GAUTAMA BUDDHA--A GREAT WORLD AGNOSTIC.

When Gautama was born, a prophesy was made he would be a great king or a great religious leader. His parents were the king & queen of a small principality near present day Napal. They greatly favored the king part, & shielded the growing Gautama from knowledge of the realities of life. He grew up knowing nothing of old age, sickness, & death.

When he was a young man, they got him a nice wife & he had a couple of kids. One night he snuck out of the palace & went into the nearby village on a fact finding tour. He was shocked to see suffering.

Gautama, a sensitive type, determined to find the way to overcome suffering. He left home & joined a group of wandering ascetics using extreme practices to attain spiritual enlightenment.

He almost starved himself to death. As he was about to die, a boat came floating down the river with musicians who said, "If you tighten the string too tight, it will break, & if you don't tighten it enough, it won't make a proper sound". Buddha learned the Aristotelian principle wisdom is found in the mean between extremes & Alexander Pope's idea of "the golden mean". He discovered the Buddhist Middle Way.

Some milkmaids came along & gave him some rice pudding to revive him. His ascetic buddies said, "Gautama sold out" & split.

He then meditated under the Bodhi tree & attained enlightenment, which is a realization of one's true nature in the reality of things. Gautama wasn't a god. He had learned how to attain enlightenment & overcome suffering, so he could teach others how to do it.

He spent the rest of his life teaching the way, which is the 4 noble truths & the noble eightfold path. Enlightenment is not divine. It is very practical. Buddhism is agnostic. The ultimate experience is not god, it is the void, which is an experience of truth beyond our ability to describe, & so it appears to be nothing. It is our own real nature.

Then things got screwed up. The original Buddhism was Hinayana, (small boat) , for those who actually practiced the path of enlightenment themselves.

Then the masses got involved. As Marx said, "The masses are asses". Mahayana (great boat) Buddhism grew. Buddha became a god you prayed to & made offerings to in hopes of getting favors. The notion of Boddhisattvas came up, Christ like figures, enlightened beings who renounced enlightenment to aid suffering humanity. Devas were talked about, spiritual beings who did various things, something like saints in the catholic church.

A paid clergy developed, which is the death knell for any spiritual movement. I think Gautama, a true agnostic, would be appalled.