Chattha Sangayana CD - Vipassana Research Institute
Witnessing the Truth

•	S.N. GOENKA

Blessed indeed was the night of Vesakha Punnima when that young yogi Siddhartha gained complete victory over himself under the bodhi tree. The darkness of ignorance was dispelled; the light of wisdom shone forth in all its brilliance. The subtlest defilements of mind were washed away. The conditioning of an infinite number of previous births was discarded. The entire psychic structure became infinitely pure. All the shackles were broken. No craving remained for the future; mind became free of all attachments. The veil of ignorance, delusion and illusion was torn asunder. The Ultimate Truth was experienced in all its purity. The effort of infinite lives to find Truth bore fruit. Bodhisattva Gotama Siddhartha gained supreme Enlightenment and became Samma-Sambuddha.

With the taste of supreme liberation, the following words of ecstasy gushed forth from his mouth; the words contain great wisdom and express a beautiful sentiment:

Anekaj±ti sans±ra½

Saªdh±vissa½ anibbisa½

gahak±raka½ gavesanto,

dukkh± j±ti punappuna½

Gahak±raka! diµµhosi,

puna geha½ na k±hasi

sabb± te ph±suk± bhagg±,

gahakuµa½ visankhita½,

visamkh±ragata½ citta½,

taºh±na½ khayamajjhag±.

Before gaining full enlightenment, he had obtained many supernatural powers with various exercises of mental concentration. With the aid of these supernatural powers, Siddhartha Gotama was able to see his past lives. He saw that he had been born countless times and after each birth he was continuously running towards his death. Who is it that makes me take one birth after another? Who is it that gives me another life after each death? Who makes another abode for me?

To seek this housebuilder I wandered through countless lives, and in each life I had to experience only suffering. This time, however, I have gained that supreme wisdom, enlightenment, which has laid bare before me the Truth in its totality. I have now seen this housebuilder, and he can no more build another abode for me. I have now destroyed all the building materials with which he could build another house for me. I have shattered the ridge pole, I have thrown asunder all the beams. Now there are no bases for the house. This mind is now completely pure; gone are its conditionings from the past, and no possibility is there of its getting defiled in the future, for there is no craving left; all the attachments have been uprooted; all the sensuous cravings, all the cravings for existence and all the cravings for extinction have been destroyed.

Who was this housebuilder after all, whom the Enlightened One had finally seen? In this long struggle for freedom, what he say was only Mara. Was this Mara the housebuilder? Who is this Mara? He is none other than the personification of all the defilements accumulated deep in our minds. Indeed, it is only Mara which prepares a new house for us every time, and through a new birth gives rise to a new body. Mara has been rendered helpless, defenceless, weak; now how could he make a new house? All the building blocks for the house have been destroyed; that is, the conditioning of the past and the desires for the future, which alone cause the process of becoming for us. If both of these are eliminated, then the process of becoming stops automatically, as is the case when a fire exhausts and extinguishes itself when no new fuel is added to it and the old gets consumed. How could the fire go on without fuel?

"Kh²na½ Pur±na½, Nava½ Natthi Sambhava½"  all the old sankh±r±'s have been destroyed, no new sankh±r±'s are being made, this was the state of total liberation. This was the enlightenment of that Bodhisattva; this was the ultimate victory of light over darkness; this was the victory of deathless over death; the victory of Truth over ignorance.

If we were to applaud in delight this great achievement of Siddhartha Gotama, this alone would not bring us any important benefits. Our benefit lies in gaining that wisdom ourselves, in witnessing that Truth ourselves. If the victory of Siddhartha Gotama over himself inspires us to walk that path which could enlighten him, and even in small degrees if we were to purify our minds, only then would we experience and possess true peace. So let us understand what the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gotama was and how he obtained it.

