The Buddha's Enlightenment

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The Buddha's Enlightenment


The Bodhisatta having put Māra to fight, gave himself up to meditation. All the miseries of the world, the evil produced by evil deeds and suffering arising therefrom, passed before his mental eye, and he thought :

"Surely if living creatures saw the result of all their evil deeds, they would turn away from them in disgust. But selfhood blinds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desire."

"They crave pleasure for themselves and the cause pain to others; when death destroyed their individuality, they find no peace, their thirst for existence abides and their selfhood replace in new birth."

"Thus they continue to move the coil and can find no escape from the hell o their own making. And how empty are their pleasure, how vain are their endeavours ! Hollow like w plantation free and without contents like the bubble."

"The world is full of evil and sorrow, it os full of lust. Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than truth. Rather than truth thy follow error, which is pleasant to look at in the beginning but in the end cause anxiety, tribulation, and misery."

The Enlightened One saw the four noble truths which point out the path leads to Nibbāna.

The first noble truth is the existence of suffering.
The second noble truth is the cause of suffering.
The third noble truth is the cessation of suffering.
The forth noble truth is the eightfold path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

This is the Dhamma. This is truth. This is religion. And the Enlightened One uttered the stanza :

"Through many birth I sought in vain
The Builder of this house of Pain
Now, Builder, thee I plainly see !
This is last abode for me.
Thy gable's yoke and refers broke,
My mind has peace, All lust ceased."

The existence of self is an illusion, and there is no wrong in this world, no vice, no evil, except what flows from the assertion of self.

The attainment of truth is possible only when self is recognised as an illusion. Righteousness can be practiced only when we have freed our mind from passion of egotism. Perfect peace can dwell only where all vanity has disappeared.

Blessed is he who has understood Dhamma. Blessed is he who does no harm to his fellow beings. Blessed is he who overcomes wrong and free from passion. To the higher bliss has attained who has conquered all selfishness and vanity.

He has become the Buddha, the perfect One, the Blessed One, the Holy One.