He was then called Buddha and he spent six years practicing various kinds of austerities and ascetic disciplines, mortifying the body in an effort to subdue the ego. For long periods, he ate only one grain of rice a day, becoming so emaciated that when he tried to touch his belly, his hand would grasp his backbone. So extreme was his asceticism that he would collapse from fatigue and hunger. After six years of such practice, he realized that this was not the path to freedom, to the end of suffering. Siddhartha gave up this extreme ascetic discipline and, taking some food, nourished himself for the third great event in the sacred journey.
Having regained his strength, the Bodhisattva sat beneath the Bodhi Tree with the resolve that he would not get up until he had attained supreme enlightenment. As he sat there with unwavering resolve and determination, all the forces of illusion and ignorance, assailed his mind.
After the hosts were dispersed, the Bodhisattva spent the three watches of the night contemplating various aspects of the dharma. With his power of concentration, he surveyed the succession of his innumerable past lives and understood their insubstantiality the endlessness of being born in a particular situation, having all kinds of experiences, growing old, dying, and being reborn, over and over again.
In the second watch of the night, the Bodhisattva contemplated the law of karma. He saw the destinies of beings, and how, because of their own actions, they are reborn either in various happy planes of existence or in planes of suffering. Compassion arose in the Bodhi¬sattva when he saw that all beings desire happiness and yet, out of ignorance, often do the very things that cause suffering.
In the third watch of the night he saw how the mind becomes attached, and how through attachment there is suffering. He understood the possibility of deconditioning that attachment and coming to a place of freedom. And just at the moment of dawn, when the morning star appeared in the sky, his mind realized the deepest, most complete illumination.
After attaining the great enlightenment, the Buddha expressed this verse in his heart(Dhammapada, verses 153–54):
I wandered through the rounds of countless births,
Seeking but not finding the builder of this house.
Sorrowful indeed is birth again and again.
Oh, housebuilder! You have now been seen.
You shall build the house no longer.
All your rafters have been broken,
Your ridgepole shattered.
My mind has attained to unconditioned freedom.
Achieved is the end of craving.
The Buddha saw that in this world of constant appearing and disappearing, being born and dying, there is great suffering. Craving, the builder of this house of suffering (the mind and body), was discovered; the defilements of mind, the rafters, were broken; the force of ignorance, the ridgepole, was shattered; and thus the Bodhisattva realized nirvana, the unconditioned. In attaining the great enlightenment, he experienced the completion and fulfillment of his long journey, a fulfillment of the potential shared by all human beings. He had become the Buddha, the Awakened One. He then spent the next seven weeks in the area of the Bodhi Tree, contemplating different aspects of the truth. Having completed his own journey of liberation, he now wondered whether it was possible to share with others the profound dharma he had realized.
According to legend, a celestial being, a Brahma god, came down from the highest heaven realm and urged the Buddha to teach the dharma for the welfare of all beings, out of compassion for all be¬ings. He asked the Buddha to survey the world with his eye of wisdom, stating that there were many beings with but little dust in their eyes who would be able to hear and understand the truth. The Buddha did as the Brahma god asked, and out of deep compassion for the suffering of beings he began to teach.
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