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The Quest for Enlightenment
The Quest for Enlightenment
From the heights of classical Buddhology, I will now descend to the plain of human history and briefly review the life of
the Buddha up to his attainment of enlightenment. This will allow me to give a short summary of the main points of his teaching,
emphasizing those that are especially relevant today.
At the outset I must stress that the Buddha was not born as an Enlightened One. Though he had qualified himself for Buddhahood
through his past lives, he first had to undergo a long and painful struggle to find the truth for himself. The future Buddha
was born as Siddhartha Gautama in the small Sakyan republic close to the Himalayan foothills, a region that at present lies
in southern Nepal. While we do not know the exact dates of his life, many scholars believe he lived from approximately 563
to 483 B.C.; a smaller number place the dates about a century later. Legend holds he was the son of a powerful monarch, but
the Sakyan state was actually a tribal republic, and thus his father was probably the chief of the ruling council of elders.
As a royal youth, Prince Siddhartha was raised in luxury. At the age of sixteen he married a beautiful princess named Yasodhara
and lived a contented life in the capital, Kapilavastu. Over time, however, the prince became increasingly pensive. What troubled
him were the great burning issues we ordinarily take for granted, the questions concerning the purpose and meaning of our
lives. Do we live merely for the enjoyment of sense pleasures, the achievement of wealth and status, the exercise of power?
Or is there something beyond these, more real and fulfilling? At the age of 29, stirred by deep reflection on the hard realities
of life, he decided that the quest for illumination had a higher priority than the promise of power or the call of worldly
duty. Thus, while still in the prime of life, he cut off his hair and beard, put on the saffron robe, and entered upon the
homeless life of renunciation, seeking a way to release from the round of repeated birth, old age, and death.
The princely ascetic first sought out the most eminent spiritual teachers of his day. He mastered their doctrines and systems
of meditation, but soon enough realized that these teachings did not lead to the goal he was seeking. He next adopted the
path of extreme asceticism, of self-mortification, which he pursued almost to the door of death. Just then, when his prospects
looked bleak, he thought of another path to enlightenment, one that balanced proper care of the body with sustained contemplation
and deep investigation. He would later call this path "the middle way" because it avoids the extremes of sensual indulgence
and self-mortification.
Having regained his strength by taking nutritious food, one day he approached a lovely spot by the bank of the Neranjara River,
near the town of Gaya. He sat down cross-legged beneath a tree (later called the Bodhi Tree), making a firm resolution that
he would never rise up from his seat until he had won his goal. As night descended he entered into deeper and deeper stages
of meditation. Then, the records tell us, when his mind was perfectly composed, in the first watch of the night he recollected
his past births, even during many cosmic aeons; in the middle watch, he developed the "divine eye" by which he could see beings
passing away and taking rebirth in accordance with their karma; and in the last watch, he penetrated the deepest truths of
existence, the most basic laws of reality. When dawn broke, the figure sitting beneath the tree was no longer a bodhisattva,
a seeker of enlightenment, but a Buddha, a Perfectly Enlightened One, who had stripped away the subtlest veils of ignorance
and attained the Deathless in this very life. According to Buddhist tradition, this event occurred in May of his thirty-fifth
year, on the Vesak full moon. This is the second great occasion in the Buddha's life that Vesak celebrates: his attainment
of enlightenment.
For several weeks the newly enlightened Buddha remained in the vicinity of the Bodhi Tree contemplating from different angles
the truth he had discovered. Then, as he gazed out upon the world, his heart was moved by deep compassion for those still
mired in ignorance, and he decided to go forth and teach the liberating Dharma. In the months ahead his following grew by
leaps and bounds as both ascetics and householders heard the new gospel and went for refuge to the Enlightened One. Each year,
even into old age, the Buddha wandered among the villages, towns, and cities of northeast India, patiently teaching all who
would lend an ear. He established an order of monks and nuns, the Sangha, to carry on his message. This order still remains
alive today, perhaps (along with the Jain order) the world's oldest continuous institution. He also attracted many lay followers
who became devout supporters of the Blessed One and the order
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