The Buddha - A Documentary Story Of The Buddha's Life
Birth & Youth
Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha's teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.
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Two-thousand-five-hundred years ago in northern India, Prince Siddhartha left his palace where he had spent twenty-nine years indulging in pleasures. He was determined to comprehend the nature of human suffering. After a grueling spiritual quest that lasted six years, he at last attained enlightenment meditating under a fig tree. He became the Buddha, the “awakened one,” and devoted the rest of his life to teaching the way to enlightenment that he himself had found, giving birth to one of the world’s great religions.
Beginning on Wednesday, April 7, 2010, PBS brings to life Siddhartha and his journey in THE BUDDHA, a two-hour documentary directed by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin.
“Buddhism is growing more and more popular in America,” said David Grubin. “But the Buddha himself remains a mysterious, exotic figure, the founder of a religion in a different key. The Buddha never claimed to be God, or his emissary on earth. He said only that in a world of unavoidable pain and suffering, he had found a serenity which others could find too. In our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion, the Buddha’s teachings have particular relevance.”
The film, narrated by actor Richard Gere, is undertaken in conjunction with Asia Society Museum, which has organized an exhibition entitled Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art, the first-ever exhibition examining artistic production inspired by sacred sites and the practice of Buddhist pilgrimage in Asia.
Grubin, who directed the critically acclaimed series of films on American presidents including “LBJ,” “FDR” and “Truman” as well as other award-winning series such as THE JEWISH AMERICANS, THE SECRET LIFE OF THE BRAIN and NAPOLEON, tells the story of the Buddha through ancient artwork that depicts the various stages of Siddhartha’s journey, contemporary animation that vividly portrays the legends surrounding the Buddha and contemporary footage of northern India, where many of the religious rituals from the Buddha’s time are still practiced today.
Experts on the Buddha, representing a variety of disciplines, relate the key episodes of the Buddha’s life and reflect on what his journey means for us today. They include His Holiness the Dalai Lama; poets Jane Hirshfield and W.S. Merwin; scholars Robert Thurman, Kevin Trainor and Dr. Max Moerman; astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan; and psychiatrist Mark Epstein, as well as practicing Buddhist monastics.
“By continuing our exploration of the world’s religions, we are delighted to participate in broadening people’s understanding of Buddhism today with David Grubin’s moving portrait of the life of the Buddha,” said John F. Wilson, PBS senior vice president and chief TV programming executive. “This film exposes not just the man, but also his rich teachings, which we hope will spark a larger conversation about religion and spirituality.”
Birth & Youth
Twenty-five hundred years ago, nestled in a fertile valley along the border between India and Nepal, a child was born who was to become the Buddha. The stories say that before his birth, his mother, the queen of a small Indian kingdom, had a dream.
Queen Maya’s Dream
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A beautiful white elephant offered the queen a lotus flower, and then, entered the side of her body. When sages were asked to interpret the dream, they predicted the queen would give birth to a son destined to become either a great ruler or a holy man.
One day, they said, he would either conquer the world, or become an enlightened being—the Buddha.
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "People like stories. It is one of the ways we learn. The story of the Buddha’s life is an archetypal journey. But it is a means to an end. It is not an end."
Within ten months, as a tree lowered a branch to support her, a baby boy was born, emerging from her side. Seven days later, the Queen died. The Buddha would one day teach his followers:
“The world is filled with pain and sorrow. But I have found a serenity that you can find, too.”
W. S. Merwin, poet: "Everybody understands suffering. It's something that we all share with everybody else. It's at once utterly intimate, and utterly shared. So Buddha says, 'That's a place to begin. That's where we begin.'"
Hirshfield: "No matter what your circumstances, you will end up losing everything you love, you will end up aging, you will end up ill. And the problem is that we need to figure out a way how to make that all be all right."
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "What he actually said was that life is blissful. There’s joy everywhere only we’re closed off to it. His teachings were actually about opening up the joyful or blissful nature of reality, but the bliss and the joy is in the transitoriness.
