14 CHAPTER ONEcurrent in his day, he tried to think of another way. He remembered an inci-
dent in his childhood: While sitting under a shady tree as his father was per-
forming a royal plowing ritual, he had entered the first dhyana (a pleasant and
rapturous absorption in the inner sense of the physical body). Perhaps this
might be a fruitful method, he surmised, but he realized that his body was too
weak to regain that blissful concentration or to use it to gain liberating insight.
The legend goes on to say that Gautama then sat under a sacred tree. A
woman named Sujata had vowed a yearly offering to this tree if she bore a 'son.
The wish having been fulfilled, she was preparing to offer a fine bowl of rice
and milk. Her maid came upon the Bodhisattva sitting there, mistook him for
the spirit of the tree, and reported the apparition to her mistress, who came
and presented the food to Gautama herself. A Pali Sutta (M.36) states simply
that Gautama took rice and barley gruel. The five mendicants then left him in
disgust, saying that he had given up striving and was living in abundance.
Gautama's rejection of extreme austerities hinged on a critical moment
when he realized that trying to gain liberation by escaping from the body
through mortification was as ineffectual as attempting to escape through ab-
stract absorptions. Caught at a dead end, he was able to open his mind to the
possibility that physical pleasure of a nonsensual variety was not to be feared,
and that it might form the basis for the liberating insight he sought. He went
on to recognize that a healthy body is necessary for the development of dis-
cernment in order to understand the relationship of body to mind. In so
doing, he took the first step on the Middle Way toward Awakening, a way
that became a central feature of the Dharma .(or doctrine) he later taught.
1.3.4 Temptation by MaraAfter accepting the meal from Sujata, Gautama went and sat under another
tree, the Bodhi Tree (Tree of Awakening), facing east and resolving not to arise
until he had attained his goal. Mara (the personification ofdeath, delusion,
and temptation) grew alarmed at the prospect of the Bodhisattva's attaining
victory and escaping from his realm, and so tried to deflect him from his striv-
ing-an episode that later tradition lavishly embellished over the centuries.
The Pali Canon (Sn.III.2) simply says that Mara tempted the Bodhisattva in
two stages, first trying to plant doubts in the Bodhisattva's mind and then call-
ing up his armies to assault him. The Bodhisattva, however, recognized Mara's
10 armies for what they were-sensuality, discontent, hunger and thirst, crav-
ing, sloth and torpor, fear, doubt, hypocrisy, self-exaltation, and the desire for
fame-and this was enough to send them away in defeat. Asvagho~a adds little
to the lege.nd, aside from depicting Mara's armies in grisly detail and attribut-
ing the Bodhisattva's victory over them to his persistent resolve. Legends post-
dating Asvagho~a, however, add that Mara finally challenged the Bodhisattva's
right to Awakening, in response to which the Bodhisattva touched Mother
Earth to bear witness to his merit, causing her to rise up and squeeze an ocean
of water out of her hair (symbolic of the cooling waters ofhis benevolence),
washing the armies away. These legends also add a third stage to the tempta-
tion, in which Mara's daughters-Discontent, Delight, and Craving-volun-.