Curious "The" Buddha Facts

[Ether]

@Prabhaker Well, it also depends if people are aware another type of mindset\living is possible.

It is not known to the mainstream.

[Prabhaker]

13 hours ago, Ether said:

Well, it also depends if people are aware another type of mindset\living is possible. 

It is not known to the mainstream.

There are thousands of monks, spiritual seekers in east they become idiots instead of becoming enlightened. So sometimes an idiot can also appear to be saint-like. They are not cunning; to be cunning, intelligence is needed. Idiots are simple, innocent, non-cunning, non-calculating. You can fall down below the mind: then too a no-mind happens, but it is not meditation, if you are not blissful.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Prabhaker
punctuation

[Ether]

@Prabhaker got any more?

[sarapr]

Wow this is amazing havent even read all of them 

[sarapr]

These stories seem to portray enlightenment as a one time happening unlike what Leo says 

[Prabhaker]

9 hours ago, sarapr said:

These stories seem to portray enlightenment as a one time happening unlike what Leo says 

There is a difference between awakening, self-realization, and enlightenment. We use common term 'Enlightenment' for all experiences on this forum.

These stories do not describe details of Buddha's six years long journey towards enlightenment.

[Prabhaker]

~ Gautam Buddha's Enlightenment ~

 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 (untouchables in india) 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.

Whenever someone would ask him how he achieved, he would say, "The more I tried to achieve, the more I was at a loss. I could not achieve. So how can I say I have achieved? The more I tried, the more I was involved. I could not achieve. The mind was trying to transcend itself, which was impossible. It is just like trying to be a father to yourself, just trying to give birth to yourself."

So Buddha would say, "I cannot say I achieved. I can only say I tried so much that I was annihilated. I tried so much that any effort became absurd. And the moment came when I was not trying, when the mind was not, when I was not thinking. Then there was no future because there was no past. Both were always together. Past is behind, future is in front; they are always conjoined. If one drops, the other drops simultaneously. Then there was no future, no past, no mind. I was mindless, I was I-less. Then something happened, and I cannot say that this something happened in that moment. I can only say that this was always happening, only I was not aware. It was always happening, only I was closed. So I cannot say I have achieved something."

Buddha said, "I can only say I have lost something -- the ego, the mind -- I have not achieved anything at all. Now I know that all that I have was always there. It was in every layer, it was in every stone, in every flower, but now I recognize it was always so. Only I was blind. So I have lost my blindness; I have not achieved anything, I have lost something."

[Ether]

@Prabhaker Got anymore?

Btw, I read two stories, that he meditated for 49 days and attained liberation, that he meditated for 5 straight and attained liberation at a full moon and this one.

Which one is true?

[Prabhaker]

@Ether

 Many people have attained enlightenment on the full moon night. 

It may have been a coincidence, but it is significant to remember: Buddha was born on the full-moon night, he became enlightened on the full-moon night and he died on the full-moon night. Something in the full moon seemed to be synchronizing with his energy.

The 7 week – 49 day – period is the most common. 

Now Westerners have started learning yoga postures, in which the lotus posture is the most important because Buddha became enlightened in that posture.  

But Mahavira, became enlightened sitting in a certain pose which is very strange because you are rarely found in that pose. In yoga that posture is called, "cow-milking posture." In India, machines are not used; men sit on a tripod and milk the cows by hand. But what is accidental, people start thinking of as if it is the cause — as if that posture is a necessity for enlightenment.

Nothing is a necessity for enlightenment because enlightenment is not caused by anything that you can do. It is not a certain sequence of causes that brings enlightenment. Enlightenment happens only when you are absent, so utterly silent that it is not your doing.

[Nahm]

5 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

There is a difference between awakening, self-realization, and enlightenment. We use common term 'Enlightenment' for all experiences on this forum.

These stories do not describe details of Buddha's six years long journey towards enlightenment.

I agree and it would be more useful to differentiate in general. 

[Ether]

@Nahm @Prabhaker Whats the difference between awakening and enlightenment? Are they not the same thing?

And whats self-realization anyways? Isnt it feeling totally fulfilled? A.K.A Enlightenment?

[Arkandeus]

@Ether

thank you for this thread!

@Prabhaker

thank you for these amazing stories

 

[Prabhaker]

10 hours ago, Ether said:

Whats the difference between awakening and enlightenment? Are they not the same thing?

And whats self-realization anyways?

It is important to first recognize that we are not necessarily using a common language. And it is not just the spiritual teachers who use ‘awakening’ with different meanings; you can find references from the enlightened masters as well. Although if one looks carefully at the context in which the words are being used it is not as confusing as it seems.

Awakening is when one realizes oneself to be out of the mind’s conditioning. Here one is being out of the mind and is able to see the mind clearly as an object of perception. It is not that the mind has disappeared, no, but one is not living within the mind. And it is here that witnessing really emerges. The mind is still present but one is not captive to its many grips. But it is important at this stage to allow witnessing its full force through meditation.  If one is not mindful it is extremely easy to slip back into the clutches of the mind. But one is also able to see the horizon. One knows what needs to happen. 

Awakening means that the dream is over , the dream of unconsciousness we all spend most of our lives in. Awakening is dropping the false, entering into the real; just being yourself. Before Awakening you are just a person, a personality which is consequence of living in the society, but not an individuality. Before awakening you are a person, not an individual. 'Person' comes from a root which means persona, a mask. Awakening gives you individuation. 

Awakening is getting very close to your center. And as you get closer to the center, falling back becomes more and more difficult because your new experience is gathering power, strength, experience, and the old is losing. But the old is still there; it has not disappeared. Ordinarily people don’t fall from awakening, but the possibility remains: one can fall.