[Ajahn Chah said] 'Do you see this glass? I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. But when the wind blows and the glass falls off the shelf and breaks or if my elbow hits it and it falls to the ground I say of course. But when I know that the glass is already broken every minute with it is precious.'"
His Holiness the Dalai Lama: "Everybody, every human being want happiness. And Buddha, he act like teacher. 'You are your own master. Future, everything depends on your own shoulder.' Buddha’s responsibility is just to show the path, that’s all"
Hirshfield: "The Buddha can shine out from the eyes of anybody. Inside the buffeting of an ordinary human life at any moment what the Buddha found, we can find"
Young woman praying
David Grubin Productions 
View Larger View on Timeline/MapIn Southern Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas, is one of the world's holiest places, Lumbini where, according to the sacred tales, the Buddha was born. Today, Buddhist pilgrims from all over the world make their way here to be in the presence of the sage whose life story is inseparable from centuries of anecdotes and legends.
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "There are countless stories of the Buddha. Each tradition, each culture, each time period has their own stories. We have lots of visual narratives and artwork from all over Buddhist Asia. But the first written material actually, the first biography say of the Buddha really we don’t see that before about 500 years after his death. For the first few centuries, Buddhist narrative was oral."
Merwin: "Historically, it is based on something certainly that happened. There must have been someone who corresponded with Gautama Buddha, but we don't know. We don't know how much of it is pure fairy tale, and how much of it is historic fact. But it doesn't matter. It touches something that we all basically know."
Moerman: "The relevance of it is in the message of the story. The promise of the story, like any good story it has a lot to teach. So the story of his life then is a beautiful way of telling the teaching. The Buddha said:"
"He who sees me sees the teaching and he who sees the teaching sees me.”
Born five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the Buddha would grow to manhood in a town vanished long ago. For nearly three decades, he would see nothing of the world beyond.
Birth & Youth
The tales say he was the son of a king, raised in a palace with every imaginable luxury. He was called Siddhartha Gautama, a prince among a clan of warriors.
Young Prince Siddhartha
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"When I was a child, I was delicately brought up, most delicately. A white sunshade was held over me day and night to protect me from cold, heat, dust, dirt, and dew. My father gave me three lotus ponds: one where red lotuses bloomed, one where white lotuses bloomed, one where blue lotuses bloomed."
Bob Tenzin Thurman, scholar: "The father wants him to be a king wants him to conquer the world and to be the emperor of India, which at that time was sixteen different kingdoms. And it was predicted that he would be able to conquer wherever he wanted if he remained as a king. So the father was creating this artificial environment to coddle him."
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "His father wanted to prevent him from ever noticing that anything might be wrong with the world because he hoped that he would stay in the life they knew and loved not go off as was predicted at his birth and possibly become a spiritual teacher rather than a king."
Shielded from pain and suffering, Siddhartha indulged in a life of pure pleasure, every whim satisfied, every desire fulfilled.
"I wore the most costly garments, ate the finest foods. I was surrounded by beautiful women. During the rainy season I stayed in my palace, where I was entertained by musicians and dancing girls. I never even thought of leaving."
Siddhartha marries his cousin at sixteen
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapWhen he was sixteen, his father, drawing him tighter into palace life, married him to his cousin. It wasn't long before they fell in love.
Thurman: "He was so in love with her. There is a story that on their honeymoon which was about ten years long. At one time they rolled off the roof that they were making love on while in union and they fell down but landed in a bed of lotuses and lilies and didn’t notice they had fallen."
And so, the stories say, he indulged himself for twenty-nine years, until the shimmering bubble of pleasure burst.
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "His father does everything he can to never let him leave, never let him see the suffering that life is, but one day he goes outside and he has the first of four encounters. First he sees a sick man and doesn’t quite understand what it is. He asks his attendant and the attendant says, 'oh that happens to all of us.'"
Venerable Metteyya Sakyaputta, monk: "Everybody gets sick, and don’t think you’re a prince you’ll not get sick, your father will get sick, your mom will get sick, everybody will become sick."
