How Buddha experienced enlightenment
How Buddha experienced enlightenment
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How Buddha experienced enlightenment
The Buddha achieved enlightenment by introducing a completely new approach to meditation, making it an ongoing phenomenon integrated into daily life, rather than a separate practice for a set time each day. He rejected traditional methods of meditation that focused on continuous thoughts, and argued that meditation should be as natural as breathing, an ongoing process that would continue even during sleep.
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The Buddha developed and introduced new meditation techniques, such as Vipassana (contemplation) and Vajrayana (deep stages of meditation).
The Buddha developed and introduced new meditation techniques, such as Vipassana (insight) and Vajra (deep meditation stages). Vipassana means introspection and bringing one’s witness to the center of the practice. Through sustained, deep meditation, he attained right concentration, which led to liberation and enlightenment.
The Buddha went through four stages of meditation (jhānas), in which he experienced states of joy and happiness that became purer and deeper with each stage. The fourth stage, the fourth jhāna, was essential to his enlightenment, where he achieved a purity of awareness through equanimity. In this state, he clearly saw the impermanent and impermanent nature of all phenomena, and understood the Four Noble Truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering.
He abandoned his extreme asceticism and the acceptance of Sujata, which marked the end of his fast, was a turning point in his journey to enlightenment. Under the Bodhi tree, with the help of his meditation method, he attained full enlightenment. The Buddha then returned to teach the five monks the insights he had discovered, including the Noble Eightfold Path, the interdependence of all things, and the principle of non-self (anatta).
The Buddha emphasized that correct meditation leads to true wisdom, and that understanding the nature of phenomena and liberation from attachments lead to complete liberation. Over 49 days and nights of practice, he achieved the profound understanding of Nirvana and the holy joy, which freed him from all suffering and distress. After attaining enlightenment, he dedicated his life to teaching others the path to enlightenment.
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How did the Buddha attain enlightenment?
The Buddha introduced a whole new concept of meditation to the world. Before the Buddha, meditation was something you did once or twice a day, an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, and that was it. The Buddha brought a whole new understanding of the whole process of meditation.
He argued that the kind of meditation that you do an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, or maybe four or five times a day, is not very valuable. Meditation cannot be something that you separate from life for an hour or 15 minutes. It must resonate with life, as natural as breathing.
You cannot just breathe for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, because then evening will never come. It must be like breathing. Even when you are sleeping, you are breathing. You can be in a coma, but you continue to breathe. The Buddha stated that meditation must be a continuous phenomenon. Only then can it change you.
He introduced a new meditation technique. His greatest contribution to the world was Jhana Vipassana. Vipassana is a Pali word, the language he spoke often, because as a prince, he had studied Sanskrit, the language of literature.
However, when he spoke, he never used this language because it was the language of the clergy and intellectuals, not the common people. Sanskrit was never a language in everyday use. It is unique compared to all other languages in the world, and is used only by the intellectual and learned elite.
And after it was misunderstood and unrecognized, the masses found it mystical. If you translate it literally, it does not mean anything special, and even meaningless, but its sound is full of musicality. It has the most perfect structure among the languages in the world.
But he decided to speak in the language of the masses. This was a revolutionary step because the language of the masses was not grammatically correct. Thanks to its use, thanks to the common people changing the sounds, the tones, the words became easy to use and uncomplicated.
Pali is a simple language and the language of the naive, uneducated people. Vipassana is their language. The literal meaning of the word is to see and the metaphorical meaning is to witness.
Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, chose a type of meditation called mindfulness meditation. All other types of meditation involve witnessing in different ways. Witnessing is an essential part of any form of meditation and cannot be avoided.
The Buddha eliminated all the rest and left only the main one, witnessing, the special seeing.
Chapter One:
What meditation method did the Buddha use to attain enlightenment? Before attaining enlightenment, the Buddha studied meditation involving applied thought, vitakka, and sustained thought, vikara, under previous meditation teachers. But he did not attain rapture, pitti, and bliss, sukha, because the concentration achieved through these methods was wrong concentration, micha samadhi, which involved both applied thought and sustained thought.
