Buddha found his own way to freedom

Buddhism has a very guru-and-teacher-oriented side to it, but I don’t think it was ever meant to. The Buddha found his own way to freedom from suffering. He followed various teachers beforehand, but after thoroughly understanding what they were talking about, he realised they had not reached final liberation. Finally, he sat beneath the bodhi tree and penetrated the depths of his own mind and consciousness. Then he found the way. And basically that is what he advised others to do.

In one sense you can say that the Buddha himself was a teacher. After all he spent forty-five years ‘giving the dharma’, as we might say, or speaking the truth, but what he spoke about was how to find one’s own way through. That is why meditation, personal insight, is central to his advice and not ritual or belief.



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