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "Then he sees that it isn’t just this sick person, in fact it’s universal and something is stimulated inside of him. So he keeps getting the chariot driver to take him out and he sees you know horror after horror."
Siddhartha encounters suffering
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapMoerman: "He sees an old man and he asks his attendant, and the attendant says. Oh that’s change, one doesn’t always stay young and perfect. And on his third trip outside, he meets a corpse. And he recognizes impermanence, and suffering, and death as the real state of things. The world that he had been protected from, shielded from, kept from seeing."
Hirshfield: "And he was shocked. You know he was shocked and he realized this is my fate, too. I will also become old. I will also become ill. I will also die. How do I deal with these things? These are universal questions in any human being’s life: what it’s like to be in a body inside of time, and our fate. And how do we navigate that? It really is a tale of the transformation from a certain naïve, innocent relationship to your own life to wanting to know the full story, wanting to know the full truth."
Moerman: "And then the fourth trip outside he sees a spiritual seeker: someone who has decided to live a life completely other than his life in order to escape from impermanence, suffering, and death. So he has this sort of traumatic encounter with the pain and suffering of life."
Epstein: "We try to protect our children. We don’t want to let our children see all the pain that’s in the world. But at a very early age, at a time before he could remember anything, at a time before there was conceptual thought he already suffered the worst kind of loss that one could suffer. Suddenly and mysteriously, his mother died when he was a week old. So something tragic happened you know right at the beginning. That might be what it takes to become a Buddha is that you have to suffer on such a primitive level."
Birth & Youth
Twenty-nine years old, profoundly troubled, Siddhartha was determined to comprehend the nature of suffering. He resolved to leave the palace. His wife had just given birth to a baby boy. Siddhartha called him Rahula—“fetter”.
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "He names his son Fetter. He names his son 'ball and chain'. This is the fetter that will keep me tethered to this life. This is what will keep me imprisoned."
Late one summer evening, Siddhartha went into his wife's room. A lamp of scented oil lit up. His wife lay sleeping on a bed strewn with flowers, cradling their newborn son in her arms. He gazed from the threshold, deep in thought:
Siddhartha leaves his sleeping wife and baby son
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Internalizing the conflict, he turned away, and climbed down to the palace courtyard. His beloved horse Kanthaka was waiting. As he rode toward the city’s northern wall, he leapt high into the air. Mara, the tempter god of desire, was waiting.
"You are destined,” Mara told him, “to rule a great empire. Go back and worldly power will be yours." Siddhartha refused.
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "He left grief and probably absolute puzzlement and dismay in the hearts of wife and the infant son who was innocent and yet was suddenly fatherless, and of course his own father. But there is no knowledge won without sacrifice. And this is one of the hard truths of human existence. In order to gain anything you must first lose everything."
Seeking
Siddhartha was alone in the world for the first time. on the bank of a nearby river, he drew his sword:
Siddhartha cuts off his hair
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“Although my father and step-mother were grieving with tears on their faces, I cut off my hair, I put on the yellow robes and went forth from home into homelessness. I had been wounded by the enjoyment of the world, and I had come out longing to obtain peace.”
Siddhartha wandered south, toward the holy Ganges River. once a great prince, now he became a beggar, surviving on the charity of strangers. He slept on the cold ground in the dark forests of banyan, teak, and sal that covered the northeastern plain, frightening places where wild animals roamed and dangerous spirits were said to live.
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "He’s going out to see what there is. He’s a seeker. He doesn’t have teaching yet. He doesn’t have an understanding yet. He doesn’t have an insight yet. He doesn’t have a solution yet but he recognizes the problem."
Siddhartha could not expect help from the religion of the time the ancient Vedic religion, steeped in ceremony and ritual. Some of its rituals still live on in ceremonies conducted by Hindu priests, who chant Vedic formulas more than twenty-five hundred years old.
Hindu priests
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapStayendra Kunar Partek, Hindu priest: "This ritual is from long ago when civilization was first developed here. Through this chanting, we worship our Gods and the planets in order to provide inner peace to all living creatures."
