Siddhartha’s mind was calm and relaxed. As he sat under the tree his concentration deepened and his wisdom grew brighter. In this clear and peaceful state of mind he began to examine the nature of life. “What is the cause of suffering,” he asked himself, “and what is the path to everlasting joy?”
In his mind’s eye he looked beyond his own country, far beyond his own world. Soon the sun, planets, the stars out in space, and distant galaxies of the universe all appeared in his meditation. He saw how everything, from the smallest speck of dust to the largest star, was linked together in a constantly changing pattern: growing, decaying, and growing again. Everything was related. Nothing happened without a cause and every cause had an effect on everything else.
As he saw how everything was connected in this way, deeper truths appeared in his mind. He looked deeply into himself and discovered that his life as Siddhartha the Prince was but the latest in a series of lifetimes that had no beginning—and he saw that the same was true of everyone. We are born, live, and die not one time, but again and again. He saw that death is only the separation of the mind from its present body. After death the mind goes on to find a new body in the same way that a traveler leaves a guest house and moves on to find another. When one life ends, another begins—and in this way the wheel of death and birth keeps spinning around and around.
He also saw that in our travels from one life to the next we are constantly changing and constantly affecting one another. Like actors changing parts in a play, our roles change as we move from life to life. Sometimes we are rich and comfortable; sometimes we are poor and miserable. Occasionally we experience pleasure, but more often we find ourselves with problems. And Siddhartha also saw that as our conditions change, so do our relations with others: we have all been each other’s friend and enemy, mother and father, son and daughter, thousands upon thousands of times in the past.
Then he looked at all of the suffering in the world. He saw how everyone—from the smallest insect to the greatest king—runs after pleasure, only to end up with dissatisfaction. When we do not find what we are searching for we are miserable, and even when we do find the pleasure we seek it soon fades and we have to look for something else.
And he saw how living beings create their own misery. Blind to the truth that everything is always changing, they lie, steal, and even kill to get the things that they want, even though these things can never give them the lasting happiness they desire. And the more their minds fill with greed and hate, the more they harm each other—and themselves! Each harmful action leads them to more and more unhappiness. They are searching for peace yet find nothing but pain.
Finally, he discovered the way to end all this suffering. If a person could see the truth clearly—as he himself had seen it this night—all confused running after pleasure and away from pain would stop. Without any more greed and hatred in our mind, we would never do anything to harm anyone else. Having overcome all the selfishness in our mind, we shall have destroyed the causes of unhappiness completely. With our hatred removed, our heart will fill with love, and this love will bring us peace and happiness unlike anything we have ever felt.
When Siddhartha had seen all this, even the last speck of darkness disappeared from his mind. He was filled with a radiant clear light. He was no longer an ordinary person. He had become fully enlightened to the truth. He was now a buddha, a fully awakened one. He had reached his goal!
With a calm and peaceful smile, he arose from his meditation. It was morning, and in the east the sun was beginning to rise.