Without then knowing the importance of his breakthrough he continued his Brahmin meditations, for there was no reason to do otherwise, reaching within Vicara only a cognitive understanding of the four formless states relative to the various topics he used (albeit without impediments).
It advanced him little.
He was living a spoiled life, for he relates:
"For me, Monks!, near my father's dwelling ponds were made. In one the blue lotus used to be sown; in another the red lotus; in one the white lotus; these were sown only for my sake."
He continues declaring, "Day and night for me, Monks!, the white umbrella used to be kept up with the thought 'Let him not be affected by cold, heat, the blades of grass, the dust, or the dew.'
"For me, Monks, there were three Palaces -one for winter, one for summer and one for the rainy season.
"So, Monks! surrounded by musical instruments played by the fair sex, for the four months of the rainy season in the Palace, I used to keep away from leaving the palace."
Finally in one moment during a great celebration he felt a great disgust for the proceedings and the evident sensual desire, craving and clinging within the Palace.
With his aversive character the decision was already made subliminally and this celebration was the last straw. He would follow the homeless life. He left all his theoretical responsibilities and cast himself upon the ascetic trail. He moved from one place to another.
Naturally ascetics do not deny the necessity of meditation. Dissatisfied with his progress he first sought out a master, Alara Kalama, who had a reputation for success in the formless meditation of "Nothingness," termed Akincanna. It availed him nothing, not the more profound Nothingness that he sought. So he continued with extreme austerities and eventually sought out a second master, Uddaka, son of Rama, who had a reputation for having developed the device for "Neither Consciousness nor Non-Consciousness," called Nevasanna nassana.
After study he found that he had already advanced to this point also without fruit and decided then to continue the Jhanas but dedicate himself more intensely to Asceticism.
For six years he continued pushing imself as only a an aversive temperment might, to even greater extremes than others.
Eventually he recognized the failure of this method and his Brahminic Jhana meditations. It was the important point in his path. Grasping for a solution he remembered the Apple Tree meditation.
He sat then with a mind which was determined to penetrate as deeply as he could even beyond his earlier success.
Gotama sat then in meditation determined to penetrate deeper than he had in the Rose-apple tree meditation.
WHERE DID THIS MEDITATION CARRY HIM?
With the clear concept to withhold all thinking, no matter how subtle, that was cognitive, now technically termed a-manasi-kara. It involved setting a device to transcend all consciousness. Thus in Chan we call it transcending the Last Consciousness, even the Pure Cognitive Experiences.
In Chan an example of this is in the Contemplation of "the Vacuity of Vacuity."
Thus he entered the deeper subconscious state where the Unconscious Language of Experience was the Operating System for both hemispheres, divorced from all cognition. Conscious realizations of these experiences were obtained through subtle discernments in memory that could be retrieved (subject of course to cognitive error, which is reduced to the minimum). Yet it is possible to discriminate, perceive name and form, generate intention, act and know, but all without Identity.
The second important factor is the pre-programing, which Buddha called "organizing the meditation", to go beyond Cognitive Experiences. This is termed nissarana. In the first four Jhanas the task was to transcend everything with no attachment to phenomena or noumenon (that which lies behind phenomena). What was important was that there was no vagueness, that it was deliberate and free from Ego conceptualization.
The body, discrimination and mind were allowed to be present but all must be organized to be free from Supra-egotism, Suffering and an awareness of Suffering.
The third important factor is this disappearance of "self", which is NOT the absorption of Self into the meditation or target. This admits the subconscious "True Self", which is simply the "observing without an observer" of the presence of "Sensing".