For centuries, the Vedic rituals had commanded respect for the gods and inspired conviction. But by Siddhartha's time, the rituals no longer spoke to the spiritual needs of many Indians, leaving a spiritual vacuum, and a sense of foreboding.
Kevin Trainor, scholar: "The Gods become less important than the rituals themselves. It’s a period of great unrest, a period of social upheaval, social change."
Cities were growing, generating new wealth, and spiritual hunger. As one ancient voice cried out in despair:
“The oceans have dried up; mountains have crumbled; the Pole Star is shaken; the earth founders; the gods perish. I am like a frog in a dry well."
Moerman: "A lot of people aren’t satisfied with the religion that they grew up in. And when prince Siddhartha decides to give up his life, he’s doing something that lots of other people were doing."
Siddhartha joined thousands of searchers like himself—renunciants, men and even a few women who had renounced the world, embracing poverty and celibacy, living on the edge—just as spiritual seekers still do in India today.
Moerman: "Now at this time in India there were lots of renunciants out there. It's a flourishing, renunciant tradition. There are many different people who have given everything up and practice austerities and meditate in order to escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. The notion of reincarnation is something that is part of Indian culture, part of Indian civilization, part of Indian religion that was there long before the Buddha, and it was the, in a sense, the problem that the Buddha faced."
Suffering didn’t begin at birth, and finish with death. Suffering was endless. Unless it was possible to find a way out—become enlightened, become a Buddha.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "In his time there was a sense of death not being final but of death leading inexorably to rebirth and of being, suffering beings, bound to the wheel of death and rebirth."
Seeking
It is said that Siddhartha had lived many lives before this one as countless animals, innumerable human beings, and even gods, across four incalculable ages, the sacred texts say, and many eons, experiencing life in all its different forms.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama:"Siddhartha's previous lives, many aeons. Sometimes as a human being, sometimes as an animal, but then gradually, using his practice, becoming more higher and higher, deeper, deeper."
Trinh Xuan Thuan, astrophysicist: "The idea is from life to life to progress more and more towards enlightenment and become wiser and wiser."
Robert Tenzin Thurman, scholar: "Some beings will stubbornly insist on their ignorance and their egotism and they will charge ahead grabbing and eating what they can in front of themselves and being dissatisfied but thinking that the next bite will do it. And they will die and be reborn and die and be reborn an infinite times. It could take them a billion lifetimes if they’re very stubborn, you know."
D. Max Moerman, scholar:"And becoming a Buddha, becoming enlightened is the only way of getting out of the continual cycle of death and rebirth. Now rebirth here isn’t the popular notion that, you know, in my past life I was Cleopatra floating down the Nile, or Napoleon. It’s as if every life is going through Junior High School again over and over and over."
Yogi and guru
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapWith the authority of the priests worn thin and wisdom seekers like Siddhartha roaming the countryside, holy men emerged teaching their own spiritual disciplines. Siddhartha apprenticed himself to one of them, a celebrated guru who taught that true knowledge could never come from ritual practice alone. It was necessary to look within.
"You may stay here with me,” the guru told him. “A wise person can soon dwell in his teacher's knowledge and experience it directly for himself." Siddhartha set himself to learn the rigorous practices the guru prescribed.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist:"The teachers of the time are already teaching forms of yoga and meditation, teaching that the self reflective capacity of the mind can be put to use to tame the mind, to tame the passions—that was already established in India. And there were probably so many schools of yoga and meditation in those days just as there are now."
Dr. Yogiraj Rakesh Pandey, yogi:"Yoga is not only for the body, although it benefits the body in many ways. The ultimate goal of yoga is to achieve deep meditation. It does not come easily or quickly. It comes by practice."
Dr. Yogiraj Rakesh Pandey, yogi
David Grubin Productions 
View LargerAlthough yoga appears to focus on controlling the body, it is in fact an ancient, spiritual discipline, a form of meditation, harnessing the energies of the body to tame the mind. Some yogis learn to sit without moving for hours, breathing more and more slowly until they seem to be barely breathing at all.
