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ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE VISION OF A NEW WAY
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to obtain enlightenment. He reached final enlightenment in four stages.
In the first stage he called forth reason and investigation. His seclusion helped him to attain it easily.
In the second stage he added concentration.
In the third stage he brought to his aid equanimity and mindfulness.
In the fourth and final stage he added purity to equanimity and equanimity to mindfulness.
Thus with mind concentrated, purified, spotless, with defilement gone, supple, dexterous, firm, impassionate, not forgetting what he is after, Gautama concentrated himself on the problem of finding an answer to the question which had troubled him.
On the night of the last day of the fourth week light dawned upon him. He realised that there were two problems. The first problem was that there was suffering in the world and the second problem was how to remove this suffering and make mankind happy.
So in the end, after meditation for four weeks, darkness was dispelled, light arose, ignorance was dispelled and knowledge arose. He saw a new way.
§ 3. The Discovery of a New Dhamma
Gautama when he sat in meditation for getting new light was greatly in the grip of the Sankhya Philosophy.
That suffering and unhappiness in the world he thought was an incontrovertible fact.
Gautama was, however, interested in knowing how to do away with suffering. This problem the Sankhya Philosophy did not deal with.
It is, therefore, on this problem—how to remove suffering and unhappiness—that he concentrated his mind.
Naturally, the first question he asked himself was— “What are the causes of suffering and unhappiness which an individual undergoes?”
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