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What is the best 'descriptive' story of buddhas Enlightenment? What made him enlightened?
zenmyste
Veteran
There a many books on what the buddha TAUGHT???
But i had yet to find a decent descriptive source that talks about HOW and WHY he became enlightened...
We know that 'siddhartha' set out in search to find inner peace , happiness - enlightenment!
He studied with lots of teachers!
He then meditated under a tree...
BUT THEN WHAT???
How did his suffering end???
And how did he attain enlightenment!
But i had yet to find a decent descriptive source that talks about HOW and WHY he became enlightened...
We know that 'siddhartha' set out in search to find inner peace , happiness - enlightenment!
He studied with lots of teachers!
He then meditated under a tree...
BUT THEN WHAT???
How did his suffering end???
And how did he attain enlightenment!
0
Comments
But according to Rob Burbea the became enlightened when he was investigating the 12 links of dependent origination. He was down to what is the condition for consciousness? Name and form. And then he asked what is the condition for name and form? Consciousness. Right there, he realized the profound unborn nature of everything.
1. I wanted to know about buddhas enlightenment 'because' he is the one teachings us that enlightenment is possible, therefore i want to read about it then please!!
2. Im not just going to practice something on blind faith! I want to read about his enlightenment, what he did, what he saw, and then i would make my own mind up!!!
As a concept it's totally subjective.
Did Buddha get what I would conceive of as enlightenment? I don't know and more so it really doesn't matter because his enlightenment is not mine. I study the teachings not because of some event in his life or the promise of my own liberation but because these teachings are IMO full of wisdom and truth and I find them to be excellent guides for my life. Enlightenment or not, it really does not matter, the truth is right in front of you.
Therefore IT SHOULD MATTER to you!
Part of the story of how he attained enlightenment is by overcoming the temptations of the demon Mara as he sat under the bodhi tree. He had determined that he would not move from the spot unless he reached enlightenment, even if it meant dying before he reached the goal.
He wanted to find a way in which one might be able to meet those three realities, and transcend the sorrow, and suffering which seemed to go hand in hand with them - and find a way of releasing the grip all humans have on grasping and clinging....
That was the original motive.
He never even thought or considered Enlightenment, inner peace or happiness to be any form of goals.
They are by-products of the release from suffering.
The point of following his teachings is that we might realise the Noble Truths for ourselves, and transcend suffering as he did.
I wouldnt just make it up without a source!
I have got my knowledge from a great source, and that source was a follower of the buddha , in thailand!
I attended a talk, and even got to speak to him private! He made it clear that siddartha the prince DID set out to find liberation and enlightenment and happiness etc... and he even stated that is what we all want (deep down) etc etc!!!
So, woof woof!!!
I didn't read "He sought enlightenment, happiness or inner peace' in any of them.
@zenmyste, Just because a monk told you such things doesn't make it accurate.
Remember the Kalama Sutta.
Question everything (and me too, and rightly so!) but don't discard or accept anything without first testing it for yourself and researching it as far as you can.
Mahayana states that homosexuality is unacceptable. Theravada makes no such distinction.
So which would be correct to your way of thinking?
Remember, it would be monks passing on these instructions.
And there's no need to be rude or snarky with it, ok?
Coming back with sarcasm and rudeness is not acceptable, no matter who you're talking to.
Got that?
Seriously. :-/
I've never read it.
I have read that he witnessed old age, sickness and death and decided to leave his palace to seek ways of ending suffering.
Whatever else he may have been thinking, I don't know. I only know what I've read, and I didn't read that.
Is that the point? Maybe it is for you.
The teachings point to reality, they say here it is right in front of you, to me that's profound in and of itself and more than enough justification to lend them my ear. Being mired in concepts can't liberate (concept) or enlighten (concept) me (concept).
Such information doesn't make it any more reliable.
You have to go with what you discover and research, examine and scrutinise FOR YOURSELF.
Test everything until you find what resonates solidly for you.
His suffering DIDN'T end.
He still 'suffered'.
he just didn't let it impinge on his existence.
he attained enlightenment through Sitting and via meditation.
Follow your nose and rub it raw until you find what you seek and it brings you satisfaction in your quest for knowledge.
Of apparent chronic intestinal inflammation due to eating something that disagreed with him.
