Resumo de The Life Of The Buddha-3

TheRose-Apple TreeConsequently, he began eatingagain, much to the disgust of other ascetics who thought that he had become weakand given up his quest. At this point Siddhattha recalled a time in the pastwhen he had sat under a rose-apple Tree and contemplated the nature of theworld. His heart filled with compassion, he had pondered on the suffering ofothers and the transience of life. As he sat, his mind became serene and heentered what later he would describe as jhana,a joyous state brought on by deep meditation. Perhaps this was the way toenlightenment, avoiding the extremes of sensuous enjoyment andself-mortification.And so, six years on from when heleft his sleeping wife and child, the Buddha came to a place called Bodh Gaya,in the modern Indian state of Bihar. He sathimself under a Bodhi tree (a species of ficusreligiosa) determined not to rise until he had achievedenlightenment...Underthe Bodhi-Tree Six years had passed. Siddhatthahad left his home and family, put himself through the most rigorous kinds ofself-mortification and, having abandoned the latter, found himself under aBodhi-tree at Bodh Gaya. He sat there resolute, determined to win though toenlightenment once and for all. First he entered into a series of trance-likestates known as jhanas.And then, going beyond these, he gained insight into the true nature ofreality. TrueKnowledge During his enlightenmentexperience, Siddhattha attained three types of knowledge. First he saw that hehad died and been reborn many times: 'I recollected my manifold past lives,that is, one birth, two births, three births...a hundred thousand births.' Eachbirth was seen in some detail: 'There I was so named, of such a clan, with suchan appearance...and passing away from there, I reappeared here'. Then, having acquired the 'divineeye', he saw that all beings are reborn according to their deeds, the law of kamma(karma): 'I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior andsuperior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate....according to theiractions'. He saw that good action led to happy states; bad actions to miserableones. Lastly, he saw the nature ofsuffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the wayleading to the cessation of suffering - in short, the FourNoble Truths. With this realization came liberation on aexperiential rather than solely intellectual level: 'I directly knew:"Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done hasbeen done, there is no coming to any state of being"'. WhatNext? Siddhattha, at the age ofthirty-five, had reached enlightenment and was now worthy of being called aBuddha, which means 'enlightened one' or 'awakened one'. But what next? Shouldhe simply just keep his newfound Knowledge to himself or should he share itwith humanity? At first he thought that perhaps his knowledge was too subtle,too profound for anyone to understand. But then, he considered, there might besome who have only 'a little dust' in their eyes who would benefit from what hehad to teach. One account describes how the compassionate god Brahma Sahampatiappeared and persuaded him to share his teachings for the benefit of others.And so, after spending three or four weeks in Bodh Gaya, the Buddha left tomeet the world with his newfound knowledge...

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