Essay Compare And Contrast Buddha And Siddhartha

When moving further into an analysis of how Siddhartha mirrors the teachings of Buddha in his own life, it is important to note the ways that he does follow the rules of Buddhism as well as goes against them. In addition to the idea of following his own path, Siddhartha also follows these teachings in the fact that he does not mean to cause pain to anyone and only wanted to live his life in a way that would please him. At first, he does this by living in a kind of gluttony. He does not want for anything as his class in society affords him luxury but this does not give him any real reason to live other than to simply exists. Similarly, moving to the exact opposite end of the spectrum keeps Siddhartha from being happy as well because he does so in an attempt to achieve enlightenment and fails. In both cases, the extremes are not helpful for him or do they give him peace. It is only when he finds that the middle path, one without luxury and one without undue hardship, that he is able to find peace and the …show more content…
This is because of the fact that the ways of enlightenment were different for each. After achieving enlightenment, “Buddha traveled, preaching the Dharma in an effort to lead others to and along the path of enlightenment. When he died, it is said that he told his disciples that they should follow no leader” (Hesse 127). The idea was that everyone’s path is their own and simply following a leader who has already achieved enlightenment does not guarantee one’s own path. It is that everyone has their own path to follow and their own role in the world. For Siddhartha, this was to find a path that led him to an enlightened place even without following a strict path as laid out for him ahead of time. He was able to grow, teach, and learn about the world because he followed a path with no master, tried a number of different ways of living, and in the end found what he