That's suffering on a physical plane, but the Buddha transcended that and took it in his stride.....
Do some research - don't take my word for it - remember?
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_25.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/prince/bl036.html
This story is in multiple suttas, sometimes parts of it. Sometimes suttas that explain certain parts it in more detail. I'm sorry I can't recollect which gives the fullest description, so for now I'll quote this one: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html
Stop being argumentative, and pedantic.
He didn't set out to seek happiness, True or otherwise.
But he explained that renouncing what is worldy, transient, relative and limited, brought a person to that state.
Clearer, now?
In the suttas the Buddha did seek for enlightenment or nirvana, a way beyond sickness and death. When he found it, at times he did call it the highest happiness, and at other times he simply called it the removal of suffering. Both represent a certain perspective. Also useful to recognize that his nirvana before his death and his nirvana after his death are not the same.
Gautama left the palace after seeing disease, old age, death and a monk. Or anyway, that's how the story is told. We can guess all we like about what his motives were, but the fact is that we don't know. What we can get a handle on a little better is what he is alleged to have taught ... teachings that varied according to his audience, but seemed to boil down pretty much to "here's a way to be at peace; here's a way to be happy." Since most of us would like to ride that bike, we gather up our courage and patience and doubt and give it a whirl. Do we know for a fact that we will become bike-riders? Nope. But we can know that whether Gautama was telling the truth or lying ... either way, it doesn't add or subtract from your happiness or mine. Running around asking others "what it's actually like" to be happy may result in some encouragement ... but in the end, it doesn't amount to much.
Reading books or gathering the responses of those who have dedicated themselves either to bike-riding or Buddhism is par for the course. No one wants to be bamboozled by some hot-shot charlatan. Finding the best possible sources is good research and makes good sense. Its only drawback lies in the fact that no matter how wonderful the research and no matter how delicious the conclusions drawn from that research, it's not the same as being happy or at peace... or, if it is, you've really missed the boat.
Is Buddhist practice a risk? You bet your ass it is. Will you get hurt along the way? I think you can count on it, but you may be smarter than I ever was. Will you ever really be able to ride this bike or are you destined to fall off over and over again forever? I don't know and neither do you. No matter how many monks or adepts or texts you listen to and admire and credit ... still, it's your life...
And your happiness...
And your peace.
Practice tells the tale, whether in bike-riding or Buddhism or anything else for that matter. There simply is no substitute for experience. It has nothing to do with better or worse, holy or unholy, elevated or debased. Experience has to do with fact.
He didn't set out to seek happiness, True or otherwise.
But he explained that renouncing what is worldy, transient, relative and limited, brought a person to that state.
Clearer, now?
Not being allowed to argue the point, YES, I completely agree!
Is that a rule we now have?
I doubt it.
And if we were to eliminate the the posts with no sources, we wouldn't have much of a forum.
There's nothing wrong with occasionally asking references. But I am just as interested in hearing people's opinions.
I didn't say the above to offend anybody or be a hypocrite, because likely I've said similar things on this forum, but perhaps it gets the discussion on topic because I find it quite a good question. Many people have heard about the Buddha getting enlightened, but don't know (one version of) how it supposedly went. But reading about it can get us some better idea of what enlightenment actually is, so it is important.
Ok, enough meta discussion for me. So back to the text, to also get myself back on topic again.
By the way in Theravadan view, which reflects these pali suttas, one does not need to be fully enlightened to understand what enlightenment is.
There is also a text in the pali canon I think that says the Buddha went to sit beneath the Bodhi tree and made the decision not to rise before he had reached enlightenment. But I have bad memory in these kind of things so I can't find it now.
In the Theravada tradition, we are often reminded to recollect the Buddha's Great Compassion (Mahakaruna). For this, we look back into the Buddha's past lives to see what first prompted him to resolve to take the extremely long and arduous path towards enlightenment in order to become a Teaching Buddha.
