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In this part, Buddha stops trying to find mentors or "ways" to find his answers. He finally sits down under a tree and decides to look within - to find the answer within himself. It is now that he meets a great "battle" with the Lord of Desire (basically Satan).
He fights off this "Lord" and his Demons without so much as moving, shortly there after, he finds the answers to all his questions. By the end of this, he is now 35 years old and decides (through a tough decision) to share his teachings with the world.
Here are my more detailed notes:
1. During this time of recovering from almost having killed himself, a little girl offers him some rice after seeing him starving. He accepts and this is when he comes to realize what Christians call "Grace."
Except in Christianity, "Grace" comes from the Divine, in the story of Buddha it came from a little girl or any ordinary man with a kind heart.
2. This is when all of a sudden he experienced the feeling of "missing" - he was missing his family, his son, his wife, his step-mother's rice pudding.
3. When he took the food, he returned back to his original question and he was on his way to physical recovery, but his spiritual question remained.
He left the people who taught him to abuse his body after being abused by them for eating, for embracing "pleasures."
4. He now realized that he would no longer seek Masters or seek practices to find his answers, but for the first time - he would look WITHIN to himself to seek his answers.
5. He sat in one spot under a tree and proclaimed that he would not move from that spot at that time until he had received his answer.
6. Almost instantly the same "Lord of Desire" rose to challenge him yet again, with an army of Demons he attacked Siddhartha, but he did not move.
Their weapons all turned into flowers.
The Lord is afraid that if the Buddha attains his answer, he will do away with Desire all together hence ruining the World.
The Demon even sent his 3 daughters to seduce Siddhartha, however, he remained still and unmoved.
Now the Demon was very frustrated, so he gave one final test. He demanded to know "who would testify that Siddhartha was worthy of obtaining ultimate knowledge."
Siddhartha said nothing, but touched the ground and the earth shuttered and the demons all fled. Siddhartha was basically saying that the earth was his witness.
7. He then meditated throughout the night and all his previous lives passed before him, he remembered all of them and everything.
He had just gained the power to SEE the process of reincarnation and now had a vision and understanding of the workings of the entire Universe.
8. By morning he said "my mind is at peace" and now he had officially become the "Awakened One" - the Buddha.
9. He then said that we're all enlightened, the capacity, the ability all exists within us - our ability to achieve Nirvana.
10. There is nothing to aim for in the after life - just pay attention to the PRESENT, because that is all that is.
11. "Pay special attention to your entire surroundings, everything around you"
12. After this moment, he wanted to retire into solitude, rather than going around teaching it. He had his doubts as to whether people would understand him or just call him nuts.
He debated whether he should go out and teach this or not. He admits to being afraid to teach the people.
13. The myth is that a God comes to Buddha, a Brahma, and asks Buddha to please share what he has learned that the Earth and it's People needed his teachings.
He then decided to go teach it.
14. He was now 35 and he would now devote the rest of his life to bringing his teachings into the world.
15. But as he had feared it would not be easy.
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