The Tathagatha-for that was one of his many titles-was reported or purported to have uttered upon his deathbed "Work out your own salvation with diligence."

What are we to gather from this?

That Sid was into working out...and that diligence played some part of his philosophy. That was a joke, kid.*wink* When asked whether he was a man or a God, Buddha simply replied that he was neither but that he was "awake".

According to my thinking, the noble 8 fold path of doctrinal Buddhism was the outcome of Sid's awakening and not his method for his awakening. He didn't do the 8 fold path in order to awaken. He awoke, upon awakening taught the 8 fold path.

What are we to gather from this?

The Tathagatha ("tatha"='suchness' or thusness, that which is simply Reality beyond all human concepts of duality) did not figure out the 4 noble truths and then woke up. He woke up, then figured the 4 noble truths to teach others.

Think about it.

When Buddha saw how bad it really was outside his cloistered life of luxury for the very first time, he didn't think to himself, "Hey, I'm the Prince. I'm in government. I can do something about this. Some social reform programmes are in order here, mates!"

He did not embark on a series of social reforms to alleviate the poverty, illness, disease and death that he so feared would one day visit upon even himself, the great Prince Siddharta. No. Instead he fled for his life!

He wanted a way out of all this mess! He wanted to find out whether there was a way out or no. He didn't want to help save the world as much as help the sentient beings (sentience=consciousness, having self-consciousness and independent volition; a sect of beings which I hope the human race belongs but I sometimes myself doubt it) get out of this phenomenal, earth-bound, Samsaric Hell that we normal people call "the real world", our day-to-day everyday world. He wanted to haul ass out of Samasara (phenomenal existence) and fling himself into Anonymous Bliss (Nirvana), and THEN go out and teach some cool tenets to people so that they could go and get blissed themselves.

Did that really actually happen that way?

If you see the movie "The Little Buddha" miracles accompanied the life of Siddharta from his very birth. If literally true, then why the need to search for the truth, for enlightenment? It was a done deal.

In one scene Keanu Reeves as the Buddha took a lotus or a toy boat and placed it in the stream of the river and told himself that if the thing went upstream against the current he would have a sign that he would definitely "reach enlightenment". Well, the thing swam upstream all right. Dang, if that wasn't in itself cause for believing in the paranormal and the divine, I wonder what is.

It didn't happen. It was a tale. Like the Bible, like the beautiful Symbol of Jesus, the Wonder of the Buddha Myth was an interesting, incomparable, utterly truthful (on a mythic or transperonal level) parable of the ill of the human condition and the ways to solve it, and the potential for everyone to not only be able to "attain" this...but that Freedom and Heaven has always been the birthright of every sentient being, from the ant to humans and even movie actors. Get out is the message. Leave the baggage behind you, wake up, go into the world and BE Nirvana, be enlightened. Get out of what? Your delusion of your separate self, your idea that the world you see and feel and touch around you is the ultimate reality, for this world is the Matrix, the Matrix was a metaphor for our cities, society, governments, us.

But how? How to be Nirvana?

Sid sat under a tree. He observed. He observed everything; himself, his thoughts, his breath, what he saw, touched, sensed, smelled, tasted, hungered for, afraid of, everything. He observed and observed without judging or holding onto anything as significant or upholding of any inherent truth. He observed deeply until He became the observed. The false duality of observer and the observed fell away, both Samsara and Nirvana dissolved. Ego was extinguished in the firmanent of truth, or rather the fires of Samsara were cooled by the soft coolness of Nirvana. There was nothing else to do. He arose and was the embodiment of truth. The Word made flesh, the parable unbound.

But today Buddhists prostrate, chant, meditate, study, dogmatize, strategize, literalize, moralize and religionize the parable. They police it, isn't that true? They bureautized it. In went in the political dogma of karma (police control of ordinary bodily desires) similar to the Christian dogma of sin, and out went radical sit-under-a-tree-ism/true compassion/meditation. They deified Buddha. They policed Buddha and bound him to restraints of moral and deistic dualities and false notions of good and evil.

"Get out now" or radical liberation was replaced subtly with vain attempts to "gain merit" for your next lifetime, so you ll get a better deal in life the next time around. Sounds alot like the Xian dogma of existential sacrifice to the order of the priesthood-police so that you will be reborn in heaven after you die. Buddha simply replaces Jesus in the Christianized forms of dogmatic Buddhism.

Now I have no argument with the "gradual" school of awakening as typified by the Mahayana and Tibetan Vajrayana sects of Buddhism. I myself am pleased with the main body of Compassion and Wisdom of such schools. Because "gradual" actually means "preparation"- preparation and patience to receive the "sudden" awakening to truth, Tathata, Oneness, as typified by Dzogchen and Zen(Chan) Buddhism, and to some degree, outside of Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity, Yoga, and the more sober and most mature forms of Chaos Magic practice.

Recall that philosopher-kings were nothing new in the West at that time. But Siddharta gave up his kingship in order to awaken to non-local residence of Being or "Shunyata"(The True Void of Light, that which beyond the Abyss of Order and Chaos). And from truth, compassion and great love arose within Him, for Liberation was Compassionate, Loving, Beautiful. What are we to make of this?

That he is beyond dogma. Buddha was not a spiritual police officer. Buddha did not teach the disabling of personal freedom and individual expression. Buddha did not teach people to not have sex. Buddha did not teach us to despise our bodies and our needs. Buddha did not teach us that we are nothing but sinners.

Buddha did not teach laws of duality. Buddha transcended, why would he teach dualistic moralizations as recorded in such illustrious texts as the Ten Commandments of the Buddhist religion, the Dhammapada.

He teaches the Path of Truth, Compassion, Acceptance and Peace.

So...what are we to make of that? :) Om, May All Sentient Beings Know Only Happiness and Its Causes, Forever and Ever. Amen.