Gautama had grown up as a Hindu and was familiar with yoga, which includes exercises by mental concentration. He decided to search for the truth by means of meditation. To that end he sat down under a large fig tree called a bo tree. Here he claimed to have become enlightened, this making him a Buddha.

Buddha’s enlightenment had to do with how to escape from the endless cycle of rebirths. How would that be possible?

By recognizing the “Four Noble Truths,” which may be summarized as follows: (1) All living is painful; (2) Suffering is due to craving or desire; (3) When desire ceases there comes a release from suffering; (4) The way to release from suffering is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path consisting of four ethical precepts​—right speech, effort, conduct and work—​and four mental precepts​—right views, hopes, attentiveness and contemplation.

So it is desire, in Buddha’s opinion, that links a person to the chain of rebirths. To escape from it one must extinguish all desire for things pleasing to the senses. All craving for life as we know it must be suppressed. Meditation was viewed as a means to that end.

The Way to Nirvana

The kind of meditation that he advocated involves concentrating all of one’s attention on a single object, a certain part of the body or perhaps on a phrase or riddle. In time, the mind empties of all other thoughts, feelings and imagination. Through such meditation some have even developed “superhuman qualities” or abilities, including levitation, ability to project an image of themselves to a distant place and mental telepathy. It is said that one meditating can get to a point in which he is indifferent to pain or pleasure and no longer desires life or any of the pleasures associated with it. At this point he is said to become free of the necessity of rebirth. He has reached Nirvana.