At the age of twenty-.
nine, he decided to leave his palace and enter "the homeless life" of a monk to seek the truth and .
find a way to salvation for all conscious and alive beings. In his search for salvation among the teachers, he surpassed them and found that their doctrines were insufficient, not leading to .
awakening, to extinction and to enlightenment and insight. He departed those teachers and turned .
to practice self-mastery for six years with great willingness and effort. Buddha met five holy men .
who offered their services to him, and finally, the Buddha realized that the ascetic exercises were .
not the right way to attain salvation. He had practiced self-mastery to the limit of his endurance .
and felt very weakened without achieving anything. So, he partook of food, regained strength and .
began to practice meditation which finally led to His enlightenment under the Holy Bodi tree .
near the town of Uruvela, the present Buddha-Gaya when he was only thirty-five years .
.
One of the things that amazes me a lot about this really is all the meditation the .
monks do, most of a monk's day consist of meditating. When meditating you are suppose to set .
yourself free from all things. Meditation is very difficult to describe and can only truly be .
explained once experienced. It is the practice of mental concentration leading ultimately through a .
sequence of stages to the final goal of spiritual freedom, nirvana. The purpose of Buddhist .
meditation is to free ourselves from the delusion and thereby put an end to both ignorance and .
craving. The Buddhists describe the culminating trance-like state as transient; final Nirvana .
requires the insight of wisdom. The exercises that are meant to develop wisdom involve .
meditation on the true nature of reality or the conditioned and unconditioned elements that make .
up all phenomena. The goal of meditation is to develop a concept in the mind.