According to the Pali texts, the Buddha Gautama, more than four incalculable aeons ago, was an ascetic by the name of Sumedha. When Sumedha met the past Buddha Dipankara, the former made for the first time ever an aspiration to achieve Buddhahood. The Buddha Dipankara then made the prediction that Sumedha would in fact achieve his aspiration and become a fully awakened being. After such prediction, Sumedha then became a Bodhisattva and had to live through incalculable lifetimes in which he developed the ten perfections required for Buddhahood (as partly recorded in the Jataka stories of the Pali Canon). During that time, he renewed his Bodhisattva's vow at the feet of a further 23 past Buddhas. In his final lifetime as Prince Siddhartha he achieved enlightenment as predicted by Buddha Dipankara and founded the current Buddhist religion.
The story of the Buddha Gautama shows that in his past lifetime as Sumedha when he made his first aspiration to become a Teaching Buddha, he could have become an arahant, but instead of taking this easier option, he decided to take upon himself the much longer and more strenuous path towards enlightenment as a Teaching Buddha in order to help other beings attain enlightenment/nirvana. In the Buddhavamsa (the Chronicle of the Buddhas which is part of the Sutta Pitaka) it was recorded that while lying on the ground at Buddha Dipankara's feet, the following thought occurred to Sumedha: So we can conclude that the Buddha's first and foremost reason for taking the path towards enlightenment is in order to become a Teaching Buddha. This was a wholly selfless decision where he turned away the immediate benefits of escaping samasara through arahantship to pursue the more ardous path of becoming a Teaching Buddha. Thus it is often said that the Buddha sought enlightenment out of his Great Compassion (Mahakaruna) to end the suffering of other beings.
This is why the Buddha is one of the three jewels. He was a proclaimed enlightened teacher. This is rare and mostly the domain of the deluded, the fake, the incomplete and premature and the self aggrandising - ah yes that would be my sort of Buddhism, when I become a Buddha.
Fortunately the Buddhas legacy, instigated a heritage of teachers and diversity of experienced, verified sangha and dharma.
Such a level of commitment is unique. In other religions we have . . . well you know what we have . . .
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel390.html
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha. :clap:
@Nevermind, finally, you're getting it.
Good strategy.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the answer is not in the sutras. Well, it is in the sutras, but at a level that works best for monks and others who can immediately identify what is being said from their practice.
If we cannot do this, then it is very difficult to imagine what it means to say that the Buddha realised the unreality of suffering, or how he could have achieved this realisation. And unless there is an answer that can be roughly understood by a non-practitioner, then the Buddha's achievement may seem to be something we have to take entirely on faith.
If I was recommending something to read that might shed light on this, I would probably suggest going outside the Buddhist literature and adventuring into metaphysics and psychology. But I'm not sure I understand what the exact question is here. Is it 'what is enlightenment?', or is it 'how did the Buddha realise it?'.
Here is Alan Wallace saying something relevant.
"Conceptually unstructured awareness – which is nondual from the phenomena that arise to it – is regarded as the ultimate reality, and the realisation of such nondual consciousness is the final goal of contemplative practice, In this experience, the very distinction between public, external space, in which physical phenomena appear to occur, and private, internal space, in which mental phenomena appear to occur, dissolves into a "mysterious space"," which is the very nonduality between the conceptually constructed external and internal spaces. The ultimate nature of objective phenomena, therefore, is found to be none other then the ultimate nature of subjective phenomena; and that is the nonduality of appearances and awareness. When one achieves perfect realisation of this state, in which there is no longer any difference between one’s awareness during and after formal meditation sessions, it is claimed that one’s consciousness becomes boundless in terms of the scope of its knowledge, compassion, and power. Hence, the contemplative pursuit of such realisation is said to be the most sublime of sciences."
Alan Wallace
The Taboo of Subjectivity (117)
From when he 'sat down' under the tree (and vowed not to move until he attained enlightenment) to becoming enlightened... What happened???
HOW, WHY and WHAT made him become enlightened??
What the Buddha realized is of course portrayed in all of his teachings, not just the accounts of his awakening. Things like the four noble truths, the eight fold path, dependent origination explain his realization in other ways. But as for the process of his awakening, in the earliest texts that is always described similar to the text I quoted.
I'm not trying to argue the suttas are some kind of holy text in which everything is true and to be believed, help no. But I find it kind of saddening how little Buddhist actually read them or know about them. While modern books sell by the millions probably..
