Psychological Analysis of Buddha’s Enlightenment

from H. W. Schumann “The Historical Buddha” (emphases mine)

As an event which originated a new school of thinking and a new religion, the enlightenment of the Buddha deserves psychological analysis. Under the influence of Zen Buddhism modern writers have -- wrongly -- described this enlightenment as like a lightning-flash. From Gotama's account... we learn that the enlightenment was spread over three night-watches (about nine hours), and was a gradual process. This agrees with his statement that in his doctrine progress is gradual and there is no sudden, spontaneous understanding (anna), just as the seashore does not lead abruptly into deep water, but slopes away gradually. In addition, the process of enlightenment was guided by reason, as appears clearly from the words, three times repeated: "I directed my mind to the understanding of. . ." We must therefore picture Gotama's enlightenment as a happy condition, lasting several hours, of extreme mental clarity, which activated all the intellectual abilities and focused them, like a burning glass, on one point at a time. There was nothing ecstatic about this bodhi, it was not an out-of-body state or a trance.

Nor was Gotama's search at this point a blind fumbling in the dark. He knew precisely on which objects to direct his attention. Since he had been familiar with Upanishadic ideas of rebirth from his stay with Uddaka, he was able to direct his mind to the profounder penetration of this theme. The same applies to the system of four truths, which he will have known from the well-developed medical theory which already existed in the India of the sixth century BC. According to this, one asked first about the disease, then about its cause, then about the possibility of annihilating that cause, and finally about the medicine. Gotama's enlightenment consisted largely in the analytical understanding of pre-existing thought.

But it went further, because it was also synthetic, i.e. an understanding which opened up new areas of knowledge. The "aha" experience of analytical penetration was accompanied by the "oh" experience of joyous creative intuition, in which accepted opinions and fresh insights combined in Gotama's mind like crystals to form a new truth and doctrine (dhamma). In the glorious clarity of bodhi a new system of thought was formed out of elements old and new, which explained the world "as it is" (yathabhutam), pointed out a way from suffering to deliverance, and finally transcended all previous insights into one all-comprising truth. It is just this overriding element of illumination which points to beyond the visible and gives the Buddha's teaching that magical fascination that still moves mankind and leads people towards the good. There is no contradiction between Gotama's statement on the one hand that his doctrine is like an old, overgrown path that he has rediscovered, leading through the jungle to a forgotten city, and his insistence elsewhere that it is something new, "never heard before".

We must distinguish the rational element of the enlightenment, which forms the content of the doctrine (dhamma) from its psychological effect on himself. It has always been a basic conviction of Indian religions that knowledge, understanding or wisdom could remove the factors that bind us to suffering and rebirth. The Buddha, too, never doubted this. How did he justify breaking off his ascetic practices? Because, he says, they do not lead to "that wisdom which, when one has it. . . leads the practitioner to the total destruction of suffering). Lack of knowledge (avijja) binds us to the cycle of rebirths, while understanding (nana), knowledge (vijja) or wisdom (panna) liberate us from it: They are the means of emancipation. And therefore it was clear to the Buddha that his enlightenment had definitely freed him of the burden of rebirth and delivered him: "There will be no more re-becoming (for me)!" was his cry after attaining Buddhahood.