Epstein:"All kinds of trance states are possible through meditation. If you hold the mind, if you concentrate the mind on a single object, be it a word or a candle flame or a sound, it’s possible to transport the mind into all kinds of interesting places. The person who was to become the Buddha was very good at all those practices. He was a super student, doing these practices, taking them to their limit. And no matter what he did in these practices he was still stuck in the pain that he set out with."
Kevin Trainor, scholar: "He ascends to these very, rarified states of consciousness, but it’s not permanent and it does not bring penetrating truth into the nature of reality. So these become a temporary escape from the problem of existence but they don’t solve the problem."
Siddhartha apprenticed himself to another popular guru, but the results were the same. He said later:
"The thought occurred to me; this practice does not lead to stillness, to direct knowledge, to deeper awareness.”
Disenchanted, he left this master, too. Siddhartha continued to drift south, still searching for the answer to his questions: "Why do human beings suffer? Is there any escape?"
Moerman: "He’s trying and trying and searching and searching, and he already experienced extreme luxuries, so now he tries extreme deprivation."
Seeking
Among the renunciants, asceticism was a common spiritual practice—punishing the body as a way to attain serenity and wisdom. Siddhartha fell in with five other ascetics, and soon was outdoing them in mortifying the flesh—subjecting his body to extremes of hardship and pain.
Kevin Trainor, scholar: "The body represents a fundamental problem. Old age brings decrepitude to the body. Sickness brings pain and suffering to the body, and death is ultimately the cessation of the functioning of the body."
So there was a sense that if you could punish the body sufficiently you could escape its influence, you could transcend some of the limitations that the body seemed to impose.
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "The ascetic pursues the truth by taking the requirements of survival down to the absolute minimum possible, barely enough food to stay alive, no protection from the elements, no heat, sit in the cold, sit in the rain, meditate fiercely for all the hours of awakening."
W.S. Merwin, poet: "The step of renunciation, of shedding everything, of dying, the feeling that one is dying to one's life as it was is essential to being reborn as someone who sees."
Ascetics can still be seen in India, firm in the belief that by subduing the flesh they can gain spiritual power.
Bikopuri Shankapuir, ascetic
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"I had a home and I left it when I was sixteen. I don’t desire material things. To progress along your spiritual path, you should not desire material things. Keeping lots of things leads to greed. I am fifty years old. And from divine knowledge I know that to learn all there is to know, I will need forty more years. And then I will attain enlightenment."
— Bikopuri Shankapuir, ascetic
Emaciated, exhausted Siddhartha punished himself for six years, trying to put an end to the cravings that beset him.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "He tortures himself. He’s trying to destroy anything within himself that he sees as bad. The spiritual traditions of that time said you can be liberated if you eliminate everything that’s human, you know everything that’s coarse and vulgar, every bit of anger, every bit of desire. If you wipe that out with force of will then you can go into some kind of transcendental state, and the Buddha tried all that. He became the most anorectic of the anorectic ascetics. He was eating one grain of rice per day, he was drinking his own urine, he was standing on one foot, he was sleeping on nails. He did it all to the utmost."
Fasting Siddhartha
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“My body slowly became extremely emaciated. My limbs became like the jointed segments of vine or bamboo stems. My spine stood out like a string of beads. My ribs jutted out like the jutting rafters of an old, abandoned building. The gleam of my eyes appeared to be sunk deep in my eye sockets like the gleam of water deep in a well. My scalp shriveled and withered like a green bitter gourd, shriveled and withered in the heat and wind.”
Venerable Metteyya Sakyaputta, monk: "What he was trying to do was pushing his body to the most extreme that he could. But then he realized that from that he couldn’t gain what he wants. Trying to torture the body. The body becomes too much. The whole attention is given to the body, nothing else."
