After contemplating for seven (7) weeks under a Bodhi tree in northeastern India, The Buddha ultimately decided to share his Teachings with the world. Realizing, that it was only him who understood how to train the mind to experience complete peace and joy, out of compassion for the world, he chose to share his independently discovered Teachings with others.
He came back to the area where he was initially learning with those first two (2) Teachers. As he came back into that area, he encountered four (4) of his previous classmates and one (1) of his previous Teachers.
As he came back to that area, his previous classmates and Teacher saw him coming and they started laughing at him and mocking him. They saw him looking bright, healthy, and vibrant. Thinking he had given up on The Path to Enlightenment, they started joking him, mocking him, and laughing at him.
They thought, in order to get to Enlightenment you needed to be disparaging the physical body. They were still hanging themselves upside down from trees, laying on beds of nails, piercing the body with metal implements, and starving themselves. So, when they saw this bright, vibrant, radiant, healthy individual walking towards them, they thought he had given up on The Path to Enlightenment.
By the time you get to Enlightenment, if someone is joking, mocking, or laughing at you, the mind is unaffected by this, therefore, The Buddha’s mind remained at peace.
He came to where they were, sat down, reached down towards the earth, and touched the ground. Having done so, animals came to where he was at.
Birds, squirrels, rabbits, lizards, deer, etc. all came to him.
He performed a miracle, the one and only miracle he ever performed.
This got the attention of the five (5) individuals, they sat down, and listened to what he had to share.
He shared his very first Teaching, The Four Noble Truths.
In four simple statements, he explained the problem in the unEnlightened mind, the cause of the problem, the elimination of the problem, and the way leading to the complete solution to the problem.
In four simple statements, the individuals that listened to him knew he had attained Enlightenment.
A Buddha’s Teachings are independently verifiable. So they knew, in that moment, he had figured out how to attain Enlightenment and had accomplished that goal. They could independently verify his Teachings and knew that he had discovered the problem, cause, elimination, and solution.
While this artwork depicts The Buddha sitting on a pedestal, that is how people depict him today but, during his lifetime, he would have just sat comfortably. A Buddha is not going to put themselves above others, as they see themselves as being equal to everyone, not above nor below others.
Whenever you see artwork depicting The Buddha teaching five (5) individual Students, this is depicting his very first Teaching of The Four Noble Truths. Sometimes the artist will depict one of the first five (5) Students with gray hair representing his previous Teacher. This artwork does not show that aspect of his life story, however, you might see that in other artwork.
If you would like to learn what The Buddha discovered as The Path to Enlightenment starting with The Four Noble Truths, I invite you to join into one of our learning events where you can independently verify what The Buddha discovered and progress towards Enlightenment through training of the mind.