Gautama left his princely home in the foothills of the Himalayas in search of enlightenment, he was moved by the sight of mortality, morbidity and disability – concerns he shared with ordinary human beings. What distressed him then continues to worry us today. Unlike with most religious leaders, there was no real distance between him and us. A third feature that made Buddha so attractive was what he was trying to defend. After reading whatever I could get hold of among Buddha’s expositions, I became convinced that he had managed to turn our religious concerns from belief – about God and other
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