Hirshfield: "He surrendered himself completely to the hard training that he was given. And what he discovered having tried this completely for many years was that he had not answered his question. It hadn’t worked. He was on the verge of death, dying, unawakened, when he remembered something. He remembered a day when he was young and sat by the river with his father and the perfection of the world as it was simply gave itself to him."
Enlightenment
Years before, when Siddhartha was a small boy, his father the King had taken him to a spring planting festival. While he watched the ceremonial dancing being sown, he looked down at the grass. He thought about the insects and their eggs, destroyed as the field was planted. He was overwhelmed with sadness.
Jane Hirshfield, poet: one great tap-word of Buddhism is compassion, which is the deep affection that we feel for everything because we’re all in it together. Be it other human beings, other animals, the planet as a whole, the creatures of this planet, the trees and rivers of this planet. Everything is connected."
It was a beautiful day. His mind drifted. As if by instinct, he crossed his legs in the yoga pose of meditation. And the natural world paid him homage. As the sun moved through the sky, the shadows shifted, but the shadow of the rose-apple tree where he sat remained still. He felt a sense of pure joy.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "The joy that he found is in the world that is already broken. It’s in this transitory world that we’re all a part of, and the fabric of this world, despite the fact that it can seem so horrible, the underlying fabric of this world actually is that joy that he recovered. That was his great insight. But he says, 'I can’t sustain a feeling of joy like this if I don’t take any food so I better eat something'. And at that moment a village maiden mysteriously appears carrying a bowl of rice porridge."
Buddha meditates, starving to death
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapHirshfield: "And she said to him, 'Here, eat.' That moment of generosity and release when he accepted the rice was a decision towards life. It was what in the Christian tradition might be called grace that you cannot do it completely on your own, and in Christianity the grace comes from the divine. In the story of the Buddha the grace comes from the ordinary kind heart of a girl who sees somebody starving and says, 'eat'."
Venerable Metteyya Sakyaputta, monk: "There’s something beautiful. Whenever I remember that story it makes me so happy because I see the heart of Buddha—as the person he was—like the Siddhartha. This dish was the dish he used to be fed by his mother—rice pudding. He was missing that so much. And then he remembered further and further, and he remembered about his wife, about his son, and the deepest emotions that he had suppressed; they overpower, they come up. They were still there. And he had a feeling of missing. He had a feeling of seeing his son and a feeling of being near his loved ones. They were so powerful. Oh, that must have soaked his whole entire being."
Hirshfield: "He was actually an utter failure. He had been clinging to the path of ascetism. And when he took the food, what followed was the return of his original question. Life is painful, life involves change. This is still a problem. The problem didn’t disappear."
It wasn't long before the ascetics who had been Siddhartha's companions found him eating and turned away in disgust. "Siddhartha loves luxury,” they said. “He has forsaken his spiritual practice, he has become extravagant."
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "But the man who will become the Buddha realizes that extreme deprivation isn’t the way to go. We can live as normal human beings, we can eat and drink. And, in fact, we kind of need to eat and drink and be normal human beings in order to break through, in order to attain the kind of realization that he was looking for."
Siddhartha had put his faith in two gurus. They hadn't helped him. He had punished his mind and body. That had almost killed him. Now, he knew what he must do: to find the answer to his questions, he would look within, and trust himself.
Enlightenment
Pilgrims at Bodh Gaya
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View Larger View on Timeline/MapBodh Gaya is a small town in northeastern India. Throngs of pilgrims have come here from all over the world for more than sixteen centuries. For Buddhists, there are hundreds of holy places, but none more sacred than this one. Bodh Gaya is the sacred point from which the Buddhist faith radiates. Some pilgrims travel great distances, reciting prayers and prostrating themselves every step of the way. It is their Mecca and Jerusalem.
Their holy of holies is not the imposing temple beside them, but a simple fig tree—ficus religiosa—the Bodhi tree. The tree, it is said, is descended from the Buddha's time.