Self-realization is reaching to your center.  Buddha used 'no-self realization'. The is-ness will be felt. Nowhere will there be the feeling of I or of am; only that which is remains. So here will be the perception of reality, of being - the perception of consciousness. But here the consciousness is free of me; it is no longer my consciousness. It is only consciousness. Many religions have believed that self-realization is the end, you can't become one with existence (or God). It is almost impossible to fall back from self-realization. Some meditators stop here. Now what more is there to seek? What is to be sought? Nothing remains to be sought. Now everything is attained, because there seems to be nothing ahead. 

No-self realization is the last barrier in the ultimate quest of the seeker. Now only the being remains, but non-being has yet to be realized. Then one quantum leap more, disappearing into the eternal, into the infinite. You are no more, only existence is. The ultimate truth can only be known when both are known , existence and nonexistence.

Language is inadequate to express it; that’s why it is called an “experience”. It is not an experience, because in experience there is a division of the experiencer and the experienced, and in this experience, the ultimate, there is no division. You are the knower, you are the known, you are the seer, you are the seen, you are the experiencer, you are the experienced . Buddha called it Nirvana, the Enlightenment.

[Ether]

@Arkandeus Np, I love Buddha's stories.

@Prabhaker Oh ok, thanks  Have you awakened? Or at least had an amazing "experience" with it? I once experienced inner peace but that is it. Been pursuing it since that moment.

[Ether]

@Prabhaker Whats the most interesting thing about Buddha, in your opinion?

[Prabhaker]

Buddha had seen all that was possible in those days for a man of power and riches to see, but he could not find peace, contentment, silence. He could not find himself. Utterly frustrated, he moved out of the palace one night

Buddha was afraid that if he went into the mountains of his own kingdom, his father’s armies would find him; he would not be able to escape. He was the only son of an old king, who was hoping that he would succeed him. And he had made a big kingdom for him So he immediately passed beyond the boundaries of his kingdom to the neighboring kingdom. And the king was very furious. He ordered the armies not to leave even a single inch unsearched: ”Look around, all over the country.”

Gautam Buddha was not found, but he was not aware that the kingdom he had entered belonged to a friend of his father. So the father informed this king and other kings surrounding his kingdom, ”You have to find my son. In my old age at least you can do this much for me; we have been friends.”

The neighboring king found Gautam Buddha and he said, ”If you are angry, if you have fought with your father… It happens. It is not something strange or unfamiliar; fathers and sons have always been fighting. Don’t be worried. I have only one daughter and no son – get married to my daughter and you will have two kingdoms together. Your father is old; he cannot live long. And my kingdom is far bigger than your father’s. He is my friend and I have come with a request. You have everything to gain, nothing to lose.

You get a beautiful wife, a great kingdom, and of course your own kingdom is there. You will be a greater king than me or your father because your kingdom will be bigger than the kingdoms we have. You will have two kingdoms together.”

Gautam Buddha said, ”You don’t understand the point. I have not fought with my father, I have not been angry with him, and I have not come here in search of a girl. I am not interested in a kingdom, howsoever big it is. But I would like to ask you a few questions; you are my father’s friend. First tell me, you say your girl is very beautiful – is this beauty going to remain forever? Will she not one day be old?”

The king said, ”You ask strange questions. Everybody becomes old.”

”And do you think,” Gautam Buddha asked, ”she will never die?” The king laughed. He said, ”You are hilarious. Everybody dies.”

Gautam Buddha said, ”I don’t want to get married with someone who is going to die.”
The king said, ”She is not going to die tomorrow.”

Gautam Buddha said, ”You cannot give any guarantee. Are you sure you will be alive tomorrow?”
The king said, ”I have never thought about it. I hope that I will be alive, but I cannot be certain. But you are creating anxieties in my mind. I had come to take you to the palace and it seems you are trying to convince me to follow you to the mountains.”

Gautam Buddha said, ”It is better – there is still time, it is still light; maybe you have a few days more to live. Devote these few days to a search for something which cannot be taken away from you. Your youth will disappear, your beauty will disappear, your kingdom will one day belong to somebody else. And what does it matter, when you are dead, to whom your kingdom belongs, whether he is your son or somebody else’s son?”
The king said, ”You are a dangerous fellow. I don’t want to talk to you.”

He informed Gautam Buddha’s father, ”I have met your son; he is in the mountains in my kingdom. I tried hard, but he is very convincing. And he has created such anxiety in me that I have not slept since. I am continuously thinking of death – what is going to happen after death? What have I gained by having this big kingdom? I am a poor man inside. I have never looked into my own being; I am not even acquainted with myself. I request to you: don’t try to prevent him, let him go and let him search. What we have missed, perhaps we can hope he will find it.”

[Ether]

@Prabhaker So, Buddha had already in him the contemplative mindset? How much time was this after his departure?

[Prabhaker]

@Ether Buddha was a prince, he was educated,  sophisticated and cultured. 

7 minutes ago, Ether said:

How much time was this after his departure?

As soon as Buddha left his palace, he immediately escaped to the neighboring kingdom.

[Ether]

@Prabhaker Yeah. Did he pay and focused on his education? He could have been a prince but there many who dont care about that.

Also, when did he start contemplating "enlightenment" questions? Before the event that started it all?

Edited May 31, 2018 by Ether
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[Prabhaker]

30 minutes ago, Ether said:

Did he pay and focused on his education? He could have been a prince but there many who dont care about that.

Buddha was very disciplined. At that time India was one of the richest country, India produced great spiritual teachers and philosophers during that period. Buddha received an excellent education. 

30 minutes ago, Ether said:

when did he start contemplating "enlightenment" questions?

Whole Indian culture and education system was based on spirituality before British Invasion. Contemplating "enlightenment" questions was a tradition in educated families. There were many princes and kings before Buddha who left their kingdom and became enlightened.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Prabhaker