I earlier told you how Price Siddartha understood reality – that all of us get old, sick, and eventually die.
At the age of 29, Siddhartha came to realize that he could not be happy living as he had been.
He had discovered suffering, and wanted more than anything to discover how one might overcome suffering.
After kissing his sleeping wife and newborn son Rahula goodbye, he snuck out of the palace with his squire Chandara and his favorite horse Kanthaka. He gave away his rich clothing, cut his long hair, and gave the horse to Chandara and told him to return to the palace. He studied for a while with two famous gurus of the day, but found their practices lacking.
Gautama studied under various teachers and followed their practices until he mastered them all. His first teacher was Alara Kalama who taught a form of meditation leading to an exalted form of absorption called "state of no-thingness", a state without moral or cognitive dimension. Gautama saw this was not going to solve suffering, and continued his search.
The next teacher was Udraka Ramaputra who taught him meditative absorption leading to “the state of neither perception nor non-perception”. Again, Gautama realized this was not the state he was looking for.
Next, he tried extreme ascetic practices at Uruvilva, with five other ascetics who turned into his followers. In the end, Gautama nearly died of starvation.
After about six years of searching, he realized that just wearing down his body did not generate new insights, but rather leads to weakness and self-destruction. When he decided to give up extreme asceticism, his students left him.
He then sat down in a place now called Budhdhagaya under a Bo-tree and decided not to get up anymore until he discovered the truth. Just a short time later, he became a fully enlightened Buddha.
This means that he actualized all positive potentials of a sentient being and rid himself of all negative qualities. With this, he realized the true nature of existence and suffering (emptiness), and how suffering can be ended.
After he became the Enlightened One, he preached the sermon of the Middle Path, which shows the way to a balanced and harmonious life.
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