drop,
each drop laden with hope, each drop laden with doubt. They
seldom spoke of it, as the eldest of the samanas was no friend of
this legend. He had been taught that anyone who seemed to be a
buddha had first become an ascetic and lived in the woods, and only
then returned to the world of comfort and gaiety, and he had no
faith in this Gotama at all.

“Siddhartha,” said Govinda to his friend one day. “I was in the village
today and a brahman invited me into his house, and in his house
was a brahmin’s son from Magadha who had seen this buddha with
his own eyes and listened to his teachings. At that, the very breath
in my lungs truly caused me pain and I thought: I too would like,
both of us, Siddhartha and I, would like to experience these
teachings, to learn from the mouth of one who had attained
perfection! Tell me, my friend, should we not go and learn from the
mouth of this buddha himself?”

Siddhartha answered, “Oh, Govinda, I had always thought Govinda

would stay with the samanas, it was always my belief that it was his
objective to live to the age of sixty or seventy and always practise
the arts and exercises that the samanas display. But look at me now,
I did not know Govinda well enough, I knew little of his heart. But
now, dear friend, now you want to set out on a new path and go
there, where the buddha spreads his teachings.”

Govinda answered, “You like to laugh at me. I hope you always keep
laughing, Siddhartha! But do you not also feel the desire to hear
these teachings rising within you, the wish to hear what is said? And
did you not once say to me that you would not stay for long among
the samanas to follow their way?”

At this Siddhartha laughed, in his way of laughing that took on a

shadow of sorrow and a shadow of mockery, and said, “Quite right,
Govinda, what you say is quite right, you have remembered it
rightly. But maybe you should also remember something else you
heard from me, that I had become tired and mistrustful of teachings
and learning, and that my beliefs have little faith in the words that
come to us from teachers. But anyway, my friend, I am willing to
come and hear these teachings - even though, in my heart, I think
we have already tasted the best fruits of them.”

Govinda answered, “Your readiness brings joy to my heart. But tell

me, how can that be possible? How could the teachings of Gotama
have given us their best fruits even before we have tasted them?”

Siddhartha answered, “Let us enjoy these fruits and wait to see what
happens, Govinda! But we can already be thankful to Gotama in that
his fruits are calling us away from the samanas! Perhaps he has
other fruit to offer, and better fruit my friend. Let us keep peace in
our hearts and wait to see if this is so.”

That very day Siddhartha told the eldest of the samanas of his
decision to leave him. He told him with all the humility and modesty
as befits a junior and a pupil. The samana, however fell into a rage
at the young men’s decision to leave, he raised his voice and used
foul language.

Govinda was shocked and embarrassed, but Siddhartha put his

mouth to Govinda’s ear and whispered, “Now I will show the elder
that I have learned something from him.”

Siddhartha stood close in front of the samana, gathered his own

spirit, captured the gaze of the old man with his own gaze, and
thereby did he enthrall him, made him dumb, deprived him of his
will, subjected him to his own will, and without a word he ordered
him to do as he commanded. The old man was unable to speak,
unable to move his eyes, unable to direct his own will, his arms hung
loose, he became powerless and was subject to the magic worked
by Siddhartha. Siddhartha’s thoughts overpowered those of the
samana, he had to carry out whatever commands they gave him.
And so the old man bowed down several times, performed gestures
of blessing and humbly stammered out wishes for a good journey.
And the young men replied by thanking him for his prostrations,
thanked him for his good wishes and with those greetings made
their departure.

On the way Govinda said, “Oh Siddhartha, you learned more from
the samanas than I had realised. It is not easy, not easy at all, to
bewitch an ancient samana. I am sure that if you had stayed with
them you would soon have learned to walk on water.”

“Why would I want to walk on water?” said Siddhartha. “If the

ancient samanas want to do tricks like that they can keep them!”
GOTAMA
In the city of Savathi every child knew the name of the noble
buddha, and every house was ready to fill the begging bowls of
Gotama’s disciples when they made their silent requests. Near the
city was the grove of Jetavana. This wood had been given to
Gotama and his followers by Anathapindika, a rich businessman who
was devoted to the noble one, and it was the place that Gotama
liked to visit most.

All the stories and all the answers that the two young ascetics had
heard in their search for Gotama had directed them to this place.
When they arrived in Savathi they stood at the door of the first
house silently begging for food, which was given them. Siddhartha
asked the woman who had offered them the food:

“Generous lady, we would like to learn where the most venerable

one, the buddha, spends his time, for we are two samanas from the
woods and have come to see him, the perfect one, and to hear the
teachings from his mouth.”

