Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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gradually wit h no sudden inc line,’ he lat er warned his disc iples, ‘so in t his me t h o d ,
t raining, disc ipline and practice t ake effect by slow degrees, wit h no sudden
perception of the ult imat e truth.’ The texts show Go t a ma at t aining his s u p re me
enlightenment and b e c o min g a Buddha in a single night, bec ause they are less
c onc erned wit h hist oric al fact than wit h t rac ing the general c ontours of the proc ess
of ac hieving release and inner peace.
Thus in one of the oldest portions of the sc ript ures, we read that after Go t a ma
had been deserted by his five c ompanions and had been nourished by his first
me a l, he set off t oward Uruvelā, walking t here by easy stages. When he reached
Senānigāma beside the Nerañjarā river, he not ic ed ‘an agreeable plot of land, a
pleasant grove, a sparkling river wit h delight ful and smooth banks, and, nearby, a
village whose inhabitants would feed h im.’ T his, Go t a ma thought, was just the
plac e to undertake the final effort that would bring him enlightenment. If he was to
reproduc e the c alm c ontent that had mo d u la t e d so easily int o the first jhāna under
the rose-apple tree, it was imp o rt a n t to find a c ongenial spot for his medit at ion. He
sat down, t radit ion has it , under a bodhi tree, and took up the āsana posit ion,
vowing that he would not leave t his spot until he had attained Nibbāna. T his
pleasant grove is now known as Bodh Gayā and is an imp o rt a n t sit e of pilgrimage,
bec ause it is thought to be the plac e where Go t a ma experienced the yathabhuta,
his enlightenment or awakening. It was in t his spot that he b e c a me a Buddha.
It was lat e spring. Sc holars have t radit ionally dated the enlightenment of
Go t a ma at about the year 528 B.C.E., though recently s o me have argued for a lat er
date in the first half of the fifth c entury. The Pali texts give us s o me informat ion
about what happened that night, but nothing that ma ke s mu c h sense to an out sider
who has not been through the Buddhist regimen. They say that Go t a ma mu s e d
upon the deeply c ondit ional nature of all life as we know it , saw all his past lives,
and recovered that ‘secluded’ and solit ary state he had experienced as a c hild. He
then slipped easily int o the first jhāna, and progressed through ever higher states
of c onsc iousness until he gained an insight that forever t ransformed him and
c onvinc ed him that he had freed himself from the round of samsāra and rebirt h.
But t here seems lit t le new about t his insight , t radit ionally known as the Four Noble
Truths and regarded as the fundamental teac hing of Buddhism. The first of these
verit ies was the noble truth of suffering (dukkha) that in f o rms the whole of human
life. The sec ond truth was that the c ause of t his suffering was desire (tanhā). In the
t hird noble truth, Go t a ma asserted that Nibbana existed as a way out of t his
predicament and finally, he c laimed that he had discovered the path that leads
from suffering and pain to it s cessation in the state of Nibbāna.
T here seems nothing str ikingly original about these truths. Most of the mo n ks
and ascetics of Nort h India would have agreed wit h the first three, and Go t a ma
himself had been c onvinc ed of them sinc e the very beginning of his quest. If t here
is anything novel, it was the fourt h tr uth, in whic h Go t a ma proc laimed that he had
found a way to enlightenment, a me t h o d whic h he c alled the Noble Eight fold Path.
Its eight c omponents have been rat ionalized st ill further int o a t hree-fold plan of
ac t ion, c onsist ing of moralit y, medit at ion and w is d o m:
[1] Moralit y (sil a), whic h consists of right speech, right ac t ion and right
livelihood. T his essent ially c o mp ris e s the c ult ivat ion of the ‘skillful’ states in the way
we have discussed.