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"Could there be another path to awakening?"
At this point, he discarded the initial hypothesis: "pleasure is only obtained through pain." At this point the occurrences ended. He was thirty-five years old and it had been six years since he left home.
Then he remembered a time when he was sitting in the shade under a rose apple tree while his father plowed. As he sat there, totally cut off from sensory pleasures, cut off from vices, he entered and remained in the first jhāna, which has the pleasure, happiness and joy that arise from recollection, while he directed the mind and kept it concentrated. .
"Could this be the path to awakening?"
From that memory came the understanding:
"That is the path to awakening!"
This came up:
"Why should I be afraid of this pleasure, since it has nothing to do with sensory pleasures or demeritorious defects?"
This came up:
"I am not afraid of that pleasure, since it has nothing to do with sensory pleasures or demeritorious defects."
The future Buddha knew that the pleasures of the senses are part of the world, they are part of the problem. But the pleasures that do not come from the senses, that are produced without the intervention of these, without demeritorious defects, do not have to fear or reject them.
Pleasure, happiness, joy are discharges of neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin and anandamide respectively). If they do not come from the stimulation of the senses, they must be directly induced.
Interestingly, the direct generation of neurotransmitters does not cause attachment or addiction, which does happen when using their indirect sensory stimulation, but rather ennui and satiety.
This has to do with the way the limbic system works, the most primitive part of the brain, which we inherited from the first amphibians, which gives reward or punishment orders by modulating these substances. If the activation is direct, everything that is produced is cleanly recaptured, without causing those withdrawal syndromes that we generically call suffering.
To produce serotonin, the essential amino acid called tryptophan is needed and for dopamine, in addition to the conditional amino acid called tyrosine, glucose and B vitamins will be needed.
Tryptophan is essential because the body does not produce it and must be acquired through ingestion, and tyrosine is conditional because the same thing happens in case of severe deficiencies or stress situations, which was the case.
The rest of the necessary neurotransmitters: anandamide, epinephrine and enkephalins can be produced with the precursors that the body itself produces. But since the future Buddha was very emaciated, he had to resort to acquiring these essential amino acids through the ingestion of odanakummāsaṃ, literally "rice boiled in curdled dulce de leche", that is, rice pudding.
Rice pudding is a healthy traditional dessert. A serving of rice pudding provides, among others, the following essential nutrients: Energy: 395 kilocalories. Carbohydrates: 74 gr. Proteins: 7.90 gr. Fats: 6.70 gr. Minerals: among which calcium (225 mg), iodine (20 mg), magnesium (33 mg), potassium (313 mg), phosphorus (49 mg), selenium (5.50 mg), zinc (1.30 mg) and iron (1 mg).
Vitamins: including vitamin A (76.90 µg), group B vitamins such as B1 (0.09 mg), B2 (0.33 mg), B9 or folic acid (17.89 µg) and vitamin D (0.05 µg).
It is also a dessert that is very rich in different amino acids, among which we can mention alanine, arginine, phenylalanine, glycine, histidine, leucine, methionine, tyrosine, tryptophan, valine, and threonine.
This came up:
«Now it is not easy to achieve that happiness thus subjecting the body to extreme cachexia. And if he took material food, rice pudding?
So he took material food, rice pudding.
The Buddha does not eat just anything, but specifically the precise chemical cocktail to synthesize the neurotransmitters that he will need to protect the brain in the state of anoxia that will give way to the jhānas.
Then, at that time, the five bhikkhus who were assisting him and who were thinking, "When the reclusive Gotama wins the Dhamma, he will announce it to us," when they saw him take material food, rice pudding, these five bhikkhus turned to him with disgust, saying: "the bhikkhu Gotama lives in abundance, he is faltering in his effort, he has given himself up to a life of complacency."
So they abandoned him. What does not know...