The woman said, “You have certainly arrived at the right place,
samanas from the woods. You should know that Jetavana, the
garden of Anathapindikas, is where the noble one spends his time.
You will be able to spend the night there, pilgrims, as there is even
enough room there for the countless many who flood to this place to
hear the teachings from his mouth.”

This was pleasing news to Govinda, and full of joy he declared,

“That is good, so we have reached our destination and our journey
is at its end! But tell us, mother of pilgrims, do you know him, the
buddha, have you seen him with your own eyes?”

The woman said, “Many have seen him, the noble one. Many times I
have seen him as he went on his way through the streets and alleys,
silent in his yellow robes, silent as he showed his begging bowl at
the doors of houses and, as he left those places, his begging bowl
full.”

Govinda listened with joy and wanted to put many questions and to
hear more. But Siddhartha urged that they should go on their way.
They said thank you and left, and had hardly any need to ask the
way for many pilgrims were on their way to Jetavana, as well as
monks from Gotama’s community. They arrived there in the night
time, there was a continuous flow of visitors arriving, calling to each
other, talking about who was looking for shelter and who had found
it. The two samanas, used to life in the woods, found a place to rest
quickly and quietly and remained there till morning.

When the sun rose they were astonished to see the size of the
crowd, believers or the curious, who had spent the night here.
Monks in their yellow robes wandered along all the paths of the
beautiful grove, here and there under the trees sat people deep in
meditation or engaged in spiritual discussion. The shady garden was
like a city, full of people swarming like bees. Most of the monks were
leaving with their begging bowls in order to collect food for midday,
when they would have their only meal of the day. Even the buddha
himself, the enlightened one, made a habit of going out to beg each
morning.

Siddhartha saw him, and as quickly as if he had been pointed out by

a god, he knew who it was. He saw him, a slight man in a yellow
cloak, making his quiet way with his begging bowl in his hand.

“Govinda, look!” whispered Siddhartha. “Just there, that is the

buddha.”

Govinda stared at the monk in the yellow robe, indistinguishable

from the hundreds of other monks there. And soon Govinda could
see it too: it was him. And they followed him and kept him in their
sight.
The buddha followed his path with humility and deep in thought, the
peaceful expression on his face was neither gay nor sad, it seemed
to show a gentle inward contentment. With a hidden smile, quiet,
peaceful, not unlike a healthy child, the buddha wandered on,
wearing his robes and placing his feet in the same way as all his
monks, in the way that was prescribed. But his face, his gait, his
quiet lowered eyes, his hands hanging quietly from his arms, and
even every finger on his quietly hanging hands spoke of peace,
spoke of perfection, sought nothing, copied nothing, breathed gently
with a peace that could not fade, in a light that could not fade, a
peace that could not be touched.

So, Gotama walked on slowly towards the town where he would

gather alms, and the two samanas knew him simply from the
perfection of his peace, the stillness of his form where no searching,
no desire, no imitation, no striving could be seen, only light and
peace.

“Today, we will hear the teachings from his own mouth,” said
Govinda.

Siddhartha made no answer. He had less curiosity about the

teachings, he did not believe they would teach him anything new,
even though, like Govinda, he had heard many times about what the
teachings of this buddha contained, albeit from the reports he had
heard at second or third hand. But he looked attentively at Gotama’s
head, at his shoulders, at his feet, at his hand as it hung there
without moving, and it seemed to him that every part of every finger
of that hand held a lesson, spoke, breathed, was fragrant and shone
with truth. This man, this buddha, was truthful down to every
movement of every finger. This man was holy. Siddhartha had never
felt such veneration for anyone, he had never loved anyone as much
as this man.

The two of them followed the buddha into the town and then they
quietly turned back, as they too hoped to obtain food for themselves
before the end of day. They saw Gotama as he too came back, saw
him surrounded by his followers as they took their meal - what he
ate was not enough to feed a bird - and they saw him withdraw into
the shade of the mango trees.

But when evening came, when the heat of the day had lessened and
everyone in the camp became more active and gathered together,
they heard the buddha speak. They heard his voice, and even that
was a thing of perfection, of perfect stillness, of complete peace.
Gotama taught the lesson of suffering, of the origin of suffering, of
the way that leads to the removal of suffering. His speech flowed on,
calm, peaceful and clear, it was. Life was sorrow, the world was full
of suffering, but release from suffering could be found: release
would be found by him who followed the way of the buddha. The
noble one spoke in a voice that was gentle but firm, he taught of the
four principal doctrines, he taught of the eight-fold path, the circle of
reincarnation, his voice, clear and quiet, remained above his listeners
like a light, like a star in the firmament.

