In the evolution of humans the emergence of the Buddha phenomenon remains one of its most enigmatic aspects, as it appears fully blown in the Indic stream (and elsewhere, often in disguise). We see the sheer inadequacy of Darwinian scientism to even describe this phenomenon, let alone confront its evolutionary emergence. Our model should not presume to simplistic explanations, but a close look shows us a number of clues. Although clearly specialized as an exploration of the limits of philosophy the classical German phase of philosophy in the Enlightenment shows us in the works of Schopenhauer how the connection between the discourse of Reason and the sutras of self-consciousness, as these arise in the phases of Indian Upanishadism, can easily be made.

The resemblance of Kantian critical thinking to the classic vein of discourse on ‘appearances’ (Maya) is brought out clearly by that remarkable successor to Kant, this in parallel to the work of Hegel, despite its later publicity several generations downfield. What is remarkable is that Schopenhauer appears just at the point that reverse diffusion globally injects the stream of Indic religious thought into the dramatics of modernism. And yet, as he insists, his intuitions appear just before the onset of the flood of this diffusion. He even tells us the secret behind this, as he refers to the One Thought behind his opus. Although we cannot easily divine the mysteries of mind in such a Romantic genius, the type par excellence, we can roughly intuit what he is driving at, and we can also see that his realization appears almost at one stroke, virtually reinventing ‘buddhism’ on the spot, and in isolation, and this in the most obvious connection to a general mainline of eonic emergence given powerful expression by a figures such as Rousseau and Kant.

This is a specialized philosophic endeavor, and may not reach quite the same result as the practical efforts of ancient yogis and their meditations and ascetic practices, but in the end it is all of a piece. It is this field of eonic emergence that gives us the clue then. And as we look backward toward the vistas of deep time and the period of man’s earliest appearances, we can easily suspect, without the details, just how the Buddha phenomenon could arise suddenly in the deep Paleolithic and almost fully formed from the latent potential of human self-consciousness.