In this context, Siddhartha, too, began to reflect on the causes and solution for human suffering and rebirth.
Siddhartha’s path to awareness began one day when he went outside the palace and there unexpectedly saw four things that shook his complacency in royal palace life.
The four things he saw were a sick man, an old man, a dead man, and a shramana (ascetic).
These four sights demonstrated to him that all was not well in the world after all. He resolved to find the root of such suffering, and so he cut his long royal hair so as to look like a renunciate, and then secretly crept away from the palace to live as a shramana. According to Buddhist tradition, he was 29 years old at that time.