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A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the forest and the mountains, was a heron, gobbled fish, hungered as a heron hungers, spoke heron croak, died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay on the sandy shore, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside its corpse, became a dead jackal, lay on the strand, swelled up, stank, putrefied, was dismembered by hyenas, skinned by vultures, became bones, dust, blew in open country. And Siddhartha's soul returned, died, decayed, turned to dust, tasted the muddy rush of the cycle, waiting in new thirst like a hunter for the gap where the cycle could be escaped, where the end of causes, where eternity free of suffering would begin. He mortified his senses, he slew his memory, he slid out of his I into a thousand alien shapes, became beast, carrion, stone, wood, water, and found himself every time awakening again, in the light of the sun or the moon, again he was I, whirling around in the round, he felt thirst, conquered thirst, felt thirst anew.
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