Are you a Buddha?

Sometimes we ask ourselves the wrong questions on the path.

"Am I a Buddha?" or "Are you a Buddha?" is definitely one of them.

It’s a sincere question, but it doesn’t help us. It turns awakening into a status rather than a way of being. It pushes us toward self-evaluation and makes us hypercritical of others. We begin measuring ourselves and one another against an imagined ideal, and everyone comes up short. And most importantly, it misses the point. The Dharma does not ask us to declare anything about ourselves.

It asks us to look at how we live.

Real practice shows itself in ways that are often simple. We become a little less reactive. A little more patient. Our speech becomes cleaner and calmer. We recover more quickly when we lose our temper. Compassion begins to appear in the very places we once felt most defensive. These shifts may be subtle, but they are unmistakable. They are the fruits of the path.

Fruition in the Dharma is not a title we claim. It is a lived commitment to the Dharma.

The Sangha exists to support this. The teacher, the community, the structure of the path, all of it creates the conditions for real transformation to take root. Practitioners do not ripen in isolation. We ripen through relationship, through guidance, through the shared rhythm of practice that steadies us when motivation thins and distraction rises. A living lineage produces actual practitioners. That's the result we are looking for.

This is why the question “Are you a Buddha?” has no real use. Put it out of your mind. Awakening is not an identity we adopt. It is the natural expression of a mind that has been cultivated, clarified, and returned to its own ground again and again. When that happens, the signs of a practitioner are evident. Not in our opinions about ourselves, but in the quality of our presence.

So a better question is this: Is your practice bearing fruit?

Are you meeting difficulty with more ease?
Are your negative impulses softening?
Is compassion more available?
Are your interactions with others becoming simpler, more honest?
Are you causing less harm?

These are the signs of maturation. They are not dramatic and they don’t need to be. They show us that our practice is working, that our effort matters, and that realization is not a distant fantasy but something already stirring within our ordinary life.

The point is not to announce enlightenment. There will be no grand coming out party. The point is to become someone whose life reflects a dedication to practice.

Awakening is recognized by its fruit. And those fruits appear quietly, naturally, as we keep walking the path with sincerity, support, and a community that helps us remember what we are doing here.

Stop asking whether you are a Buddha. Start noticing the ways your life is becoming more like one.