Which brings me to your view that the culmination of the Buddha’s practice was not enlightenment under the Bodhi tree but service to others. I believe the Buddha achieved something utterly extraordinary under the Bodhi tree, but he recognized that if this event was to be as meaningful as possible, it had to be shared with others. Enlightenment isn’t something just for yourself: “Now I’ve got the good stuff, and therefore I’m finished.” Entire civilizations were transformed by this one man’s presence, but it wasn’t just the forty-nine days sitting under the Bodhi tree that did it. It was the next forty-five years, engaging with courtesans and beggars and kings and warriors—the whole range of human society—and having something to offer to everyone. So if we go back to the four aspects of a meaningful life, what happened under the Bodhi tree is clearly the culmination of virtue, happiness, and truth. And for the next forty-five years he was out there, bringing something good to the world. So I would say the Buddha is the paradigm of a meaningful life. — B. Allan Wallace, in Tricycle