It's like deja vu, because I remember writing a previous blog about this topic a few years ago. However, this present entry is based on a higher realization than the previous post was. When I'm done with this one, it's in my best interest to find the previous one, to reference a link to it.
Regarding Buddhism, the Buddha is not a god, yet Buddha-essence is like a gift given to everyone on birth. It takes the Buddha's story to awaken this essence, and every Buddhist who keeps his story a secret is turning the Buddha away. For everyone is free to become a buddha, yet few of them are ready. For they who are unready have yet to understand what the Buddha means to them.
For me, the Buddha means peaceful bliss and the aspiration to be of service to anyone seeking the calm awakening that meditation provides.
Indeed, meditation leads to Nirvana, for it is peace of mind and it is the "other shore" from samsara, this world of birth-life-death.
If this is a turn-off to atheists, then that's their karma for confusing Mahayana Buddhism with monotheism. IMHO Zen Buddhists are closet atheists.
Since Buddhism is the source of my pacifism, my opinions about other Buddhist streams like Zen are biases inculcated in my heart due to the sometimes patriarchal nature of the master-disciple relationship.
True Mahayana Buddhism encourages the equality of all, yet Zen is still stuck in a hierarchal structure that oppresses rather than frees its disciples.
Being free of book-learning, Zen does not promote ignorance as the wise Zen sages have read the sutras. Rather, the no-books faction in Zen imply that quoting the sutras does not make you a Buddhist. Right action then is when the earnest Buddhist practices what he has learned from the sutras in his life.
This then is the essence of Mahayana, for we are all disciples of the Buddhadharma.
Reference:
Amida Buddha is not a God: http://gandhara.blogspot.ca/2011/05/amida-buddha-not-god.html
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