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Buddha's Journey To Enlightenment

555 Words3 Pages

The Buddha perceives the world and its components as a scientist. In the story of his journey as a bodhisattva, Sakyamuni makes careful observations about the world around him like a scientist makes careful observations about his or her field of interest. Then, he tests them. For example, in his final birth as a bodhisattva, he lives a life of luxury until he observes suffering. At this point, he realizes he cannot remain in his life of excess. He hypothesizes that a life of asceticism will instead help him find truth, although after experimenting with this choice, he soon realizes that this too is a false theory. Thus, he alters his hypothesis to suggest The Middle Way as the correct means of attaining truth (Bodiford, 29.09.2015). Finally, …show more content…

In fact, he is called tathagata, or one who comes to or from the truth (Bodiford, 29.09.2015). In this way, the Buddha is a researcher. He observes his surroundings, and makes conclusions about his visible reality to attain higher knowledge. His disciples accept his research, and by embarking on their own journeys to Enlightenment, they continue to retest and corroborate the Buddha’s teachings by becoming awakened themselves. Buddha’s words are postulates and rules about the world around us that change the way people think and act.
Buddha’s actual observations of reality parallel many essential core principles in modern science. One of the most fundamental ideas to Buddhist thought is the characteristic that all things are impermanent. It comprises one of the three main parts of a Buddhist frame of reality. All objects, all people, and all conditions are subject to change as a consequence of either the passage of time or the influence of the interdependence between everything in existence (Buswell 2004, 23). The purpose of this foundation is for the teaching of detachment. One who clings to or attempts to keep grasp of an object or a person will inevitably suffer, because such are bound to change or disappear. ¬¬This idea actually

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