So easy? Haha. Time to hit the books (suttas).
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Yep. The Buddha was able to convert people who wanted to kill him (devadatta’s henchmen) to Ariyas, one by one.
He also converted 120,000 lay people to Ariyas in one shot with one sermon.
Here’s a PDF that covers the topic
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It seems to me that the Bodhisattva was not a Sotapanna or higher, because he committed one of the six acts MN115 says Sotapanna’s cannot commit - taking another teacher.
Does this mean the Bodhisattva was the same thing as a Pathujjana? No. But there’s some strong contradictory evidence against the idea that the Bodhisattva was one of the four kinds of noble disciples.
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So how to become buddha ? Why did the buddha speak so little about buddhahood path compared to arahant path ?
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Because he wanted people to put an end to the cycle of rebirth as quickly as possible. He said that even like a tiny spot of excrement still stinks, in the same way he doesn’t praise even a little bit of rebirth.
In places where stories from the Jatakas form the foundation for Buddhist education, especially in childhood, people often get the wrong idea that the Buddha was encouraging people to become Buddhas, even though he never did. So it can come as a shock that he never explained the path to become a Buddha directly.
But if you really want to explore how to become a Buddha, you should start a new thread since it isn’t related to this one. 
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If the future Buddha was an ariya (once returner) before his last life, then it is impossible for him to practice self-mortification because an ariya should know that is a wrong practice…
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My interpretation:
- We don’t know.
- Out of compassion and skill as a teacher.
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I believing the requirement to become a Buddha is by fulling the paramitas? Is that correct?
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Yup.
10 for Theravada,
6 for Mahayana, but then Mahayana also have a list of 10 by adding 4 more, different from the 10 from Theravada.
Some people think that the 10 from Theravada is back import from Mahayana’s bodhisattva movement. Back when both are in India and Sri Lanka. So EBT people generally disregard the perfections, although it’s still cool to cultivate them.
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But if there was no other teacher of the true Dhamma, then a bodhisatta–whether fully unenlightened or a once-returner, would have to somehow learn the meditative skills to be able to instruct later on? And if…knowing the little we do of kamma, it would make sense that in that specific lifetime, all the fruits of his kamma would ripen so as to create a straight path towards his becoming that kalpa’s specific Buddha?
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Sure. But it’s categorically ruled out that sotapannas or higher can take another teacher. So maybe there are some buddhas who were once returners and learned through some means other than taking a sectarian master as a teacher, I can’t confidently deny that possibility. But our Buddha did take others as a teacher, and sotapannas, non returners, and once returners cannot do that.
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Yeah that’s right. Sotāpannas also cannot fall into the extremes of self-indulgence of self-mortification either.
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Hmm…at most then, a cula-sotapanna? Or he just got super lucky and the perfections came through at the right time.
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Well it probably wasn’t luck. To my understanding, all extant traditions agree he made a vow in a previous life in the presence of a previous Buddha. I believe I learned on this forum that that is not present in the EBT, but still, I think its commonality is meaningful. Definitely in the canon is the idea that his second-to-last life, in the Tutsita realm, was a meaningful and distinct stage in the process of the arising of a Buddha, and that Siddharta was distinguished above other beings even at birth. It’s just that this distinguishment doesn’t fit into any elaborate classification system in the EBT, and it is somewhat unclear what the characteristics he had (aside from paramis).
Of course in Mahayana Buddhism there’s elaborate systems of a Bodhisattva’s enlightment, Bhumi and watnot.
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Yeah that commonality is the thing. But I guess strictly basing on EBTs, without a solid mention of such an event that ensured his success from unenlightened bodhisatta to Buddhahood, probably sheer luck + endless kalpas of building perfections and somehow not ending up in a hell or animal realm for way too long, assuming he was completely unenlightened at the time. Or somehow maintained cula-sotapanna or whatever mind state was enough to keep him in successive enough rebirths that he kept being able to build up perfections.
But then I realize that perfections seem to be a Mahayana back transplant into Theravada as well…so who really knows how the mechanism that builds a Buddha really works I guess?
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To OP, the answer is “No”.
Siddhartha Gautama wasn’t an Anagami back then. He was a Bodhisatta, without knowledge of four Noble Truths.
With immeasurable merits accumulated over many past lives and gradually perfected 30 Paramis, Siddhartha Gautama gained the conditions where he meditates with Anapanasati method and straight up to the Supreme Enlightenment, hence realised, penetrated and fully understood Four Noble Truths.
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It seems one categorical statement made in the suttas is that the Buddha had never been born in Pure Abodes in MN 12 The Longer Discourse on Lion’s Roar (FWIW).
“There are some ascetics and brahmins who have this doctrine and view: ‘Purity comes from transmigration.’ But it’s not easy to find a realm that I haven’t previously transmigrated to in all this long time, except for the gods of the pure abodes. For if I had transmigrated to the gods of the pure abodes I would not have returned to this realm again.”
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Makes good sense. A non-returner just can’t come back to the form realms.
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It’s about once-returner not non returner
Same, Bodhisatta isn’t Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami to begin with.
This is why he kept saying: “When I was an unenlightened Bodhisatta”…
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