Night had fallen before the buddha came to the end of his speech.
Many pilgrims came forward and asked to be accepted into his
community, sought refuge in the teachings. Gotama did accept
them, with the words, “You have ingested the teachings well, they
were conveyed to you well. Come, then, among us and walk in
holiness, that you may prepare an end to all sorrow.”

Then Govinda, too, the shy one, was seen to come forward and he
said, “I, too, seek refuge with the noble one and his teachings,” and
asked to be accepted among the buddha’s followers, and he was
accepted.

Soon thereafter, as the buddha had withdrawn for his night’s rest,
Govinda went to Siddhartha with great enthusiasm and said, “I am
not entitled to reproach you for anything. We have both heard the
noble one, we have both received his teachings. Govinda heard the
teaching, he has taken refuge in them. But you, revered one, will
you not take the path of liberation? Will you delay, will you continue
to wait?”

When he realised what Govinda had said Siddhartha woke as if he

had been sleeping. Then, gently and with no mockery in his voice,
he said, “Govinda, my friend, now you have taken the first step, now
you have chosen your path. You have always been my friend,
Govinda, you have always followed me one step behind. I have often
asked myself whether Govinda would one day take a step of his
own, without me, from his own soul. Now see, you have become a
man and chosen your own way. I hope you will follow it to its end,
my friend! I hope you will find liberation!”

Govinda still did not fully understand, and impatiently repeated his
question: “Speak, dear friend, I beg of you, speak! Tell me what
cannot be different, tell me my learned friend that you too will take
refuge with the noble buddha!”

Siddhartha lay his hand on Govinda’s shoulder. “You have failed to

hear my deepest wish for you, Govinda. I will repeat if for you: I
hope you will follow your path to its end, my friend! I hope you will
find liberation!”

At that moment Govinda saw that his friend had left him, and he
began to weep.

“Siddhartha!” he implored.

Siddhartha’s reply was friendly. “Govinda, do not forget that you now
are one of the samanas of the buddha. You have forsaken your
home and your parents, forsaken origins and possessions, by your
own free will you have forsaken friendship. This is what is said in the
teachings, this is what is said by the buddha. This is what you have
chosen for yourself. Tomorrow, Govinda, I will leave you.”

The two friends wandered long among the trees, long they lay but
found no sleep. And Govinda asked his friend over and over again
why he would not take refuge in the teachings of Gotama, what fault
could he find in these teachings. But Siddharth always rejected his
insistence and said, “Learn to be in peace, Govinda. The teachings of
the noble one are very good. How should I find any fault in them?”

As morning was breaking one of the buddha’s followers, one of his

eldest monks, went through the garden and summoned all them
who had newly chosen to take refuge in the teachings. They were to
put on their yellow robes and receive their first instruction in the
teachings and duties of their new status. Govinda ran to Siddhartha,
embraced his childhood friend on more time, and went to join the
ranks of the novices.

Siddhartha, however, wandered among the trees, deep in thought.

While he was there he came across Gotama, the noble one.

Siddhartha greeted him with veneration. There was so much peace
and goodness to be seen in the buddha’s eyes that the young man
took courage and asked the venerable one’s permission to speak to
him. The noble one gave his assent with a silent nod.

Siddhartha said, “Noble one, I was yesterday privileged to hear your

wonderful teachings. I had come here from afar with a friend to hear
them. My friend now will stay among your followers and take refuge
with you. I, however, will start my pilgrimage anew.”

“You are free to do as you wish,” said the noble one politely.

“In speaking to you I have been more bold than I should have
been,” Siddhartha continued, “but I would not want to depart from
the noble one without having given him my sincere thoughts. Would
the noble one be willing to give me another moment of his time to
hear me?”

The buddha gave his assent with a silent nod.

