Gotama’s Awakening in the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon

Greetings, Friendlies. :)

With all this talk of awakening, I should probably check with the OG; what do the suttas have to say about Gotama’s awakening? [1]

I was surprised not to find a definitive list of all the mentions of G’s awakening in the Sutta and/or Vinaya Piṭaka. If you know of such a list, will you say so in the comments?

Here’s what I found over a few days’ casual research: MN 4, MN 26, MN 36, MN 85, SN 4.1, SN 12.65 [2], AN 9.41, Ud 1.1, Ud 1.2, Ud 1.3, Ud 2.1. [3]

We are told that the experience was “sukha”. Sukha being the opposite of dukkha, commonly translated “bliss”, “happiness”… I like “well being”. So there was pleasantness, maybe bliss. It was nice. Probably very nice.

Also we are given a negation-based description in the ending of the Āsavas. [4] It’s not clear to me whether this is meant as a description of the experience or as a result of having had the experience, ie, that the Āsavas fell away because of something Gotama understood in the awakening itself. For now, let’s say this absence was part of the experience.

(Often the most highlighted aspect is the framework-based insights Gotama conceived after the awakening: the Four Truths, Conditionality, Dependent Origination. For me, these don’t fit into the “phenomenal experience” bucket. They are things he understands/thinks about in light of having had the experience.)

So phenomenally we have a very-pleasantness in which one does not experience the Āsavas: sensual desire, desire for becoming, ignorance.

Your thoughts?

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[1] What follows is from the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon because it is the only translation I have ready access to.

[2] The sutta does not specifically speak of G’s awakening. But tradition apparently holds that the events took place just after.
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

[3] Ud 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 2.1 all occur in the week following the awakening event itself.

[4] Avijjāsava, kāmāsava, bhavāsava and later diṭṭhāsava. John Peacock translates these as “effluents”. The Āsavas are what is flowing out of us. JP says we have “radical incontinence”. Akincano Weber says we are muddying the terrain of our experience with the discharge of our ignorance.