Gautam the Buddha knew Enlightenment will happen to everybody, to every being. You can go on delaying it, that is up to you. The moment you stop delaying, the moment you stop postponing, it is there. It has always been waiting for you to recognize it. God is fast asleep in the rocks. He is a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, and a little more alert in you.
In a Buddha God has come perfectly to absolute alertness.
But Gautam the Buddha did not always know this Truth. There were many life times when he lived in darkness, was ignorant, and suffered just like you and I.
There is a powerful story from the Buddhist Jātakas (the earlier lifetime stories of the Buddha before he was born Siddhārtha Gautama). It is so inspiring, I will relate it to you.
The Story of Sumedha and Dipankara Buddha
Dipankara Buddha is one of the Buddhas of the distant past and Sumedha (later to be reborn as Siddhārtha Gautama) was a monk who searched out and met Dipankara Buddha. Buddhists believe that there has been a succession of many Buddhas in the distant past and that many more will appear in the future. Dipankara was one of these previous Buddhas, while Gautama Buddha was the current and most recent Enlightened one.
Dipankara is an ancient Buddha.
The 24 Buddhas Before Gautama Buddha
1. Dipankara Buddha – lived 100,000 aeons (kalpas) ago. He is the Buddha who
predicted that Sumedha would become Siddhārtha Gautama in a future aeon.
2. Kondañña Buddha
3. Maṅgala Buddha
4. Sumana Buddha
5. Revata Buddha
6. Sobhita Buddha
7. Anomadassi Buddha
8. Paduma Buddha
9. Narada Buddha
10. Padumuttara Buddha
11. Sumedha Buddha
12. Sujāta Buddha
13. Piṇḍola Buddha
14. Sumitta Buddha
15. Kassapa Buddha (not to be confused with our recent Kassapa Buddha, the predecessor
of Gautama)
16. Tissa Buddha
17. Phussa Buddha
18. Vipassī Buddha – lived 91 aeons ago
19. Sikhī Buddha – lived 31 aeons ago
20. Vessabhū Buddha – also 31 aeons ago
21. Kakusandha Buddha – lived in this current aeon (bhadda-kappa)
22. Koṇāgamana Buddha – also in the current aeon
23. Kassapa Buddha – the most recent Buddha before Gautama, also in the current aeon
24. Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha – our historical Buddha (5th–4th century BCE).
Theravāda cosmology, an aeon (kalpa) is vast beyond imagination—it is sometimes described as the time it would take for a mountain of granite, 16 miles high and 16 miles wide, to wear away if brushed once every hundred years with a silk cloth.
Gautama Buddha, in a previous life, long, long before he became enlightened, was born Sumedha had gone to Dipankara. He wanted to be accepted as his disciple.
Sumedha was a wandering ascetic (in a later birth he came to be known as Gautam The Buddha) He was sitting under a tree contemplating –
“The cycle of constant rebirth is nothing but suffering. I, who am subject to birth, aging, illness, and death, should seek for the unborn, unaging, unailing, and deathless, and escape from this bondage. There must be a way out of the cycle. I shall seek that way to be utterly released from the cycle of becoming and suffering”
When Sumedha heard that a “buddha,” an “awakened one,” was coming his way he trembled with excitement, thinking this is just what I have been waiting for, and ran to meet this Buddha. On the road the local people were preparing his path and then he saw Dipankara walking towards him, followed by thousands of disciples.
Sumedha saw that Dipankara’s path was very muddy and that he was about to get soiled, so Sumedha immediately spread his bark garments over the mud. Seeing that this was not enough to cover the mud, he loosened his long hair and stretched that out on the road also to protect Dipankara Buddha. He said
“Let the Buddha and his disciples walk over me so that you will not have to walk through the mud. It will bring me great happiness if you allow me to do this for you.”
As he lay in the mud with his long matted hair covering the mud a very strange thing happened – Dipankara Buddha bowed down to Sumedha and touched his feet! Sumedha was not enlightened in those days. So he was very puzzled, embarrassed too. There was a great assembly of monks following; nobody could understand what was happening, what was going on. Dipankara had never done that to anybody else.
And Sumedha said,
“What have you done? Why have you touched my feet? I am a sinner, an ignorant person. To touch your feet is right, but you touching my feet is absurd. I have come to ask you to take me as your disciple”
And Dipankara laughed again and he said, “No, Sumedha. You are puzzled because you don’t know your future. I am not mad. I can see it happening — you will be a Buddha soon. Just to honor that fact I have touched your feet. And moreover, for one who is enlightened all are enlightened. It is only a question of time. It doesn’t matter much. I have become enlightened today, you will become enlightened tomorrow, somebody else will become enlightened the day after tomorrow — it doesn’t matter. Enlightenment is going to happen to everybody, to every being.
It is one of the most beautiful stories — that Dipankara touched the feet of Sumedha. And Sumedha was an unknown man. After centuries, nearly three thousand years afterwards, Sumedha reborn as Gautama became enlightened. The first thing that he did was he bowed down to Dipankara Buddha. Then there was no Dipankara, but he bowed down and he laughed and said,
“Now I understand why you touched my feet. Now I can touch everybody’s feet.
Now I know that the whole existence is going to be enlightened.”
Osho says –
“Enlightenment is a natural happening. If we don’t hinder it, it is bound to happen. It is not that you have to achieve it, all that you have to do is not to hinder it. You hinder it in a thousand and one ways. You don’t allow it to happen. When it starts to happen you become frightened. When it takes possession of you, you shrink back, you withdraw. You return to your tiny cell of the ego.
There you feel protected, defended, secure.
Enlightenment is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is an uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known”
Osho.
This act of Sumedha’s is deeply symbolic:
- It shows the perfection of devotion and selflessness (paramitās) that Sumedha cultivated over countless lifetimes.
- It marks the moment where Dipankara Buddha prophesies that Sumedha, in a future aeon, will himself become a Buddha—Siddhārtha Gautama.
- The laying down of the hair represents relinquishing pride and attachment, offering even one’s beauty and identity for the Dharma.
- The mud represents the defilements of the world—ignorance, craving, and attachment. By offering himself as a bridge, Sumedha dedicates his life to carrying others across the mire of suffering.
THIS STORY OF THE BUDDHA IS SO INSPIRING TO EACH AND EVERYONE OF US.
It inspires us because Dipankara’s prophecy reminds us: awakening is possible for everyone.
No matter how long the journey, the seed is already within us, waiting to ripen.
And it inspires us because it reframes progress: the path is vast, sometimes stretching
across lifetimes. Instead of discouraging us, this vastness brings patience, trust, and
perspective.
Above all, the story touches us because it is a mirror: each of us, in our own way, is invited
to lay something down—our pride, our comfort, our resistance—to allow awakening to arise
within us.
Of course awakening is the subject of my
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