Siddhartha said, “There is something, most venerable one, that I
admired most of all in what you said. Everything in your teachings is
perfectly clear and supported with proof; you depict the world as a
perfect chain, never broken anywhere on its length, an eternal chain
made up of causes and effects. This has never been made so clear,
never set out so irrefutably; the heart of every brahman must surely
beat at a higher level when he has heard your teachings and first
sees the world of perfect coherence, without omissions, as clear as
crystal, not dependent on chance, not dependent on any gods. This
could be good or bad, could bring joy or sorrow to life, but it is not
something we need to consider, it could well be that it is not of basic
importance - but the unity of the world, that all events are inter-
related, the flow of existence that embraces all things great and
small, the law of cause and effect, existence and death, all these
things shine brightly out from your noble teachings, o perfect one.
But there is a place in your own teachings where this cohesion, this
sound argument that governs all things is interrupted, there is a
small hole where something strange, something new, something not
previously there flows into this world, it is something that cannot be
shown, cannot be proved: this is your teaching about not being
overcome by the world, your teaching about liberation. With this tiny
hole, with this tiny intrusion the entire coherent and eternal world-
order is once again broken down and cannot be maintained. I hope
you will forgive me for voicing this objection.”

Gotama had listened to him still and unmoving. Now, with his
benevolent voice, with his clear and polite voice, the perfect one
spoke: “You have listened to the teachings, brahmin’s son, and it is
good that you have thought so deeply about them. You have found a
gap in them, a mistake. I hope you will continue to think about the
teachings, you have a thirst for knowledge, but you should be
warned of the thickets of beliefs and of quibbles around words.
Beliefs are not important, they can be beautiful or ugly, clever or
foolish, anyone can stay attached to them or throw them away. But
the teachings that you heard from me are not beliefs and I was not
trying to explain the world to them who have a thirst for knowledge.
I was attempting something quite different, I was attempting to
show how to gain liberation from suffering. This is what Gotama
teaches, nothing else.”

“I hope you will not be cross with me, noble one,” the young man
said. “I have no wish to argue with you but to argue about words,
this is why I have spoken to you in this way. You are certainly quite
right, beliefs alone are not of great importance. But allow me to say
one thing more: I have never for a moment had any doubts about
you. I have never for a moment doubted that you are a buddha, that
you have reached the end of your path, the highest objective that so
many thousands of brahmins and brahmins’ sons pursue. You have
found liberation from death. You have attained this by your own
searching, by travelling your own path, by thought, by meditation,
by knowledge, by enlightenment. You have not attained it by
listening to the teachings of others! And - this is what I have come
to believe, noble one - nobody can ever attain liberation by listening
to the teachings of others! Nobody, venerable one, will come to
understand what happened to you in the hour of your enlightenment
by hearing your words and your teachings! The enlightened one, the
buddha, teaches many things about how to live a good and honest
life and how to avoid evil, but the teaching that is so clear, that is so
noble, is not there: the noble one does not give teaching about the
secret that he alone has experienced, he alone out of hundreds of
thousands. This is what I thought, what I perceived, when I heard
your teachings. This is the reason I will continue in my wanderings -
not to find other teachings which may be better, for I know there are
none, but to abandon all teachings and all teachers and either to
attain my goal alone or to die. But, noble one, I will often think back
to this day and this hour, for my eyes have seen a man of great
holiness.”

The buddha looked quietly down at the ground, the buddha’s face,
peaceful but inscrutable, shone with perfect serenity.
“I hope your thoughts,” the venerable one said slowly, “are not
mistaken! May you arrive at your objective! But tell me: have you
seen how many samanas I have, how many brothers who have
taken refuge in my teachings? And do you think, samana from a
foreign place, do you think all of these would be better off if they
abandoned the teachings and went back to life in the world with all
its enjoyments?”

“Such a thought is far from me,” Siddhartha exclaimed. “I hope they

will all remain with the teachings, I hope they will reach their goal! It
is not up to me to judge how others lead their lives. I can only judge
my own life, I must choose for myself, must reject for myself. We
samanas seek liberation from our selves, noble one. I fear, venerable
one, that if I were one of your followers I might only seem to bring
my self to peace, that my liberation would be illusory and my self
would in fact continue to exist and grow bigger, as then I would
have the teachings, would have my followers, would have my love
for you, would have the community of monks and all this I would
have made into my self!”

With a half-smile, with unshakeable clarity and friendliness, Gotama

looked the stranger in the eye and took his leave of him with barely
noticeable gesture.

“You are clever, samana,” the venerable one said. “Your arguments,
my friend, are very clever. Take care that you do not become too
clever!”

The buddha walked slowly away, and his look and his half smile
remained forever engraved in Siddhartha’s memory.

I have never before seen anyone look and smile, sit and walk, like
this man, he thought to himself. I truly hope that I, too, will be able
to look and to smile, to sit and to walk as he does, so free, so
venerable, so hidden, so open, so child-like and private. It is only the
man who has penetrated to his innermost self who is truly able to
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