Please Remember:
At this very May full moon in year 528 BC the
Blessed Buddha
awakened
by completely perfect and utterly unsurpassable self-Enlightenment!
At that time a girl named
Sujata
Senani lived in
Uruvela.
When adult
she
prayed before a certain Banyan tree, that she might get a good
husband
equal to herself in caste & that her firstborn may be a son.
Her prayer was
successful. Since indeed
it did happen. At the full
moon day of the Wesak
month, she rose at early dawn and milked the
cows. As soon as new buckets
were placed under the cows, the milk
poured spontaneously
in streams all by
itself! Seeing this miracle,
she knew something special was happening!
That same night the
Future
Buddha dreamt 5 dreams making him conclude:
"Surely, truly,
without any doubt, today I will reach perfect Enlightenment!"
His 5 colored radiance illuminated the whole tree. Then Sujata came
and
offered the cooked milk rice into the hands of this Great Being.
Later a local grass-cutter came going with a bundle of grass just harvested
from nearby. He offered the Great Being 8 handfuls of
Kusa grass, when he
saw that this Sage was a Holy Man. The Future Buddha
accepted the grass
and proceeded to the foot of the
Bodhi-tree.
Reaching the imperturbable
Eastern side, where all the Buddhas take
their seat, he sat down saying to
himself: This is the immovable
spot, where all the prior supreme Buddhas
have planted themselves! This is the place for destroying this net of desire!
Then the
Future Buddha
turned his back to the trunk and thus faced east.
Right there, he then resolutely settled on this mighty decision:
Let just blood
and flesh of this body dry up & let skin
and sinews fall from
the bones. I will not leave this seat before having attained the
absolute
and
Supreme
Self-Enlightenment!
So determined did he seat
himself in this unconquerable
seat, from which
not a 100 lightning strikes could make him waver.
At this very moment
the rebel deity
Mara -The
Evil One- raised exclaiming: Prince
Siddhattha
will
pass beyond my power, but I will never allow it! And sounding the
Mara's war
shout, he summoned his mighty army for battle. Then
Mara
warned his evil
militia:
This Sakyamuni, son of Suddhodana,
is far greater than any other
man, so we will never succeed to fight him
up front. We must thus attack
him from the rear. Frustrated, being unable even to
touch this big
wielder
of power also with 9 mighty hurricanes of wind, rain,
rocks, weapons,
red
coals, hot ashes, sand, mud, and darkness
Mara
somewhat in panic shouted
at his army: "Why do you all stand still?
Seize, kill & drive away this prince!"
Mara then yelled: "Siddhattha, leave
this seat.
It is not yours, but mine!"
Hearing this, the Well-gone One
replied: Mara,
neither have you fulfilled the
10 perfections to the
third degree, nor have
you given the 5 great donations.
Neither have
you striven for insight, nor for
the welfare of all the world,
nor for
supreme self-enlightenment! Therefore does this very seat surely
not belong to you, but truly
indeed only to me. Suddenly overpowered by fear
Mara's
followers
fled helter-skelter in all directions. No two went in the
same direction, but
leaving their weapons in a chaos, they all fled terrified
by
metaphysical panic. Seeing them flee thus, the great assembly of deities
triumphantly shouted:
Mara is
defeated. Prince
Siddhattha has
won!
Let us
celebrate this truly sublime, wonderful and unique victory! It was before
the sun had set that the
Tathagata conquered Mara
and defeated his army.
That same night, after having bathed,
while the Bo tree rained red sprigs onto
his robe, The Consummate One
gained knowledge of his prior lives during the
1st watch of the night: "With the mind thus concentrated, purified, bright,
unified,
focused, tractable, compliant, steady & imperturbable, I directed
mind to remembrance of my past lives. I recollected many
past lives, i.e.,
one
re-birth, two...five, ten... 50, a hundred, a thousand, 100 thousand,
many eons
of cosmic contraction, & many eons of cosmic expansion:
There I had such
a name, belonged to such a clan & species, had such
a body. Such was my food,
such my life of pleasures and pains. Such was
the end of my life. Passing away
from that state, I re-arose there.
