At first the association with Buddha was somewhat puzzling. I wondered if Coppola was making use of the stone images simply for atmosphere's sake. Aesthetics is a driving force for him, and it is one of the very first things that strikes some about this film, its beauty. Maybe he is just playing with extremes for a purely visual effect? It seems that morality is intamately interwoven with this film in which a feeling determines right and wrong; what is "good" or "bad". The relationship between feeling and insight is critical- and I feel Coppola might have portrayed this through the visual extremes throughout the movie and how Kurtz is represented. We never really see him in full daylight, only in hard contrast. His bald head beaming from the darkness, almost as perplexing as the stone Buddha's, and a scene of Kurts reading dissolves into an extreme close-up of the Buddha's lips.
"A Buddha is any human who has fullly awakened to
the true nature of existence, whose insight has totally transformed him or
her beyond birth, death, and subsequent rebirth, and who is enabled to help
others achieve the same enlightment"
Could it be possible that Buddha mirrors Kurtz, and at the end, Willard?
Willard always seemed like he was more "fully awakened" while in the jungle as compared to being on base. Looking at your definition, Willard did help Kurtz attain his enlightenment by killing him. Overall, I'm willing to say Willard was a "Buddah" as soon as he got into the deep jungle, farther from the outposts that he came across.
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