001 What a person will meditate for six years or twelve years

Common Universal Consensus is that Buddha meditated for twelve years under a banian tree and realised himself.

What is that there to spend twelve years to meditate on for twelve years? It is not advanced mathematics. It is not nuclear physics or quantum physics. It is not deep brain stimulation surgery. It is not piloting an aircraft or controlling a spacecraft. It is not DNA analysis or genetic engineering. What was that Buddha did for twelve years under the banian tree at Maha Bodhi?

Learning simple skills and things may take longer time than learning complex systems and theories.

Examples : 1. Stitching button-holes, while learning the craft from a tailor. 2. Making earthen-pots. 3. Manoeuvering a boat of split-palm-stem boat on Kolleru waters in West Godavari District of A.P. 4. Chasing a buffalo in the River Godavari or Krishna for taking it to graze in islands. 5. Making Mysore Pak sweet without making it too loose or too hard. 6. Milking a cow or buffalo.

This list of simple-appearing but difficult-to-learn things, is only illustrative and not exhaustive.

Buddha didn't either learn the simple things, or the complex things, or the simple-looking complex things, or the complex-looking simple things.

(I am not quoting manoeuvering rafts on Nayagara Falls or the Upper Yough River or the Cheat Canyon because they are worldwide well-known as real challenges taking long time to learn. They do not appear simple. They appear difficult and are really difficult.).

Today is Buddha Poornima (Full moon-day of the lunar month Visakha - moon will be in conjunction with the star Alpha Libra). Buddha's birthday is celebrated all over the world.

Ms. Swapna Chopra, a columnist of our local newspaper Deccan Chronicle wrote:

"... For the next six years Siddhardha remained immersed in deep concentration. It was a harsh , merciless practice. To subjugate his body he would eat almost nothing, at times only a single grain of rice. ...he ended his penance by accepting a bowl of kheer (a preparation of cereal boiled in milk) from Sujata ... went to sit under a Bodhi tree. ... ... Six days later he realised his true Nature and that of Reality. ....... there was a sense of conclusion and supreme connection. ..."

What is there for a sense of conclusion or supreme connection? The end to any existence whether that of a daily laborer or the Pope/Swami/Imam, is physical change of form owing to chemical reactions in the body and consequent decay. This has recently been adequately demonstrated by the death and burial of Sathya Sai Baba, a Godman of Puttaparti who amassed billions by conjurations and thaumaturgy.

Every one of us know that desire is the root of misery. The only thing is we refuse to accept it in totality and get rid of the desires and the consequent miseries.

Suppose an adamant person like me says : "I accept that desires cause misery. I am also willing to dance/laugh/revel when things turn favourable and brood/lament/sulk when things turn unfavourable. This is the very essence of existentialism. There is no need for me to become an escapist or a stoic."

It can be as good as or as bad as a philosophy like Buddhism.

Pretending to be a Buddhist monk may be easy. But living like a Buddhist monk does not remove misery from life. Living like a real monk is worse than real misery.

The PrAtimoksha rules and regulations relating to 'nisagga pAchayitta' prescibed for the Buddhist monks and nuns adequately demonstrate this imposed enforcement of misery on the poor innocent bhikshus and bhikshun`is.

(To continue).