On Bodhi Day, some Buddhists celebrate Gautama’s attainment of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, India. This event is usually observed on December 8 every year.
The following is an INSIGHT INTO THE NATURE OF THE BUDDHA, COURTESY OF THE GUYANA HINDUSTANI BUDDHA SANGHA, and compiled BY BUDDHA ACHARYA PANDIT CHRISHNA PERSAUD FILS, SAC (DIP. LAW)

ONE of the greatest, epoch-making events in the spiritual history of Mankind occurred when the ‘Light of the World’ was set out bright in Kapil Vastu at the foot of the Himalayas in Central India.

‘I am awake, now I shall wake the world’

The spring of wisdom and compassion gushed up there, and in the course of time, it has enriched the human mind for over 2000 years.
Siddhartha, who later came to be known as Gautama Buddha, abandoned his royal home and became a mendicant, eager to find the solution to the suffering of the world.
The teachings of Gautama Buddha was exported to other countries by Emperor Asoka (268-232 B.C.) Buddhism, as this teaching is known, then spread from Burma to China, Korea to Afghanistan, Syria to Japan.
With great compassion and incomparable skill, the enlightened master Buddha taught in any way that would lead people on the correct path to liberation and, finally, to Buddha-hood.
Sometimes the Buddha taught in a way that led his disciples gradually to an understanding of the absolute nature of reality, and in these situations, he taught about relative reality first. At other times, he taught of the ultimate nature directly and explicitly.
Over the course of his forty-five years of teaching, the Buddha turned the wheel of dharma three times, initiating new cycles of teaching for the benefit of sentient beings. These three turnings are commonly known as the dharma chakras ( or ‘dharma wheels’).
The first turning of the wheel of dharma took place not long after the Buddha’s enlightenment. At this time, Buddha presented teachings on the four noble truths, karma, and the selflessness of the person. These teachings form the basis of what is called the “common vehicle” (Hinayana), or the vehicle of the “listeners” or “hearers.” The second and third turnings form the basis of the vehicle known as the Mahayana.
In this phase, the Buddha taught the Prajna-paramita Sutras, or the Sutras of Transcendent Knowledge. Now, the Buddha emphasized the emptiness or lack of true existence of both self (tathagata-garbha), or Buddha-nature. These focus on the luminous nature of emptiness, and reveal that the potential for Buddha-hood has always been present within our hearts. At the same time, in the final turning of the wheel of dharma, Buddha clearly distinguished between the indicative and definitive meanings of his various teachings.
The four Noble Truths
The Buddha taught the four noble truths: (1) The truth of suffering. (2) The truth of the origin of suffering. (3) The truth of the cessation of suffering and (4) The truth of the path that leads to cessation. Buddha presented these four truths in sets of two: The cause and result of samsara and the cause and result of nirvana. Samsara refers to a state of existence that is characterized by a predominance of suffering, and nirvana refers to the state of liberation from suffering as well as to the cessation of its causes.

Suffering
The Buddha saw that the world was full of suffering. Birth and old age is Suffering, sickness and death is suffering. To meet a person whom someone hates is suffering. To be separated from a beloved one is suffering. To struggle to satisfy basic needs is suffering. In fact a life that is not free from desire , passion, greed and ignorance is always involved with distress and suffering.

Cause of Suffering
The cause of human suffering is undoubtly found in the thirsts of the physical body in the illusion for worldly possessions. If these thirsts and illusions are traced to their sources, they are found to be deeply rooted in desires. Thus desire has a strong will to live and give continuity to suffering. People of the world are prone to be selfish and unsympathetic. They do not know how to love and respect one another. They argue and quarrel over small issues only to their own harm and suffering. Life then becomes a cycle of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The poor suffers from insuffiency and this serves to awaken endless desires for wealth. The life is then controlled by greed and determination of struggle for more to the point where there is
weakening of both body and mind.
A wealthy man worries about his estate and inheritance. He worries of disaster and disposition of his wealth. He worries about death and loneliness

Cessation of suffering
If desires which lie at the root of all human passion, greed and hatred can be removed, then the passion will die out and all human suffering will end. In order to enter the state where there is no suffering one must follow a certain path. The stages of this Noble Path are: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Behaviour, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.

