Buddhism Versus Gautamism

What is happiness? It may sound like a stupid question,significant effect on the mentality of the people in
but in terms of Gautamism (my own term), the answerBuddhist cultures, that we westerners have no
becomes essential. All religions promise eternalappreciation for and very difficult to deal with (ever
happiness in the Hereafter, in Heaven, where the soulsordered a 3-minute boiled egg for breakfast in a Thai
of the "rightful ones" will go after death. Also inhotel?).
fairy-tales, the end always is a happy one. We allIn Gautamism nothing is eliminated, but Ignorance itself
strive for happiness and the methods to achieve it areand thus suffering is avoided to arise through Wisdom,
of various kinds. It can be to have money, power, love,achieved at the last "death", after which "rebirth"
being successful, harmonic family life, etc, etc.(ignorance) cannot occur again. In the State of Mind
Generally it is thought that if one is not unhappy, thethat follows, there are feelings, but one doesn't have
opposite of being happy must be true. A neutral statethem (one is no longer subjected to them -
in between, neither one nor the other, is not perceived"Independent" Origination).
to be worth striving for. If someone says to be neitherGautama-Buddha, initially being a philosopher himself,
happy nor unhappy, this person usually means to bereasoned that being a hermit, turning away from the
living a rather "dull" life, nothing much to get "excited"material world, would lead to "happiness", being a state
about, just getting by and would like to see it different,of non-suffering and so he lived an ascetic life in a
to become "happy" instead.cave during around 6 - 7 years. He finally found that
In consequence, also the religion of Buddhism, as Ihe was still suffering and so he abandoned this
observe it being practiced in SE-Asia, aims to achieveunsuccessful ascetic life, returning to the material world,
happiness and the ultimate of it is to becomethat he had to deal with in an other way. Shortly after,
"enlightened", bringing you to Heaven after your lasthe became enlightened and the Teacher as we know
death, never to be reborn again to a life of suffering.him from the literature.
They believe in the Hindu concept of reincarnation, toAlas, his enlightened State of Mind was a psychological
be reborn in the flesh, whereas Gautamism seesone, beyond comprehensible reasoning and so he had
rebirth as a mental process only. This makes it ato talk "around" it, in the hope people would understand,
psychology, rather than a philosophy and definitely notbut they didn't. Most likely this is why he never wrote
a religion.down anything, or tore it up afterwards, even more
In theoretical Buddhism (which is NOT Gautamism -likely, because there were and are no words to
again, my term only), there is the concept of theexpress the Psychology of the Mind, nor will there
Non-Self. This concept is rightfully seen as a negativeever be. For the same reason one cannot become
one by many. In the literature we can read that theenlightened by studying theoretical Buddhism only - one
Non-Self has eradicated his/hers Self, eliminated thegets confused, or comes to useless, or even negative
very Ego, to such an extend that a Non-Self cannotconclusions.
talk and think in terms of I, me and mine. Indeed, this isBecause of his royal birth, Gautama was made a holy
utterly negative, because it would make a fish, orHindu monk, had to be, as the Royal House would not
rather more a stone to be "enlightened".accept a lesser position for the former Crown Prince.
Unfortunately we do not know the original words ofTherefore his "rebirth" became "reincarnation" for his
Gautama Buddha, because he never wrote down aHindu followers, as anything else was beyond their
single word (not that we know of). All we know aboutcomprehension, then, as it still is today in the Buddhist
his teachings, came to us from later scholars and thisWorld.
explains to me that the Non-Self likely was notThe Wisdom, the Knowledge of the True Nature of All
Gautama's formulation, but Non-Selfish it was instead. IfThings, in as far as I have been able, or rather was
we look it up in the dictionary, we will see thatforced, could not avoid to penetrate it, is not a "nice"
selfishness is seen as a synonym for egoism.thing to know. In fact, it is totally unacceptable, not to
In Gautamism however, selfishness is seen as beingsay devastating and therefore I cannot talk about it. It
subjected to the material world, to life as it appears,doesn't make you happy and so I am not. But I found
whereas non-selfishness is the opposite, to be anmy Peace of Mind and I am not suffering any more,
objective observer of the material world, not abut yet kind of missing my "glorious" life of suffering
subjective part of it. This doesn't make the Non-Selfishbefore, to which I never can return, even if I wanted to
an outsider, not a hermit turning away from the world,(thus not).
but instead someone dealing with it in Wisdom, beingIt's a long way to Enlightenment, nobody can teach
the Knowledge of the True Nature of All Things.you, it cannot be reached through reasoning
In theoretical Buddhism, this Wisdom is expressed in(meditation) and once you made it, there is no way
the profound teachings of "Dependent Origination"back. It's a painful process to die for the last time,
(Pattica-Samuppada). It is the Chain of Suffering, anever to become reborn again. You may not want to
cycle that starts with "birth" in ignorance (Avijja) andgo through it....
ends with "death"(Jara-Marana), leading to anotherRead more about it here: the Secret of the Buddha
ignorant rebirth. In theoretical Buddhism, this chain mustReference:
be broken to eliminate suffering and in the BuddhistSUFFERING AND NO SUFFERING by: Ven. Varasak
culture this is attempted by avoiding to make "contact",Varadhammo ISBN 974-89647-0-1 published by:
which is the sixth shackle in this chain and the first oneBuddhadharma Meditation Center Hinsdale, IL, 60521
that we can have control over. This has a mostU.S.