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Gautama,
The Buddha
(624 -544 BC, Nepal)
Biography Excerpt:
The pampered prince, Siddhartha, had a beautiful
wife and son, dancing girls, sumptous food and three palaces for his own
use, and was completely sheltered from the world. One day he left
the palace surreptitiously and witnessed, for the first time in his life,
disease, suffering, old age, and death. This led the prince to renounce
his worldly treasures and family to find Truth and a release from suffering
for himself and all sentient beings. For six years he pursued ascetic practices
in the forest, reducing himself through meditation and fasting to a mere
skeleton, at the point of death. At the last moment, he accepted rice-milk
from a cowherd girl, and was revived. Abandoning the ascetic life of the
forest for the middle path between indulgence and asceticism, he nevertheless
vowed not to move from his meditation seat beneath the Bodhi tree until
he reached enlightenment.
Enlightenment Story Excerpt:
The Buddha’s Liberation
The bodhisattva had triumphed over Mara.
The air cleared and was still. The full moon rose in the sky and shone
softly. The bodhisativa, unmoving, entered into the first level of meditation.
The night was utterly silent, as even insects made no murmur. As the moon
continued to rise, the bodhisativa's composure deepened, and one by one
he mastered the levels of meditation until he reached the fourth. His concentration
was bright and unblemished, full and balanced. Then through great confidence
and trust, he relinquished the watcher, and his mind entered into a fathomless
openness untroubled by content. Here the bodhisattva naturally rested until
a profound contentment pervaded him. But as one who already knew the way,
he did not become caught up in this. Rather, with utter clarity and tenderness,
he turned his mind to untying the knot of birth, old age, sickness, and
death.