Notes on the life of Shakyamuni Buddha
written by Vova, a layman and yogi.
-7-
"I doff this mind intoxicated with material perception like clothes, like habits, like dreams. I leave it behind without pity and remorse. I direct my whole being towards the sky. Like the sun, my higher mind flares up and shines forth illuminating the worlds of Gods, titans, humans, animals, spirits, and hell-dwellers."
Gautama patiently tended the garden of his mind wishing for the Heavenly Eye of Truth.[16] He suffered from hunger and thirst, but was able to calm his body’s breath using both exercise and stillness. Eating dried cow dung and bird droppings the ascetic destroyed his attachment to pleasure. His fortitude and courage inspired reverence in his comrades and five of them followed him as their senior. Clarity in concentration and rejection of his body became a habitual state of being for Gautama. But one day he realized that his mind ceased experiencing gladness: it became heavy and clouded. His body could no longer support him in his quest for heavenly omniscience.
Soon Gautama found he was no longer able to enter the spheres of concentration. He realized that all along his body was not his enemy but rather provided support for his noble efforts. Bringing back to mind his face, neck, nape, arms, legs, hands and the spine that bound all his body parts into a single whole, Gautama perceived his body as a precious tool indispensable for future endeavors. As he pondered the value of human birth, the emaciated contemplator washed his hands in the river and in amazement observed how the enjoyment of relaxation and cleanliness strengthened his mind.
A shepherd girl from a nearby village saw the noble face of the ascetic and offered him milk and rice as one would a benign Deity. Gautama accepted the offering with gladness. When his followers observed what appeared to them to be clearly a sacrilege, they abandoned him. The ascetic did not stop them for he was preparing himself for a decisive and penetrating effort of mind, and felt that any explanation at this point would be premature and useless.
Gautama saw a shady tree that seemed especially familiar and friendly to him. There he placed a grass mat and sat cross-legged in posture. He was determined to explore the nature of consciousness until he attained complete liberation from ignorance. Siddhartha recalled the contentment he often experienced when he lived in the palace and immediately entered the first sphere of concentration. Once he became aware of the nature of these joyous experiences, inner contentment and openness of feeling, he entered the second sphere.
Siddhartha next explored the concentration that formed the nature of his contentment. He observed how mental formations became the basis of freedom when he recognized their true empty essence. However this condition only manifested after development of goodwill towards others.
The ease with which he meditated made it possible for Gautama to examine his body and mind. His realization of non-duality that his body and mind were neither one unit nor two separate entities opened his mind to profound inward and outward compassion. Thus he attained the third realm of neither Perception nor Non- Perception.
But what was the way to enter the mysterious fifth sphere of concentration? Is mind really capable of embracing it - the cause of all causes? His body strengthened by ascetic exercise and recent nourishment, the contemplator next chose the sensation of entanglement and obstruction as the object of his analysis.
What was the cursed dark cloud that obscured the alluring light of the full moon of liberation? Were not myriads of living beings destined to suffer multiple deaths and tribulations coming from this cloud of ignorance?
The Bodhisattva was piercing the veils of mind. He was awakening in goodness and filling himself with compassion for all sentient beings. He perceived how while the smallest manifestations of ill-will were leaving him, the glow of his mind was expanding and deepening.
[16] The heavenly eye of truth is also known as the third eye; located between the eyebrows.