Every pilgrim knows the story of how Siddhartha, after accepting the rice milk from the young girl, put aside the rags he was wearing, bathed himself in a nearby river, and, strengthened, sat down in the shade of the Bodhi tree, and began to meditate. It was springtime. The moon was full. Before the sun would rise, Siddhartha’s long search would be over.
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "He sat down under a bodhi tree in the shelter of the natural world in all of its beauty and fullness, and he said I will not move from this place until I have solved my problem."
Seated Buddha
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“Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom."
All at once, Mara, lord of desire, rose to challenge him. With an army of demons he attacked. Siddhartha did not move, and their weapons turned into flowers.
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "Mara is the ruler of this realm of desire, this world that we all live in and what he’s afraid Siddhartha is going to do when he attains enlightenment and becomes the Buddha is conquer that world, that is he’s going to do away with desire. He’s going to wreck the whole game."
Mara did not give up. He sent his three daughters to seduce him. Siddhartha remained still.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "When he faces Mara he faces himself and his own destructive capacity. But he’s not the warrior trying to do battle with those qualities. He has discovered his own capacity for equanimity. He has become like the top of the Great Himalayan Mountains; the weather is passing over him, storms are raging around him, and he sits like the top of the mountain impassive, not in a trance state, you know, totally aware of everything. So he frustrates Mara."
Enlightenment
Mara holds the Wheel of Life
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View LargerSiddhartha resisted every temptation Mara could devise. The lord of desire had one final test. He demanded to know who would testify that Siddhartha was worthy of attaining ultimate wisdom. And his demon army rose up to support him. Siddhartha said nothing. He reached down and touched the ground, and the earth shuddered. Mara’s demons fled.
W.S. Merwin, poet: "The Buddha reaches down, and with his finger, touches the earth. He says, 'The earth is my witness.' He said, 'Mara, you are not the earth. The earth is right here beneath my finger,' and the earth is what we're talking about. Accepting the earth, not owning the earth, not possessing the earth, but the earth just as it is, abused and exploited and despised and rejected and, plowed and mined and shat on and everything else, you know. It's still the earth, and it is, we owe everything to it."
Siddhartha meditated throughout the night, and all his former lives passed before him.
Robert Tenzin Thurman, scholar: "He remembered all his previous lives—infinite number of lives—female and male and every other race and every other being in the vast ocean of life forms. And he remembered all that viscerally so that means his awareness expanded until all the moments of the past were completely present to him."
D. Max Moerman, scholar: "He gains the power to see the process of birth, death, and rebirth that all creatures go through. He’s given this sort of cosmic vision of the workings of the entire universe."
As the morning star appeared, he roared like a lion. "My mind," he said, "is at peace." The heavens shook, and the Bodhi tree rained down flowers. He had become the “awakened one”—the Buddha.
Mark Epstein, psychiatrist: "Something new opens up for him which he calls Nirvana, which he calls Awakening."
Jane Hirshfield, poet: "He said, at this moment all beings and I awaken together. So it was not just him. It was all the universe. He touched the earth. 'As earth is my witness. Seeing this morning star, all things and I awaken together.'"
Thurman: "It’s not like entering a new state; it’s uncovering or surrendering to the reality that has always been there. He realized he’d always been in Nirvana that Nirvana was always the case; your reality itself is Nirvana. It’s the unreality; it’s your ignorance that makes you think you’re this self-centered separate being trying to fight off an overwhelming universe and failing. You are that universe."
The Buddha sits on demons under the bohi tree.
Cleveland Museum of Art 
View Larger View on Timeline/MapEpstein: "You’re already enlightened. He’s saying the capacity for enlightenment, that your awake-ness already exists within you."
Hirshfield: "Nirvana is this moment seen directly. There is no where else than here. The only gate is now. The only doorway is your own body and mind. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing else to be. There’s no destination. It’s not something to aim for in the afterlife. It’s simply the quality of this moment."
Merwin: "Just this, just this, this room where we are. Pay attention to that. Pay attention to who's there, pay attention to what isn't known there, pay attention to what is known there, pay attention to what everyone is thinking and feeling, what you're doing there, and pay attention. Pay attention."