THE BUDDHA THE LONG SEARCH

For years Siddhartha wandered with his beggar`s bowl, seeking one master or guru after another. Even though many of them were wise and deeply interested in helping Siddhartha, he did not find his answer. He found more teachers and learned about philosophical notions, as well as techniques for meditating and controlling the body, but he found no answer to his basic, timeless questions. Finally tiring of gurus and ordinary sages, he settled in a grove of trees on the outskirts of the village of Uruvela, India. There he formed a community with other seekers, he meditated for six years, during this time, he conquered most physical appetites, and weaknessess and learned how to control the mad monkey of the mind. But he found no answers.

In his efforts to subdue his body, he nearly destroyed it, when he touched his stomach, he felt his backbone. After this, Siddhartha realized that his body was an important instrument in his search, and he realized that he must honor the spirit by honoring the body that houses it. Siddhartha`s fellow monks were disgusted when he began to take proper nourishment, they had been impressed by his ascetic ways as signs of strength and willpower. From this Siddhartha learned another lesson: We must stop worrying about what others think of us and quit trying to impress people if we are ever to find wisdom. He realized that ascetic self-denial can be of value as a temporary corrective for indulgences or as a momentary cleansing, but is not an adecuate way of life.

So Siddhartha returned to his lonely wandering, one day when he was thirty, he sat in meditation under a tree, he was given a special bowl of rice milk by a young woman, because he reminded her of a figure she had seen in a visión. In her visión, she had presented rice milk in a Golden bowl to a single figure seated under a tree. She took this figure to be a god, because of a special glow she saw around him. He was of course, the Buddha.

Siddhartha accepted the rice milk and, according to the legend, did not eat again for forty-nine days. Another legend says that he divided the milk into numerous portions, and this sustained him during his deep meditation. After he had finished the rice milk, he threw the Golden bowl into a nearby river, where it floated upstream. This simbolizes the fact that the Buddha`s teachings go against the current of our ordinary thinking. Siddhartha then ceremoniously bathed in the river and taking the lotus position, once more sat under the fig tree and said “Here I shall remain until I am answered or dead”. The tree under which the Buddha sat became known as the Bodhi Tree-The Tree of Wisdom.

The Bodhisattva According to Buddhist teachings it is imposible to explain “the awakening”. Nonetheless we can get an idea of what the Buddha “saw”. Siddhartha saw himself and all life as a process of change, a great chain of being through which things come into and leave one form of existence for another. Everything is one. The universe is a system of interconnected, inseparable parts, rich and complex, composed of all varieties of life forever moving from one form to another. The Buddha saw it all at once, in a mystical vision. He had reached a state of bliss and utter detachment called “nirvana”. Nirvana is the annihilation of the ego, a state of emptiness or “no-thing-ness”. It is described as a state of bliss because there is only pure consciousness.

Nirvana is release from suffering while conscious, nirvana must be experienced, it can not be described or understood. Siddhartha had now to make another important choice, he could stay in nirvana, meditating and remaining uninvolved with the conmotion and suffering of life. Or he should share his vision. Legend says that “the very earth trembled” while waiting for his decision. At last the “Great Buddha Heart of Infinite Compassion prevailed”. Siddhartha refused ultimate release and, because he chose to stay and help others, became the Buddha, “He Who Awoke”, or “He Who Bacame Aware”. This part of him is sometimes reffered as “The Walking Buddha”, the man who wandered once more, only now as a teacher rather than as seeker.