The Supreme Enlightenment of Prince Gotama was not an act of mercy of some invisible power. This was the fruit of man's own supreme, tireless effort. This was not the product of any intellectual flight of imagination or the result of any blind devotional faith. This was the supreme wisdom, the supreme insight; this was witnessing and experiencing the Ultimate Truth. To achieve this, empty intellectual speculation and blind devotion could not be the routes. In fact, only discarding them totally from the head and the heart makes achievement of such ultrapurity possible. Mind freed itself of all emotional devotion, false imaginations, purified itself with the highest wisdom and was filled with infinite love and compassion. All this was achieved through self eliance and selfdependence. How can one be totally independent and free through dependence on someone? How can one be thus liberated? Man has to fight his own inner battles; he has to fight his own enemies, his own mental defilements and his own wrong views. In such a battle, the clouds of ignorance are blown away and the light of wisdom begins to shine forth through the darkness.

In search of Truth, the student looks within and experiences all that is happening within him, and also begins to understand the reasons for all that is taking place. He then begins to understand that whatever has a cause can cease. He also begins to understand the way in which these causes can be eliminated. So, by such understanding and wisdom, with his own efforts, he destroys the causes, and becomes liberated of all his shackles and shines forth as the dazzling sun in a cloudless sky.

After groping through a maze of different techniques, in many previous births, and even in the last one, for a technique which could break all the bondages, he discovered this simple, straightforward method and left it for us as a legacy. We too, can achieve through the implementation of this technique the same purity and freedom which he attained.

What was this technique? It was a way to see the Truth as it is: observing the gross reality, we march towards the subtle and to the subtlest; by dissection, dissolution and examination of the solid apparent conventional Truth, we reach the Ultimate Truth. The search for Truth in this manner is only possible if we discard all the coloured glasses of old prejudices and beliefs, and, on the strength of our actual experience, we keep accepting every layer of reality as it manifests itself. "Yath± bhut± ñ±na  Dassana½"  Observing and understanding reality as it is, from moment to moment, is the process of developing wisdom, insight, which enables one to realize the Ultimate Truth. In this there is neither room for speculation, nor for blind devotion. The great recipient of enlightenment searched for the Ultimate Truth like a research scientist, and succeeded in his efforts by setting aside both of these impediments.

Amidst nature, Siddhartha Gotama took his birth, amidst nature he got enlightened and amidst nature he breathed his last, entering the state of PariNibb±na. The three most important events of his life took place in the lap of nature, outdoors, and throughout his life, too, he deeply studied the entire phenomenon of nature. He noted that in this mobile world everything is in a state of flux, in a state of motion. Nothing remains static, nothing stationary. Every moment something or the other is constantly happening, everything is constantly changing; becoming from moment to moment, is the nature of the universe. This is why it is called 'Bhava' universe. What we term the stable, solid elements of matter are also evanescent. At their subtlest level, they are also constantly changing at every moment. What we call consciousness is also in a continuous state of flow, flux, change. This phenomenon of change as we see it in nature is also happening within every sentient being, too. This phenomenon of change continues on and on.

The Enlightened One, through introspection, deep within, realized this very Truth. The entire secret of nature unfolded itself. It was clear how due to ignorance we identify ourselves with the aggregate of body and the flow of mind, and clinging to both of them we call them 'I', 'I', 'My', 'My'; thus getting more and more entangled, we keep ourselves miserable, tense and twisted like the rope of reed. The secret of both mind and body became apparent as he realized the Ultimate Truth of their nature. Thus he realized not only the Ultimate Truth of the material and mental sensual world, but also experienced the state of Nibb±na which transcends both. In this manner, based on the testimony of personal experience, he clearly saw the suffering, he saw the cause of this suffering, and he also saw the state of total liberation which he achieved by eradicating the cause of suffering. Come, let us also see and understand with the testimony of our own experiences the nature of our material aggregate, the nature of our psychic aggregates, and the nature of the combination of these two, the life continuum. Let us understand how a continuous change is taking place in both the mental and material aggregates of our being. Let us also see how, because of ignorance, tensions continue to be created and how complications develop. Then let us clearly understand how we can check the process of tying knots and creating tensions, how we can untie the old knots, how we can resolve old complications, and how, by experiencing the Ultimate Truth, we can taste the state of total liberation. 'Vesakha Punnima' inspires us to this goal; let us take advantage of this inspiration.

Let us also see the housebuilder, Mara, in ourselves and vanquish him by making him armless, harmless, powerless. Let us see our own defilements to destroy them. In this lies our liberation; in this lies our wellbeing.

MAY ALL BEINGS BE LIBERATED. MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY.