The Buddha Was Very Focused

The official story of the Buddha’s life has it that his father pampered him as much as he could in the hope that he would take over the father’s fiefdom.

One morning, waking up after a party, and after having married and seen the birth of his son, he grewdisillusioned with his very comfortable, dissolute life and decided to leave the palace, in order to find the solution to the suffering or disappointment that pervaded human life.

He became a wandering mendicant, which was an option in that time and place in a way that it is not in the modern United States. He learned the most advanced meditation techniques he could find, but remained dissatisfied wtih them and became an ascetic, deliberately depriving and torturing himself on the theory that bodily mortification would lead to his full awakening. But, after several years of this practice, he concluded that it would not lead to his full awakening. He remembered a moment as a child when he fell spontaneously into a meditative state and realized that meditation was the practice he needed.

He then abandoned his ascetic friends, at some milk rice that a passing girl offered him, and sat down under a tree, resolving not to move until he awakened fully.

The next morning, after meditating all night, he awakened fully.

That is, he remained fully focused on his goal for years, until he finally achieved it.

He then told the rest of ua that we can all achieve the same goal if we remain equally focused on it and meditate consistently. And we have no idea how many other people have done exactly that since the time of the Buddha.

You can do it, I can do it, anyone can do it. Just keep up your consistent meditation practice.

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