Siddhartha Gautama, later known as Shakyamuni Buddha, was born in the time of an emerging Yoga tradition in India. As a young adult, Buddha left a life of wealth and power as the son of a King in order to pursue spiritual practice. Though he "had it all" he felt he was missing what was most important - the answer to the dissatisfaction and confusion that beings face, which he called "samsara."

"He sought the unaltered state."

On his journey, he received teachings of the emerging Yogic tradition but found none of the methods led him to the state of realization or enlightenment. He saw enlightenment as a state he felt intuitively must be the answer to the peril of birth, old age, sickness and death. He was successful under both of his Yogic teachers who introduced him to meditative practice. These practices brought him into profound altered states and calm mind, but these altered states did not completely resolve poisonous mind states of grasping, aversion, and delusion. When he was not in the altered state he found his mind just as it always had been, and found himself no closer to understanding the cause of the suffering and confusion of existence. Both his teachers recognized his success and invited him to remain on and lead their students, but Siddhartha had found no lasting peace, nor an answer to the suffering and confusion of mundane existence. He intuitively felt that no "altered" state, however blissful, could be equated with enlightenment. Instead, he experienced enlightenment to be an intrinsic condition, not something one contrived through Yogic powers, but rather discovered by letting go of confusion. He sought the un-altered state. He yearned to discover the innate condition of existence beyond alteration, a state more basic and fundamental than the five poisons, dissatisfaction ignorance, confusions and suffering. His search continued.

"His renunciation was so severe
that it is said that he looked like a skeleton
Yet he found his mind still plagued by poisonous states"

After his initial Yoga training, Buddha then set out on the path of severe austerities. His renunciation was so severe that it is said that he looked like a skeleton. For six years he renounced food, body, possessions, relationships, sexuality… all material existence. Yet he found his mind still plagued by poisonous states of delusion, grasping and aversion. He had not yet found an answer to the cause of suffering and confusion in the world. Siddhartha realized that his austerity had not led him to enlightenment. If he were any more austere, he would be dead. He knew again that something was missing. He contemplated what other way there could be and realized that what the spiritual path required was a middle way. It was not the extreme path he knew as an ascetic, nor the extreme of blissful transcendence, nor the extremely indulgent life he knew as a prince.

"He realized that there is a way
to resolve poisonous mind-states..."

Much that he had received from his previous Yoga training was applied to the path that Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha, then realized. Buddha saw that the path of enlightenment was the path of encountering awareness. He realized that lack of this awareness is what causes dissatisfaction, suffering and confusion. Unawareness is a basic state of misperceiving the nature of things and living in elaborations of that basic confusion. This misperception or delusion, leads to poisonous mind states of grasping and aversion. The grasping and aversion ironically arise out of a need to fix the awkwardness that the misperception (basic ignorance) generates in the first place. He realized there was a way out of this misperception - which is what became known as the Buddhist Path. The Buddhist path resolves the cause of the poisonous mind states and resolves the feeling of dissatisfaction that basic ignorance generates. This is not only a description of the four noble truths, Buddha's first teaching, but it is also a description of the wisdom of his enlightenment. Buddha taught the view of unaltered state of being, enlightenment as awareness, and the cause of suffering as un-awareness, or ignorance.

Buddha said that he did not invent a religion, sect or spirituality. Instead he just recognized things as they are. He called it dharma (Sanskrit) or cho (Tibetan). His enlightenment was the realization of things as they are and the path to return back to that clear awareness.

"When spiritualized, the concept of self
could act as a powerful obscuration
promoting arrogance and a loss of the
sensitive presence of awareness."

Buddha made two other crucial additions to the teachings of the Yogic Tradition in what is known as the second and third turning of the wheel. He realized that the fundamental basis of everything was shunyata (empty - open). He saw that a subtle obstacle often remained in people's minds when they were ignorant of this openness. This obstacle constraining awareness is a concept of fixed self, an identity that when spiritualized could act as a powerful obscuration promoting arrogance. He taught that pursuing the idea of a fixed self was ignorance and that by nature, our self is un-fixed or sky-like; without permanent, definable nature.  This empty-open nature is the absolute level of reality, even beyond deities and beyond all conditions and causes. Awareness, or our own mind, is inseparable from this vast, dynamic, spaciousness. All situations and all circumstances are permeated by this openness. This openness is who we are. This teaching (the Heart Sutra), was also known as the Prajna Paramita, the perfection of wisdom. For the MahaSiddha tradition this teaching is the starting point of practice, since without realizing emptiness, it is impossible to connect with the potential of transformation and liberation.

"Our awake nature, our buddha nature,
is willing to see things as they are."

His sincere and deep inner search led him to find that enlightenment was actually built into the very fabric of our humanity. He gave another extraordinary teaching about Buddha-nature, that we are all inherently awake and enlightened by nature. If we are in our natural state, then we are enlightened. Beings only live in dissatisfaction, confusion and suffering because they have fallen into an unnatural state of misperception of reality. This confusion must be unraveled to return to our natural state. The spiritual path is not about accruing enlightenment, or building it up, or becoming anything. It is about un-attaining the confusion that obscures our innate awakeness. The spiritual path is about unraveling confusion, conditioning and habitual reality projections. These projections prevent us from perceiving clearly, in the same that way a day-dream prevents us from perceiving what others are actually saying to us.