Nirvava
Nirvana is an ancient word which means enlightenment. However, in later Mahayana as it developed in India, enlightenment is a more advanced experience than nirvana. It’s developed after nirvana – it follows on from nirvana. (So you can see that “nirvana” doesn’t refer to an experience that happens only at death! Like salvation. There is life after the experience of nirvana, but now the person is not an “ordinary” person; he or she is a (Jeewa Mukhta) liberated soul, a (Bodhisattva) on the path to full enlightenment.)
Awakened is the translation of Bodhi. The Buddha – any Buddha – is “an awakened being”. Depending on whether you follow Theravada or Mahayana, “awakened” will refer to nirvana or to full enlightenment. In the meditation traditions (like Zen) you also find the words “awakened” and even “enlightened” used for the deep experiences that arise in meditation as you’re following the path. So in these traditions you can talk about a series of “enlightenments” or “awakenings” which eventually culminate in full and complete enlightenment or God realisation and Self realisation.
Once we have realized the truth of suffering, then the question is, “What are the causes of this suffering?” In the second noble truth, Buddha taught that our suffering originates in our false belief, Ego and selfishness. This fixation is the basis for the arising of certain mental afflictions, or destructive emotions, called the “three root poisons”: passion, aggression, and ignorance. From these three poisons, we experience the development of further negative emotions and all aspects of suffering. Since these poisons result from ego-clinging, the root of all our suffering is our ego-clinging.

Relationship of our actions to our suffering
When we examine our experience of suffering further, we also see that it is connected to our actions. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship of our actions to our suffering. In Buddhist terminology, when we speak of “actions,” we are speaking of karma, the natural relationship of cause and effect. Simply speaking, karma, which means “action,” refers to action within our mind; it refers to the movement of thoughts, intentions, and motivations. This mental action leads us to or results in physical action—either the physical action of speech or the physical action of body. Thus, in a genuine understanding of karma, actions take place in our mind rather than on the physical level.

Karma
We are constantly involved in accumulation of karma, and in Buddhism, this accumulation is divided into three basic categories: negative actions, positive actions, and neutral actions. From this perspective, whatever thoughts we might entertain and whatever actions we might be engaged in, these will all leave a karmic impression in our mind that is either positive or negative. A negative impression is left by any action that harms either the one who commits the action or the one who is the object of the action, or both. These are generally actions arising out of hatred, jealousy, aggression, and passion—the negative aspects of our emotions. The moment when any thought is involved in aggression has tremendous energy and power, and the resultant negative seed that is planted in the mind will manifest as aggression again. This is as certain as the fact that planting the seed of a pepper will lead to the result of a pepper plant.

Karmic impressions
When we are under the influence of mental afflictions, we are incessantly planting the seeds of confusion and restlessness in our mindstream, which, fundamentally, is pure and without any confusion. Thus, engaging in harmful actions that leave negative impressions in our mind is like walking with dirty shoes into a beautiful, clean room. We leave our tracks all over the clean floor wherever we walk. In this analogy, our mind is the spotless floor, our karmic action is our mindless walking with dirty shoes, and the negative impressions left in our mindstream are the footprints we track across the clean floor. In this way, we perpetuate the cycle of samsara and increase our own unhappiness and suffering.
Of course, it is not an actual physical location that we are trying to escape but a mental state—the convoluted and tortuous quality that is inherent in our individual experience of samsara. It is the wish to be free of such suffering that is the basis of earnestly seeking liberation.

Emptiness
In the first turning of the wheel of dharma, the Buddha began to teach the view of emptiness. When he taught the four noble truths, he said, “Suffering is impermanent, impermanence is emptiness, and emptiness is selflessness.” This can also be stated as, “Impermanence is suffering, suffering is emptiness, and emptiness is selflessness.” In this way, Buddha taught emptiness in a way that was very accessible. While it is generally difficult to experience emptiness directly, right away, it is not so difficult to recognize our own suffering, which is a very vivid experience. Once we have seen the truth of suffering, then it is also not so difficult to see its momentary, impermanent nature. This leads to a deeper understanding of the impermanent nature of all phenomena, which is the basis for realizing emptiness.
Emptiness means “lack of inherent existence”. It’s the way everything – ourselves and all phenomena – actually exist. Nothing has a permanent unchanging nature. Everything we experience arises because of causes and conditions, and is thus constantly changing. Emptiness is a very interesting and subtle subject, well worth studying in depth. WE need to study it, to understand intellectually what emptiness really is, before we can achieve a realization of emptiness.

Impermanence
An Intellectual understanding of emptiness brings enquiry into the rationality of impermanence. That nothing is permanent and everything is constantly changing. In instances on poverty , pain, suffering, rejection, emotional disorders etc that affects someone, there is always the longing and desire for changes in circumstances. Changes can and will occur since the very situations are not permanent. What the rational mind seek is to change the situations by replacing one imparmence with another.
However change will not occur by artificially transposition of environment and circumstance. There will always be the need for letting go of emotions
Wealth can bring an end to poverty, Relationship can end loneliness, but how sustainable is wealth and relationship.
In the world today people see life as existence or non existence, but the enlightened person sees life as being beyond existence or non existence. He recognises the transcendental in both of them.
All things appear and disappear because of cause and condition. Nothing ever exist alone; everything is related to everything else. Wherever there is light, there is shadow, wherever there is length there is shortness. As the self-nature of things cannot exist alone, they are called non-substantial. By the same reasoning enlightenment cannot exist independent of ignorance, nor can ignorance exist alone. Since things do not differ in their essential nature, there can be no duality.
Suppose a Log is floating in a river. If the log does not become grounded or sink, or is not taken out by someone or does not decay. Ultimately it will reach the sea. Life is like this log caught in a great current of attachment and delusion through desires, fear, hatred, enmity, false pride etc.
If someone is to avoid being in a great current of attachment and delusion they must first seek to understand the two basic human defilements. The first is ignorance and the second is desire.