There I had such name, belonged to such
a sort & family, had such a
form. Such was my food, such my experience of
pleasures & pains. Such
was the end of my life. Passing away from that state,
I re-arose here.
Thus I remembered my various past lives in all their various
modes and
manifold details. This was the first knowledge I attained in the
first
watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed; the knowledge arose;
darkness was destroyed; light arose as happens in one who is alert,
aware,
and determined. But the very pleasant feeling that arose by this
did neither
invade my mind, nor remain. With the mind thus concentrated,
purified, bright,
intact, pliant, malleable, steady, and totally imperturbable,
I directed it to
the knowledge of the passing away and reappearance
of beings. I saw by
means of the
divine eye, purified & surpassing the
human eye! I saw beings
passing away & re-appearing, and I realized how & why they are high or low,
beautiful or ugly, fortunate and
unfortunate all in exact accordance with
the intentions of their prior
actions: These beings who were endowed with
bad behaviour of body,
speech, and mind, who reviled the
Noble Ones, held
wrong
views & acted
under the influence of wrong views, with the break-up
of the body,
after death, have re-appeared in the plane of misery, the bad
painful destination, the lower realms, even in hell. But the beings who were
gifted with good behaviour of body, speech and mind, who did not revile
the
Noble Ones, who held right views and acted under the influence
of right
views after the break-up of the body, after the death, have
re-appeared in
happy destinations, even in a divine world!
Thus by means of the divine eye,
purified and surpassing the human I
saw beings passing away & re-appearing,
all in accordance with their particular mixture of
good and bad
kamma...
But the satisfaction that arose here did neither invade my mind, nor remain.
With the mind thus concentrated and completely absorbed, I then directed
it towards understanding
the ending of mental fermentation. I realized how
it actually
comes to be, that:
This is
Suffering...
Such is the
Cause of Suffering...
Such is the
End of Suffering...
Such is the
Way to End Suffering...
Such was the mental
fermentations...
Such is the Cause of mental
fermentation...
Such is the End of mental
fermentation...
Such is the Way leading to the end of
mental
fermentation.
When my mind saw that, it was instantly freed of the fermentation
of all
sense-desire, it was released from the fermentation of becoming,
and it
became fully uncovered from the fermentation of ignorance. Thus fully
and
perfectly
Enlightened - The
Buddha -
perceiving this immense glory, spoke
these 2 solemn verses, which never has been omitted by
any of countless
billions of prior
Buddhas:
Through this round of countless existences have I searched, but yet
failed
to find "the Creator", who framed this construction: What Suffering
indeed
is such endless birth, ageing, decay, sickness and ever repeated death!
Now I see that
"the Constructor" of this structure is
Craving...! Never shall
this construction be built again, since all the rafters are shattered and the
main beam is busted and completely broken... At this calming of all
Craving,
the mind was finally,
irreversibly and ultimately stilled...
Then, friends, this revelation of certainty arose in me: This release
is indeed
immutable, this is the very last rebirth, this endless reappearance
has finally
come to a happy end...
Nibbāna is verily the Highest Bliss!
About Absolute Awakening!
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/b/buddha.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/g/gotama.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/s/sujaataa.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/b/bodhisatta.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/b_f/bodhi.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/b/bodhirukka.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/b/bodhimanda.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/s_t/sammaa_sambodhi.htm
Good Picture video of the Gotama Buddha's
life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrrmOR9suvc
Source:
The Jātaka Nidāna. The story of Gotama Buddha.
Tr. by N.A. Jayawickrama,
Pali Text
Society 1990.
http://www.pariyatti.com/book.cgi?prod_id=132935
VESAK FESTIVAL
VIDEO, COLOMBO 2011:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLScBZ1tW0A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eunH6Dh2mM
