As night fell vision upon vision came to Sakyamuni. He saw all his past lives, saw the chain of causation that bound every living being, saw the cause of the endless cycle of birth, suffering, and death, and saw the way to liberation, or Nirvana. By dawn he had reached perfect enlightenment, but he remained a week in meditation and another five weeks in solitude. He found he had a choice between entering Nirvana immediately or of teaching what he had learned for several more years on earth. Against his own reluctance he decided to teach, even though his knowledge was hardly communicable in words, and though very few could truly grasp his knowledge.
Briefly, his discovery was this: Birth, pain, decay, and death through innumerable lives are the result of attachment to the material world. Most souls want to incarnate themselves in matter and enjoy the pleasures to be had. This selfish desire creates a succession of lives and sufferings. In order to free oneself of pain a man must practice non-attachment by surrendering his longings to achieve an encompassing love for all creatures. Only in this manner can the soul attain its true estate of everlasting joy.
Now a Buddha, or Enlightened One, he returned to his five disillusioned disciples and overcame their loathing for him through love. After forty-four years of wandering Buddha gave his first sermon in the Deer Park at Benares. He taught the value of moderation, mental clarity, and universal compassion, as opposed to a life of sensual pleasures or one of self-laceration. By his gentleness, lucidity, and strength of character he converted thousands to his new teachings. His wisdom enabled him to perform miracles.
At the age of eighty, on the point of death, he told his weeping followers they would have his doctrines to comfort them, but they must watch and pray always. His final words were, "Work out your own salvation with diligence." Then he went into meditation, was transfigured with ecstasy, and at last passed into Nirvana.
