What Buddha Said Immediately After His Awakening Will Blow Your Mind
His simplest of statements pack the deepest punch.
How would your life change if you were free of the whims of your mind?What would it feel like if you directed your mind — and never, for a single moment, the other way around?
Your life would become the paradise every writer promises you’ll achieve, if only you used this or that formula, trendy meditation technique, or hack.
But the truth is that controlling and mastering your mind, even after a lifetime of practice, is not even the goal.
There is a wisdom to be known beyond mindfulness.
There is a knowing so powerful it can incinerate the source of your misery.
And this is beyond the noise (or quiet) of the mind. Only the likes of the Buddha can show you how to get there, not shallow self-help books.
The only problem? You’ll have to know yourself totally. Even the fearful, scary, weak, and angry parts that you’ve never dared to touch.
Most people don’t have the courage to face themselves like that. Which is why the Buddha said this immediately following his enlightenment:
The ambrosial Dharma I obtained is
profound, immaculate, luminous, and unconditioned.Even if I explain it, no one will understand.
I think I shall remain silent in the forest.
This comes from a discourse named The Play in Full, an originally Sanskrit text kept in Tibet for the last 1,000 years.
In it, the Buddha describes the path he took to Buddhahood — 547 lifetimes committed to serving others, and mastering himself through it.
As for the result, the actual description of the wisdom he achieved, words fall short.
His perfection of the mind led to the transcendence of mind. And that final step (obviously) can’t be understood using the mind.
That which is free from words cannot be understood through words.
Likewise, the nature of phenomena is like space, totally free of the movements of mind and intellect.
This meaning cannot be understood using words; rather, it is comprehended through reaching their limit.
So how does this help me?
There is something we have been ignoring for a painfully long time.
Like a loud child constantly telling stories about the world, our mind has forcefully imposed its narratives about practically everything. Even the path to liberation!
But what if we already have everything we’re searching for?
What if liberation means freeing ourselves from our false self, rather than “finding” or “attaining” something exotic and exalted?
There’s a straight path to this realization, which begins with a certain kind of clarity.
You are not who you think you are
You are not your behaviors, thoughts, emotions, memories, or preferences. These are algorithms floating in the sphere of your experience.
Your body, senses, energy, mind, and intellect are shells, encasing (but not touching, polluting, or affecting) your real nature.
Everything you think you are is an unconscious, dualistic costume, whose unfortunate side-effect is the production of suffering. Your job is to find out what, if anything, exists beyond.
Need a hint? It’s your sheer knowing, beyond acceptance or rejection. Timeless awareness, free of every possible drama unfolding in space.
It’s the deep, quiet place from where your conscious, intuitive, will-powered intentions spring up.
This deep awareness is an ever-present gift, waiting for you to discover and use it. It’s the inner compass most people are missing simply because it so easily gets drowned by much louder distractions.
Seeing reality with this pure awareness, free of conceptual labels and language, while having a clear “regular” mind is what liberates.
You make discoveries about your consciousness that are simply undeniable, unforgettable, and unshakeable.
You see the nature of your true nature.
And that can’t be captured into words, even by the Buddha.
