Buddha's 49 continous days meditating

[Ether]

How do you feel about this?

[Joseph Maynor]

I love meditating more and more so I get it. 

[Prabhaker]

@Ether

Futility of all effort

Buddha tried for six years continuously to know what the divine is, and it cannot be said that he left anything undone. He did everything that is humanly possible, even some things which seem humanly impossible. He did everything. Whatever was known up to his day he practiced. Whatever methods were taught to him, he became a master of them.

He went to all the gurus that existed in his time, to everyone. And whatever they could teach, he learned, he practiced. And then he said, "Anything more, Sir?" And the guru said, "Now you can go, because all that I could give you I have given, and I cannot say, as I say in other cases, that you have not practiced. You have practiced. This is all that I can give." Buddha said, "I have not known the divine yet."

With each guru this happened. Then he left all the gurus. Then he invented his own methods. Continuously, for six years, he was in a struggle of life and death. He did everything that could be done. Then, at last, he was so tired of doing, so deadly tired, that one day when he was taking his evening bath in the Niranjana River near Bodhgaya, he felt so weak and so tired that he could not come out of the river. He just clung to a root of a tree and a thought came to his mind, "I have become so weak, I cannot even cross this small river. How will I be alive to cross the whole ocean of the world? I have done everything, and I have not found the divine. I have only tired my body."

He felt that he was on the verge of death. At that very moment he felt that he had done everything, and now there was nothing to do. He relaxed, and new energy came upon him because of his relaxation. All that was suppressed through those six years flowered. He came out of the river, he felt just like a feather, a bird's feather -- weightless. He relaxed under a Bodhi tree.

It was a bright fullmoon night. Someone came -- a girl, a shudra girl named Sujata. The name shows that the girl must have been a shudra because to have the name Sujata means she has not come from a higher caste. Sujata means wellborn. She had promised the Bodhi tree to pay it some homage daily, so she has come with some sweets.

Buddha is there -- tired, pale, bloodless, but relaxed, absolutely unburdened -- and it is a fullmoon night with nobody around. The girl, Sujata, felt that the deity of the tree had come to receive her homage. Had it been another day, Buddha could have refused. He would not rest in the night, he would not eat any food. But today he was totally relaxed. He took the food, and he slept. This was the first night after six years that he really slept.

He was relaxed with nothing to do. Then there was no worry. There was no tomorrow even, because tomorrow exists only because one has to do something. If one has not to do anything, then there is no tomorrow. Then the moment is enough.

Buddha slept, and in the morning, at five o'clock, when the last star was withering away, he was out of the sleep. He saw the last star disappearing, with no mind, because when you have nothing to do there is no mind. The mind is just a faculty for doing something, a technical faculty. No mind, nothing to do, no effort on his part, indifferent to whether he was alive or dead, he just opened his eyes, and he began to dance. He had come to that knowing to which he could not come through so many efforts.

Source: “I Am the Gate” By Osho

[Deep]

@Ether It's possible to meditate permanently. It's called sahaja samadhi. 

[Faceless]

27 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Futility of all effort

Effort implies time,self, thought.....dog chasing its tail 

[Faceless]

5 minutes ago, Outer said:

Why did the Buddha measure how many days he's meditated?

I Question whether he did. Whether he meditated for that many days that is 

Edited March 7, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

As far as concentrated meditation, one would go insane doing that for so long.

[Neo]

Quote

Futility of all effort

Me and my wife were having trouble conceiving, (not right now - we are pregnant) however, back at the time every friend and acquaintance took every opportunity to tell us how they knew *someone*, and that when they stopped trying for a child, then they got pregnant. We heard this until we were sick of it from 100 different friends. Yes we're trying too hard lol.

But this rings true in enlightenment. It sounds perfectly possible to me that the effort involved can impede progress.

[Ether]

@Prabhaker I love it!

[NoSelfSelf]

10 months non stop meditating 

[Ether]

@NoSelfSelf He planned for 6 years