Cessation of all suffering
Nirvava brings cessation of all pain and sorrow flowing from negative thoughts and unbalanced mind. Cessation generally means the complete stopping of mental defilements. This can only happen when we have a true realization of emptiness. However someone can experience the partial ceasing of defilements before that, and if he/she keep practising steadily, then the defilements will become weaker and weaker so that when you do realize emptiness, you’ll be able to follow the rest of the path quite easily.
However, in order to possess such a pure motivation and such vast compassion and love for others, we must have some understanding or realization of selflessness. If we have compassion or love with an egocentric view, then that compassion and love will not be genuine. When the experience of selflessness is combined with compassion and love, it becomes the perfect Mahayana expression of bodhicitta, which is not just emptiness, but forgiveness, letting go of bad experiences, a sense of justice, love, kindness, compassion and selflessness must be unified into one experience.

True nature of the mind
The Buddha went further into his teachings on the ultimate nature of mind. At this time, he taught that the true nature of mind is not merely emptiness, a state of nonexistence. Rather, our fundamental nature of mind is a luminous expanse of awareness that is beyond all conceptual fabrication and completely free from the movement of thoughts. It is the union of emptiness and clarity, of space and radiant awareness that is endowed with supreme and immeasurable qualities. From this basic nature of emptiness everything is expressed; from this everything arises and manifests.
With these teachings on the absolute nature of mind, Buddha introduced the notion of tathagata-garbha, or the Buddha nature theory. This declares that the fundamental nature of mind is utterly pure and primordially in the state of Buddha hood. It is the absolute Buddha. It has never changed from beginning less time. Its essence is wisdom and compassion that is inconceivably profound and vast. The term tathagata is an epithet for the Buddha and refers to one who has “gone beyond” the ordinary world to the state of perfect enlightenment. Garbha is sometimes translated as “womb” or “seed.” Thus, tathagatagarbha points to the enlightened potential that is inherent within all sentient beings, whether they exist as humans, animals, gods, or even demons.

Avidya
However, this potential is veiled by certain temporary ignorance (avidya), in the same way that the sun may be temporarily concealed by clouds. Therefore we do not apprehend it directly. Instead, we see only what is perceptible by means of our dualistic consciousness: a stream of sense perceptions, mental constructs, thoughts, and emotions that arise and dissolve ceaselessly. It is these appearances of relative phenomena that obscure the direct recognition of the open, brilliant, and dynamic reality of genuine mind. Nevertheless, our Buddha nature itself has never been diminished by the presence of such adventitious phenomena, just as the sun itself is never diminished by the presence of clouds.

Indicative and definitive meanings
The third turning is called the dharma-chakra of thorough distinction because, at this time, Buddha made clear distinctions between statements relating to relative truth and absolute truth. Statements with “indicative meaning” are those that indirectly indicate the path to awakening without being a direct or definitive statement of the final nature of awakening. These statements are not misleading; they lead you in the right direction in a manner that is appropriate to our particular concerns at a specific time.
These teachings were not direct statements of or about absolute truth; they were concerned with relative truth or relative reality. By contrast, statements with “definitive meaning” are those that pertain directly to the absolute truth and do not require interpretation. They are final and, to some extent, literal. They do not indirectly lead to the meaning but are direct statements of it. Included in this category are the teachings on the causes of final awakening, and Buddha nature.

Three Turnings, One Path
The Buddha taught only one dharma, but people heard it in different ways. The Buddha’s teachings have been heard and repeated for many hundreds of years; different understandings have developed, and with them, more and more schools. The teachings of the three yanas (vehicles) and turnings, however, all play a vital role on the path.
In terms of practice of Buddhism, however, we need a certain amount of structure and a clear view of this path; otherwise, we will become confused and lost. In each of the different ways Buddha taught the “right view” of emptiness for each stage of the path. It is necessary to understand this at the beginning because, without having the right view, we cannot find the right path. Without discovering the right path, we will not meet with the right experiences and realizations. Without realizing the nature of mind correctly, we have no way to free ourselves from samsara. This is why the correct view is so important: to go beyond conceptual understanding to the direct realization of the absolute, awakened state.