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Please correct me if I am wrong....

LostieLostie Veteran
edited July 2011 in Buddhism Basics
Prince Siddhattha left the palace at 29.

He experimented with all sorts of methods, mostly of the austere kind, including self-mortification for 6 years without much significant progress.

Then in a space of days, He attained enlightenment at aged 35. Is this the mother of all strokes of insight and the culmination of all his 6-year experimentation?

And He stayed enlightened for the next 45 years of His life.

How did He manage to do all this? Perseverance, wisdom and grace? :)


http://www.thisismyanmar.com/nibbana/faqs.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

Comments

  • goshikigoshiki
    Perhaps he fear sickness / old age or death more than us due to his " extra ordinary " lifestyle that makes him awake and realize his pollutant against Buddha.
    He was and will always be introducer of Buddhism to us .
  • thickpaperthickpaper Veteran
    I think he realised that mumbo Jumbo wasnt the answer. The answer was very simple, The Four Noble Truths.
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    Everything is a culmination, we live on the edge of the wave. Can you learn to read without learning the letters and the sounds? Without those having been defined already by someone?

    Where you are in your life, what/who you are, is the result of every experience and every event that has ever happened during your life, not to mention everything that came before. It even includes everyone else, but we usually look only to ourselves and are concerned only with ourselves.
  • DhammaDhatuDhammaDhatu Veteran
    edited August 2011
    He experimented with all sorts of methods, mostly of the austere kind, including self-mortification for 6 years without much significant progress.
    To the contrary, the Buddha made very significant progress in terms of developing mental stillness. Under the most arduous conditions & torture, he could maintain mental stillness.

    Thus, his mind had no obstacles to concentration. All he did not acheive was applying that concentration in the right way
    Then in a space of days, He attained enlightenment at aged 35. Is this the mother of all strokes of insight and the culmination of all his 6-year experimentation?
    I do not recall the scriptures mentioning the # of days but Wikipedia states 49 days, which is alot of days for a mind that had already mastered concentration to the highest level, namely, the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception
    And He stayed enlightened for the next 45 years of His life.
    Once the mental defilements are extinguished via direct insight wisdom, they remain extinguished. The similie used in the scriptures is pulling out a palm tree by the roots/stump. Once this is done, the palm tree does not grow back.

    With metta :)



  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    @Lostie -- What Gautama did or didn't do, did or didn't achieve, is not so much the point. The point is Lostie's peaceful life.
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    It he was 35 years old when he awakened, then it took him 35 years to free his mind from Dukkha. For 29 years he tried the path of indulgence as taught by his father, living the life of a pampered young Prince, and discovered this could not extinguish his desires. For 6 years he tried the path of the aesthetic as taught by the hermits in the forests, and found rejecting the world could not extinguish his desires. Then he took everything he had been taught and learned, sat down, and awakened to the true nature of dukkha. His entire life up till then contributed to this awakening. He knew the dead ends because he'd experienced them.

    So what allowed him to do this? Effort, and the courage to admit to himself that he hadn't found the answer yet and seek what he needed elsewhere.
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    Effort, and the courage to admit to himself that he hadn't found the answer yet and seek what he needed elsewhere.
    Not that I'm remotely enlightened, but that sounds an awful lot like what happened to me a couple of weeks ago :)
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    Effort, and the courage to admit to himself that he hadn't found the answer yet and seek what he needed elsewhere.
    Not that I'm remotely enlightened, but that sounds an awful lot like what happened to me a couple of weeks ago :)
    It's a start, though.
  • AkalikoAkaliko
    edited August 2011


    Thus, his mind had no obstacles to concentration. All he did not acheive was applying that concentration in the right way

    ah.... Vippasanna complemented with Samadhi?

  • LostieLostie Veteran
    Everything is a culmination, we live on the edge of the wave. Can you learn to read without learning the letters and the sounds? Without those having been defined already by someone?

    Where you are in your life, what/who you are, is the result of every experience and every event that has ever happened during your life, not to mention everything that came before. It even includes everyone else, but we usually look only to ourselves and are concerned only with ourselves.
    Appreciate the reply on "everything is a culmination". Thanks!

  • LostieLostie Veteran
    @D Dhatu,

    Thanks for the tree stump simile!
  • DhammaDhatuDhammaDhatu Veteran
    ah.... Vippasanna complemented with Samadhi?
    Indeed. The Buddha discovered vipassana. Instead of attempting to end all thought, the Buddha directed the samadhi mind to seeing the nature/characteristics of phenomena. :)

  • AkalikoAkaliko
    ah.... Vippasanna complemented with Samadhi?
    Indeed. The Buddha discovered vipassana. Instead of attempting to end all thought, the Buddha directed the samadhi mind to seeing the nature/characteristics of phenomena. :)
    Haha.. Thanks DD for the clearer elaboration of Vipassana.
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