Clinging to shows and illusions produces deeds.
Deeds engender birth.
Birth produces age and death.
And this is the weary round, the offspring of Ignorance repeated in the endless turning of the Wheel, the dragging of a lengthening chain of births. For the ignorant man, desiring the things that are worthless, transient, illusory, seeing about him false shows instead of the high things which are real, creates in himself a passion which in turn creates more and more dangerous illusions, and thus is his own victim. But when false desire dies, illusions end, and Ignorance, dispersing like the night, gives place to the Sun of Enlightenment and the world lies about such a man as it truly is. And he knows, being no more the prisoner of time and space and their brood of follies, for Ignorance, the true cause of all ill, in him is dead.
And having thus perceived the world as it is, our Lord was perfected in wisdom, and shows and illusions being ended for him, there died in him that false self which will have all for its own; never again to be born, utterly at an end,—even that false ego shut in the prison of itself. And in him was completed the destruction of craving and evil desire, as a fire goes out for lack of fuel. For the man in whom is no separation from the Source, in whom is no ignorance, how shall he desire that which has no eternity but is transient as a morning dream? And over him Desire and Death—which indeed are one—had no more dominion.
Thus first he found the way of perfect knowledge, and in the broad east the onrushing of the sun’s golden wheels was heard afar.
So he reached at last the unfathomable source of Truth, beholding past, present, and future as one, having passed beyond the glimmer of the six senses into true perception, no longer gazing through a narrow window, but about and around him the wide horizon—and more.
Illumined with all wisdom sat the Buddha, the Perfected One, having at last attained, and the light strengthened and grew in rapture. And about him the world lay calm and bright and a soft breeze lifted the leaves.
And for seven days and nights sat our Lord beneath the Tree, lost in contemplation of the World as it Is, submerged in the ocean of love, having entered the Nirvana, most utterly at peace, and day and night—or what men call such—made their solemn procession about him unheeded, for he was lost in bliss, and his heart said:
“Now, resting here, have I attained my birth-weary heart’s desire, having traversed many lives to this goal. Now have I slain the self, and the fetters are broken, and not for myself alone.”