Janelle Harrison

RS 1 Paper #3
Disc. Wed. 8:00am
The Enlightened Buddha

The narrative of the Buddha’s enlightenment describes in detail the events that

lead the Buddha to his enlightened state and through the experiential dimension. These

stages of transic meditation along with the victory over Mara illustrate the experiential

dimension that the Buddha goes through. The experiential dimension in this narrative

begins with the Buddha’s “intent of discerning both the ultimate reality of things and the

final goal of existence.” This was to be achieved through meditation.

Before he was regarded as the Buddha, this great seer had to finally comprehend

that where ignorance does not lie; where all karma formations stop being formed (the

cycle of birth, death, and rebirth- samsara) was the state of true enlightenment. Once this

had been comprehended he had achieved the correct knowledge and finally became the

Buddha. Experiencing this, and discovering the authentic way the Buddha knew all

higher and lower things and had traveled on to the ultimate and real truth.

The Buddha’s experience of realizing the ultimate and real truth was an

experience of powerful proportion and the Buddha was over-come with compassion and

he was intent on giving the world peace. Such an experience was so compelling for the

Buddha it would only proper to consider this the experiential dimension of the Buddha’s

life.

As the Buddha’s eye had been uncovered to the things he formally did not know

and thus could not understand the rest of his enlightenment also proved to be of a most

mystical experiential dimension. The narrative of the Buddha’s life illustrates this as it

was presented in Professor Smart and Professor Hecht’s book.