It was only when he accidentally remembered a meditation method from his childhood, which involved neither applied thought nor sustained thought, that he attained right concentration, sama samadhi.
After leaving the royal palace in search of enlightenment, the Buddha studied under two famous teachers of his time to learn the formless meditations, arupajanas, types of concentration involving applied and sustained thought from the ancient practices of the monks. Even after personally experiencing and achieving full results, he still felt that these were not the forms of meditation that lead to true enlightenment and liberation.
During six years of ascetic practices with five friends led by Kandana, he had not found liberation from mental afflictions, despite suffering extreme physical hardships. Therefore, he decided to leave his five friends. The legend of Sujata offering him a bowl of milk rice, which he accepted to break his fast after many years of asceticism, symbolizes his realization that physical asceticism does not lead to liberation of the mind.
Thus, he abandoned it and sought a different practice.
This time, he chose the Bodhi tree near the Niranjana River to meditate, which became one of the most important crossroads in human history, with a story recorded almost by chance in the scriptures. After years of searching for the path to truth with many learned teachers, he still had not found it and had to seek liberation on his own.
Joy and happiness without limits
He recalled a state of boundless joy and happiness that he had accidentally experienced as a child during a ploughing festival in the royal palace. While everyone was happily participating in the festival amidst the spring breezes, the prince sat alone, cross-legged under a tree, meditating, and accidentally experienced a state of profound joy. Unfortunately, he did not explore it further at the time.
Now, as an ascetic under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, Bihar, he followed the method from his childhood to rediscover the state of joy during his nights of practice there. The scriptures describe slightly different descriptions, but essentially, he went through four stages of meditation, jhana. The first jhana, a state of joy and happiness born of detachment, includes both applied thought and sustained thought, vitaka vikara.
The second jhāna, a state of joy and happiness born of concentration, without applied or sustained thought, inner security, single-mindedness of mind, sitas akagata. The third jhāna, the happiness of the fading of joy, maintaining peace, aware and complete. The fourth jhāna, the renunciation of joy and the purity of consciousness due to peace.
As for the fourth state, the Chavisuhāna Sutra mentions, renunciation of pleasure, renunciation of pain, having previously overcome joy and sorrow, he enters and remains in the fourth jhāna, in which there is no pain and no pleasure and the purity of consciousness due to peace. With a mind concentrated, purified, undefiled, undisturbed, flexible, mobile, stable, and attained and not subject to disturbance, the practitioner directs and inclines the mind towards the knowledge of the destruction of desire. He is truly knowing.
This is suffering, dukkha, truly knowing. This is the cause of suffering, truly knowing. This is the cessation of suffering, true knowledge.
This is the path leading to the cessation of suffering, true knowledge. These are the desires, asavas, true knowledge. This is the cause of desires, true knowledge how desires are destroyed, true knowledge. This is the path leading to the destruction of desires. Through such knowledge, through such seeing, the mind of the practitioner is freed from the craving of sensual desire, kamasava, existence, bhavasava, and ignorance, avijasava.
To one who has thus freed himself, knowledge arises. I am liberated. The holy life has been led.
The task is accomplished. There is no return to this state.
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Chapter 2. The Fourth Jhana.
In the Maha Asapura Sutra on the Fourth Jhāna, moreover, monks, the monk abandons pleasure and pain, and the previous feelings of joy and sorrow, in order to enter and remain in the Fourth Jhāna. This state is neither painful nor unpleasant, and involves the purity of consciousness due to equanimity. In this state, the monk pervades his entire body with a pure and clear mind, so that no part of the body is untouched by this pure and clear mind.
Imagine, monks, a person sitting and covering himself completely with a white garment. There is no part of his body that is not covered by this garment. In the same way, monks, the practitioner sits, pervading his entire body with a pure and clear mind.
From the Kultanha Sankhya Sutra. It is not right to be attached to all phenomena. O divine beings, if a monk is guided that it is not right to be attached to all phenomena, he fully understands all phenomena.
Having fully understood all phenomena, whether any sensation that arises, whether pleasant, painful, or neither, such a monk lives contemplating impermanence, contemplating detachment, contemplating cessation, contemplating liberation in these sensations. By living thus, he does not cling to anything in the world. By not clinging, he is not troubled, and by not being troubled, he attains Nibbana.
Such a monk understands, birth has been extinguished, the holy life has been conducted, what was to be done has been done. There is no return to this state of being. In short, to this extent, a monk who has destroyed attachments is liberated, attains peace from suffering, attains the holy life, and attains fulfillment, supreme among gods and men.
In addition to the scriptures mentioned above, there are also other passages that record the Buddha’s attainment of Nibbana under the Bodhi tree, through the meditation method of jhana, samadhi, and samadhi, to attain great enlightenment. However, immediately after his great enlightenment, the Buddha returned to teach the five monks about the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, dependent arising, impermanence, and anatta, the non-self, and later taught the four foundations of awareness.
So what is the connection between the fourth jhana, jhana, and these teachings? Right Concentration and Wrong Concentration Before the Buddha attained enlightenment, he studied meditation with applied thought, vitakka, and sustained thought, vikara, under previous teachers but did not attain rapture, pitti, or bliss, sukka, because the concentration attained from these methods was wrong concentration, mica samadhi, which included both applied thought and sustained thought. It was only when he accidentally remembered a meditation method from his childhood that lacked applied and sustained thought that he developed right concentration, sama samadhi, which led to true bliss and rapture. This discovery was a historic breakthrough in the history of meditation, enabling the Buddha to attain and remain in the advanced jhāna states from the first to the fourth.
Right concentration does not focus on a single object or force the mind to cling to one scene, it allows the mind to be free from fixation, because there is no fixed mind or object to bind it to, because both the mind and the objects are in a continuous flux. Thus, right concentration involves continuously shifting attention from one transient object to another. During his nights under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha continuously experienced these states of right concentration, and upon attaining the fourth jhana, he discovered the true nature of happiness in enlightenment.
Happiness does not arise from any particular object. Certain objects involve applied and sustained thought. The true state of happiness, or nirvana, arises from the joy of the second jhana, the joy of the third jhana to the purity of the fourth jhana, independent of any particular object.
Through this understanding, the Buddha understood suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the method for practicing its cessation, the Four Noble Truths. Having attained right concentration, he contemplated the impermanent nature of all phenomena as recorded in the scriptures. Having fully understood all phenomena, if any sensation arises, whether it is pleasant, painful, or neither, the monk lives contemplating the impermanence, detachment, cessation, and release in these sensations.
By living thus, he does not cling to anything in the world. By not clinging, he is not troubled, and by not being troubled, he attains Nirvana. Thanks to 49 days and nights of practicing jhana meditation and contemplating all phenomena, the Buddha understood the truth about Nirvana and the holy joy that eliminates all suffering and distress, and attained true liberation.
He then proposed a methodical approach divided into four categories, contemplation of the body, practice of right concentration for a liberated mind, contemplation of sensations, mind, and phenomena, reflecting on the arising and ceasing in nature of the laws known as the four foundations of consciousness. Chapter 3. Right Concentration Leads to Wisdom Through the practice of right concentration, samasamadhi, one can contemplate the true nature of arising and passing away phenomena, hence the concept, concentration gives wisdom. However, it should be especially noted that only right concentration leads to true wisdom, samasamadhi, sambujanga, not wrong concentration, mitya samadhi.
By contemplating each moment of the arising and ceasing of phenomena, one can understand the sweetness or pleasure, sukka, the danger of dependence or attachment to the sweetness of an object, vittaka vikara, and thus renounce attachment, or fixation, on such objects, and fully liberate oneself, as declared by the Buddha in the Nikaya scriptures. Monks, the Tathagata, through understanding the arising and ceasing of sensations, their attraction, their danger, and their escape, is completely liberated without residual fixation. By contemplating each moment of the arising and passing away of phenomena, one can understand the dependent arising of all phenomena, arising from mutual conditions, interaction, and new results that arise, which become new results when they arise with other results.
Hence phenomena are impermanent, anika, not eternally existent, and are independent, unconnected, anatta. Such is the nature of the phenomena of the Tathagata. They come from nowhere, arise from interactions and disappear from new conditions of further interactions, go nowhere.
They exist uniquely once in a lifetime, not permanent, and no one owns the other, possessorless, selfless. Through mindful contemplation, sati, of each real moment of sensations arising from dependent arising, related to the bases of feeling for the six objects of feeling, the Buddha developed a path of practice that includes serenity meditation, samatha, jhana meditation, and insight meditation, vipassana, beginning with right mindfulness, right effort, right concentration, right thought, right view, insight or wisdom, leading to right speech, right action, right livelihood, in fact the Noble Eightfold Path.
Later, beginners in the Dharma begin from right view, right thought, to right concentration, also known as the Noble Eightfold Path. Conclusion. The four foundations of consciousness are the path to enlightenment. In the part of right concentration, the method of practice is the four jhānas for attaining a liberated state of mind through the path.
The foundations of feeling touch the six objects of feeling, creating sensations and identifying awareness. Sati, mindful, without applied or sustained thought, later known as contemplation on the body, will lead to right concentration, the fourth jhāna. And because of contemplating the dharma in the jhāna states, then one understands the characteristics of feelings, dharma, also known as right view, knowing the truth, or understanding the dharma, or also called insight wisdom, vipassana, and thus gives up all attachments and mental distress, the wisdom of liberation.
After 49 days and nights of practicing jhana for right concentration, and from there contemplating the Dharma, Vipassana, also known as the Four Foundations of Awareness, is the path that the Buddha practiced and attained enlightenment. From there, he taught the five monks and then disciples when he preached the Dharma in various places, and even until the end of his life, when he entered Prinibbana, he reiterated this enlightenment, consistently from scriptural wisdom, or Dharma learning, to intellectual wisdom and Dharma practice, and eda ditti kriya, to the attainment of Arahant liberation. Birth has been extinguished, the holy life has been conducted, what had to be done has been done.
There is no return to this state of existence, attainment of Dharma or escape from the cycle of birth and death.
Here are some recommendations for daily practice according to the principles of Buddhism and Vipassana meditation:
Morning Meditation
1. Start your day with a short meditation: Spend 10-15 minutes each morning meditating. Sit in a quiet, comfortable place, focus on your breathing, and observe your thoughts without judgment.
2. Mindful Breathing: Focus on your breathing. Breathe deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Focus on the sensation of the air going in and out of your body.
Meditate throughout the day
3. Walking Meditation: During the day, take a few minutes to take a meditative walk. Focus on the sensations in your body as you walk, the pace, and the sensations with each step.
4. Pay attention to daily actions: Practice mindfulness during everyday activities like eating, washing dishes, or commuting to work. Be present in the moment and try not to get carried away by thoughts about the past or the future.
Evening Meditation
5. Review the Day: Take a few minutes before bed to review the day. Observe the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that have arisen during the day without judgment.
6. Calming Meditation: Before bed, do a short meditation to calm your mind and body. Sit in a comfortable position, focus on your breathing, and breathe deeply and slowly.
Additional Practices
7. Meditative Writing: Spend time meditatively writing. Write down the thoughts, feelings, and insights that have arisen during the day. Writing can help release tension and strengthen awareness.
8. Body Sensation Awareness: During the day, stop for a moment and focus on the sensations in your body. Ask yourself how you feel physically and emotionally at that moment.
Creating a Practice Environment
9. Quiet Practice Environment: Find a quiet place in your home where you can practice meditation without interruptions. Use cushions or a comfortable chair to make it easier to sit.
10. Regular Times: Set regular times during the day to practice meditation. Consistency is the key to deepening your practice.
Support and learning
11. Meditation groups: Join meditation groups or attend workshops. Support from others can help deepen your practice and understanding.
12. Reading and deepening: Read books or listen to lectures on meditation and mindfulness to expand your knowledge and understanding of the subject.
These practices can help make meditation an integral part of daily life and help you achieve calmness, peace of mind, and deep insights.
