Prologue to Buddhism 2

By the age of 35 he realized that neither self-indulgence nor self-mortification were leading him to the answers that he was looking for. Then, on the full moon night of May, having turned away from these two extremes, he sat beneath the branches of what is now known as the Bothi Tree in a secluded grove by the banks of a river, and developed his mind in deep, luminous and tranquil states of meditation. With the extraordinary clarity and sharp penetrative power that is generated by inner stillness. He focused his attention on investigating the nature of existence, its causes and its cessation. Through this contemplation of the essence of reality, he attained the supreme awakening, the experience of enlightenment. From that point on he was known as he Buddha, the Awakened one.