People that say you have to be enlightened to know how the Buddha became enlightened, I think speak in the dark more so than these texts. Two possibilities: they are not enlightened so how could they know? And even if they are enlightened, it is not likely everybody becomes enlightened in exactly the same way. In the suttas we see people getting enlightened in different ways. So what one experiences is not what the Buddha experienced per se. Core elements will be the same, but not everything. For example not everybody was able to recollect their previous lives like the Buddha seemingly did, while for the Buddha this was a major part of his process of awakening. And others may recall previous lives but not become enlightened at all.
If there are stories before 'and' after buddhas enlightenment then surely there must be stories 'about' his enlightenment (inbetween sitting down and actually becoming enlightened)
What did he see exactly?
What made him enlightened??
There must have been something that made him say "ahhhh, i get it now"
Surely we cant just take his word for it that a man 2500 years ago became enlightened and that the '8 fold path' is the way to enlightenment ourselves!!
Even on the day of his enlightenment, his disciples must have asked "what did you see siddhartha?? What has made you see sense?? Whats caused you to attain enlightenment????? The answers must be 'somewhere' surely?
History about the buddha surely cannot just skip from 'vowing to sit under a tree in meditation' to BAM...hes suddenly enlightened!
?
And the 8 fold path may not be the path to enlightenment because wasnt buddha just 'sitting in meditation' when he attained enlightenment?? He wasnt following the 8 fold path was he?
Another interesting sutta talking about what happened before and after:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html
Another interesting sutta talking about what happened before and after:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html
Thank you! Ill give this a read now!
As far as I know, the part common to multiple suttas is the part I quoted before. These parts are more likely to be core teachings, because obviously it would be less likely for multiple suttas to contain an inaccuracy than just one.
I think im slowly becoming 'detached' from 'buddhism' (or at least from some of the more 'far fetched' teachings of buddhism)
I like meditation. I like the 5 precepts!
I like the calm, chilled out kind-of-way that buddhist monks live their lives!
(I dont necessarily believe the '8 fold path is the way to enlightenment)
I dont believe in rebirth or reincaration!
I dont believe in bodhisattva's and how some people can choose to stay and help others instead of entering nivarna! Etc etc!!!
Theres alot more i dont necessarily like/agree
I do however like ZEN and i like how Bodhidharma asserted that Zen is a "special transmission outside scriptures” which does NOT rely upon words" etc...
Anyway, i think im gonna take a break from this site (as i do every now and again)
im sure ill be back in the future with more questions that i need answering! lol!
Cheers everyone! Take care!
Zenmyste!!!! X
_/|\_
There is a tantric teaching or it might be for kids, about how an enlightened ferryman I think it is, rows past the Buddha, nearing enlightenment, under the Bodhi tree. The ferryman makes some comment, that pushes the Buddha into an awakened 'state'.
What did the ferryman say? Can not remember the story exactly but then do we hear when our ears are open?
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Row,_Row,_Row_Your_Boat
I left this thread alone for some reason but finally read it because of the millage it was getting.
I few thoughts.
I think much of the difficulty in asking what the Buddha got or attained with enlightenment is that it presupposes that there was something to get or attain. While this is a normal egocentric approach for the typical illusory identity builder, it has little to do with the "Zen" that you say you like.
Zen would say that the Buddha just successfully released his hold on getting or attaining anything.
Since most folks still embroiled with their identity construction are unlikely to find that notion appealing, Buddhists cart out the supplementary sweets that arise from enlightened action to entice folks to try out the path for themselves. Some call this using greed positively. Many Zenists say the 8 fold path in not just the way to enlightenment, but is actually enlightenment itself. Zen spends little time worrying about belief or disbelief and instead says to just become a manifestation of the 8 fold path.
Your Quote.. I do however like ZEN and i like how Bodhidharma asserted that Zen is a "special transmission outside scriptures” which does NOT rely upon words" etc
This transmission outside the scriptures is often misappropriated. All it means is that the scriptures are a reflection of enlightened understanding, not the same as.
It does not denagrate the importance of the scriptures or suggest they are not fundamental to a practise but instead says the scriptures point the way to but are not the same as enlightened understanding.
Like the difference between a finger pointing at the moon and the moon itself.
And finally, Federica's responses to your posts on this thread, although from a different Buddhist school, could have come from any Soto Zen teacher.