Buddha's Life as an Example to Become a Better Person

The Buddha is a role model for Buddhist life as he sets an example of a way people can achieve a life with an understanding of suffering and provides answers to life’s major questions. He realises that he had the answer in him all along, and this applies to everybody’s capacity to do that. The Buddha comes up with the middle way, providing a foundation for buddhist life, all while being a good leader to look up to.

A motivation for many Buddhist people is that the Buddha set on a path to find an answer to why people have to endure suffering and pain in the world. This is something that resonates with many people as these are questions almost everyone wonders and this goes to show how he didn’t start off very different from us, before his path to enlightenment. When Prince Siddhartha Gautama finally left the palace walls, he saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a holy man. This was the first time the prince was ever introduced to any kind of suffering, and from this moment onwards was when he decided to go on a journey to find the answers to many of the questions he now had. This goes to show that although he became known as the Buddha later on, he started off the same as anyone else, with questions on why these things happen, and what purpose they serve in the world, and this is what inspires many Buddhists in their lives today.

The Buddha realises that the answer to his questions were in him all along, and the quest for enlightenment ends up turning into a path of self discovery. This is something that inspires Buddhists to practice in their daily life. The basis of Buddhist life is the concept of understanding your sense of identity, inspired by the Buddha’s enlightenment and looking at not only your persona, but more your inner identity. Everyone’s inner identity is usually not revealed in one’s persona as they are more vulnerable and socially unacceptable. This models many aspects of buddhist life such as the reason behind meditation and allows buddhists to discover who they really are. On the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment, he gets taught by several teachers, becomes an ascetic and starves and tortures himself eating up to only a grain of rice a day and sleeping on nails. However, after six long years, he finally realises that this was not the way to achieve what he wanted. After receiving a donation of milk-rice, he sits down under a Bodhi tree to meditate and made a resolution to not get up until he solved the problem. This is when the Buddha realises he had it in him all along, and he wasn’t reaching for something he did not have, but something he had in him all along, and this resonates to everyone’s capacity to do that.

The Buddha sets an example of how to lead a life with ethics and guidelines to form an understanding on the reasons behind suffering. This plays an essential part in everyday buddhist life. In this way, Buddhists look up to Buddha because of his teachings, such as The Four Noble Truths, which allow Buddhists to have an understanding on suffering and how they should deal with it. When the Buddha sat in deep concentration and meditated under the Bodhi tree, he gained the understanding of the three knowledges. He realised that living beings die to be reborn again, learned the laws of karma, and found that to live in non-attachment is a state of joyfulness. The Buddha withstands the worst attacks of Mara, the demon, and when he opens his eyes, he has reached the true state of enlightenment. After the Buddha awakened, he taught people about the middle way, the Four Noble Truths, and the eightfold path that would lead to the ending of suffering and this understanding that the Buddha obtained is the teachings that Buddhists follow today.

Among all of the things that the Buddha discovered on his journey to enlightenment, the middle way is the overall concept which he discovered and is practiced by Buddhists today. The middle way refers to Buddha’s enlightened view of life which is to live life in moderation between self mortification and satisfaction. This is a model for how Buddhists should live life to minimise human suffering. After realising that asceticism was not required to achieve enlightenment, Buddha knew that living a very luxurious lifestyle would not help him in achieving enlightenment either. This is why he developed the middle path, which is a balance between spiritualism and materialism. Buddhists live ‘the middle path’ in the hopes of ending suffering and living in neither luxury or poverty.

The Buddha also had many leadership qualities that made people look up to the leader as a role model. He said as he did and he lived a quiet and small lifestyle as promoted in his teachings and the importance of leadership is emphasised by the Buddha according to the Dharma. The Buddha’s ability to be a leader is something Buddhists admire and strive to do. After the Buddha was enlightened, he delivered sermons to teach people what he had learnt. The buddha highlighted ten principles called raja Dhamma (which includes qualities like Dana-alms-giving, Tapo-self control and Khanti- patience) which a political leader should train themselves to have. Through his proficient leadership abilities, the Buddha was even able to stop wars from occurring over arguments such as water supplies. These skills are what buddhists look up to in a leader, inspired by the exceptional leadership qualities of Buddha himself.

To summarize, Buddha is a role model for Buddhist life as he sets an example of Buddhist life based on his experiences on his journey to enlightenment which characterised the buddhist life we have today. The Buddha starts off just like any other human with searching for answers to life’s profound questions which is why many Buddhists resonate to him. On his quest for enlightenment he realises that it is not about finding the answer, but searching within yourself. Many people look up to the Buddha as he also found answers to questions such as why we need suffering and how to deal with it and spread his teachings. He also established the importance of the midway path and developed the qualities that are needed for a leader to work well with others. All of this shows his significant contributions and why he is considered a role model to Buddhist life.