Remember: At this May full moon in year 528 BC the
Blessed Buddha
awakened by completely perfect & 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 so indeed did it happen. At the full
moon day of the Wesak month, she rose at early dawn & milked the
cows. As soon as new buckets were placed under the cows, the milk
poured in streams spontaneously all by itself! Seeing this miracle,
she knew something special was going on. Now at that very night the
Future
Buddha had 5 dreams that made him conclude: Surely, truly,
without any doubt, today is the very day, I will reach Enlightenment!
His 5 colored radiance illuminated the whole tree. Then Sujata came
and offered the cooked milk rice in the hands of the Great Being.
After that a 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 & proceeded to the foot of the Bo-tree.
Reaching the imperturbable Eastern side, where all the Buddhas take
their seat, he sat down saying to himself: This is verily the immovable
spot, where all the prior supreme Buddhas have planted themselves! This is the very 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 & 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
supreme Enlightenment!
So determined did he seat himself in this unconquerable seat, which not a 100 strikes of lightning could make him waver from. 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 raised his army & went out for battle. Then
Mara said
to 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 will thus
have to attack him from behind. Frustrated, being unable even to
touch the Wielder of power with 9 mighty hurricanes of wind, rain,
rocks, weapons, red coals, hot ashes, sand, mud, and darkness
Mara
somewhat in panic commanded his army: Why do you all stand still?
Seize, kill & drive away this prince. Mara 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
enlightenment! Therefore does this seat not belong to you, but truly
indeed only to me. Suddenly overpowered by fear
Mara's
followers
fled helter-skelter in all directions. Not two went the same way, but
leaving their weapons in a chaos all behind, they all fled terrified by
metaphysical panic. Seeing them flee, 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
thus conquered Mara & defeated his army. That same night, after having bathed,
while the Bo tree rained red sprigs on his robe, the Consummate One
gained knowledge of his prior lives in the first watch of the night:
With the mind thus concentrated, purified, bright, fixed, unified,
focused, tractable, compliant, steady & imperturbable, I directed
it to remembrance of my past lives. I recollected many past lives, i.e.,
one birth, two...five, ten...fifty, 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 pleasure & pain, 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 pleasure & pain, 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 &
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, & determined. But the pleasant feeling that arose in this way
did not invade my mind nor remain. With the mind thus concentrated,
purified, bright, intact, pliant, malleable, steady, & imperturbable,
I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away & 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 and why they are high and 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, & 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 these beings who were
gifted with good behaviour of body, speech & 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 & surpassing the human I
saw beings passing away & re-appearing, all in accordance with their particular mixture of
good & bad
kamma. But the satisfaction that
arose in this way did not invade my mind nor remain. With the mind
thus concentrated, absorbed, I directed it towards understanding
the ending of the mental fermentations. I realized how it actually
comes to be, that:
When my mind saw that, it was instantly freed of the fermentation
of sense-desire, it was released from the fermentation of becoming,
and it became fully unobstructed by the fermentation of ignorance.
Fully & perfectly
Enlightened - The
Buddha -
perceiving this immense glory, spoke these 2 solemn verses, which never has been omitted by
any of countless thousands of prior
Buddhas:
Through this round of countless existences have I searched, but yet
failed to find "the Creator", who framed this construction: What a
Suffering is indeed such Endless Birth, Ageing, Decay & Death! Now I see that
"the Constructor" of this structure is
Craving...! Never shall this construction be build again, as all the rafters are shattered and the main beam is busted & broken... At this calming of all
Craving, the mind was finally,
irreversibly & ultimately stilled... Then, friends, this revelation of certainty arose in me: This release
is immutable, this is the very last birth, this endless re-appearance
has finally ceased...
