The purpose of both mindfulness and the immeasurables was to neutralize the power of that egotism that limits human potential. Instead of saying “I want,” the yogin would learn to seek the good of others; instead of succumbing to the hatred that is the result of our self-centered greed, Gotama was mounting a compassionate offensive of benevolence and goodwill. When these positive, skillful states were cultivated with yogic intensity, they could root themselves more easily in the unconscious impulses of our minds and become habitual. The immeasurables were designed to pull down the barricades we erect between ourselves and others in order to protect the fragile ego; they sought a larger reach of being and enhanced horizons. As the mind broke free of its normal, selfish constriction and embraced all beings, it was felt to have become “expansive, without limits, enhanced, without hatred or petty malevolence.” The consciousness now felt as infinite as the sound made by an expert conch-blower, which was thought to pervade all space. If taken to a very high level, this yoga of compassion (karuna) yielded a “release of the mind” (ceto-vimutti), a phrase which, in the Pali texts, is used of enlightenment itself. Through the discipline of mindfulness too, Gotama began to experience a deepening calm, especially when this was accompanied by pranayama. He was beginning to discover what it was like to live without the selfish cravings that poison our lives and our relations with others, imprisoning us within the petty confines of our own needs and desires. He was also becoming less affected by these unruly yearnings. It has been found that this habit of attentive self-scrutiny has helped Buddhist practitioners to monitor the distractions that deprive us of peace; as the meditator becomes aware of the ephemeral nature of those invasive thoughts and cravings, it becomes difficult to identify with them or to see them in any way as “mine.” Consequently they become less disturbing.
We do not know how long it took Gotama to recover his health after his years of asceticism. The scriptures speed up the process to make it more dramatic, and give the impression that Gotama was ready for the final struggle with himself after one bowl of junket. This cannot have been true. The effects of mindfulness and the cultivation of skillful states take time. Gotama himself said that it could take at least seven years, and stressed that the new self developed imperceptibly over a long period. “Just as the ocean slopes gradually, falls away gradually, and shelves gradually with no sudden incline,” he later warned his disciples, “so in this method, training, discipline and practice take effect by slow degrees, with no sudden perception of the ultimate truth.” The texts show Gotama attaining his supreme enlightenment and becoming a Buddha in a single night, because they are less concerned with historical fact than with tracing the general contours of the process of achieving release and inner peace.
Thus in one of the oldest portions of the scriptures, we read that after Gotama had been deserted by his five companions and had been nourished by his first meal, he set off toward Uruvela, walking there by easy stages. When he reached Senanigama beside the Neranjara river, he noticed “an agreeable plot of land, a pleasant grove, a sparkling river with delightful and smooth banks, and, nearby, a village whose inhabitants would feed him.” This, Gotama thought, was just the place to undertake the final effort that would bring him enlightenment. If he was to reproduce the calm content that had modulated so easily into the first jhana under the rose-apple tree, it was important to find a congenial spot for his meditation. He sat down, tradition has it, under a bodhi tree, and took up the asana position, vowing that he would not leave this spot until he had attained Nibbana. This pleasant grove is now known as Bodh Gaya and is an important site of pilgrimage, because it is thought to be the place where Gotama experienced the yathabhuta, his enlightenment or awakening. It was in this spot that he became a Buddha.
It was late spring. Scholars have traditionally dated the enlightenment of Gotama at about the year 528 b.c.e., though recently some have argued for a later date in the first half of the fifth century. The Pali texts give us some information about what happened that night, but nothing that makes much sense to an outsider who has not been through the Buddhist regimen. They say that Gotama mused upon the deeply conditional nature of all life as we know it, saw all his past lives, and recovered that “secluded” and solitary state he had experienced as a child. He then slipped easily into the first jhana, and progressed through ever higher states of consciousness until he gained an insight that forever transformed him and convinced him that he had freed himself from the round of samsara and rebirth. But there seems little new about this insight, traditionally known as the Four Noble Truths and regarded as the fundamental teaching of Buddhism. The first of these verities was the noble truth of suffering (dukkha) that informs the whole of human life. The second truth was that the cause of this suffering was desire (tanha). In the third noble truth, Gotama asserted that Nibbana existed as a way out of this predicament and finally, he claimed that he had discovered the path that leads from suffering and pain to its cessation in the state of Nibbana.
There seems nothing strikingly original about these truths. Most of the monks and ascetics of North India would have agreed with the first three, and Gotama himself had been convinced of them since the very beginning of his quest. If there is anything novel, it was the fourth truth, in which Gotama proclaimed that he had found a way to enlightenment, a method which he called the Noble Eightfold Path. Its eight components have been rationalized still further into a three-fold plan of action, consisting of morality, meditation and wisdom:
[1] Morality (silo), which consists of right speech, right action and right livelihood. This essentially comprises the cultivation of the “skillful” states in the way we have discussed.
[2] Meditation (samadhi), which comprises Gotama’s revised yoga disciplines, under the headings of right effort, mindfulness and concentration.
[3] Wisdom (panna): the two virtues of right understanding and right resolve enable an aspirant, by means of morality and meditation, to understand the Buddha’s Dhamma, enter into it “directly” and integrate it into his or her daily life in the way that we shall discuss in the following chapter.
If there is any truth to the story that Gotama gained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in a single night, it could be that he acquired a sudden, absolute certainty that he really had discovered a method that would, if followed energetically, bring an earnest seeker to Nibbana. He had not made this up; it was not a new creation or an invention of his own. On the contrary, he always insisted that he had simply discovered “a path of great antiquity, an ancient trail, traveled by human beings in a far-off, distant era.” The other Buddhas, his predecessors, had taught this path an immeasurably long time ago, but this ancient knowledge had faded over the years and had been entirely forgotten. Gotama insisted that this insight was simply a statement of things “as they really are”; the path was written into the very structure of existence. It was, therefore, the Dhamma, par excellence, because it elucidated the fundamental principles that govern the life of the cosmos. If men, women, animals and gods kept to this path, they could all attain an enlightenment that would bring them peace and fulfillment, because they were no longer struggling against their deepest grain.