How complicated I am is only part of the picture. I also don’t believe in Christianity. I have no stake in the matter. So why do I care whether it’s naively simple or more realistically complicated? If I wanted to believe in Christianity, I may be understandably unsatisfied with the simplistic picture, and I might invest in a more complicated, more demanding picture since those are usually more realistic. But since I don’t believe in Christianity, how realistic the picture seems to me is not a priority. I guess the need for parsimony takes over in that case.
I can’t dismiss Buddhism quite as easily for some reason.
It comes down to faith. Guarantee was a poor choice of words. I require more faith in the methods of Buddhism, which is nurtured quite substantially by understanding how it works, in order to be motivated to follow it. I have a lot more faith in the methods I’m currently working with than I am the methods Buddhism offers. I have doubts in the methods of Buddhism.
You may be right, though I’m not sure how you can know this (the guy lived 2500 years ago). That’s beside the point though. Whether or not he was a megalomaniac self-appointed prophet, all we have of his wisdom and teachings today is the doctrine. This allows us to compare and contrast the doctrine with the words and behavior of those who come across as sages and prophets today. But from what I understand of Buddhism, you’re right to say that the doctrine present Buddhism as something that is accessible to everyone directly (i.e. without a mediator), which suggests this is what the Buddha taught.
^ Yes, of course, isn’t that what everyone expects out of Buddhism? Isn’t this what it’s renowned for?
^ That’s a nice second.
But generally speaking, your phrase “…as if it were some kind of instructional CD set you buy off amazon,” strikes at the heart of my angst over Buddhism. If the eight fold path is not a glorified set of instructions for enlightenment, what is it? (There’s literally 8 steps!) What is Buddhism good for if not this? This is a serious question for me. I want to know.
The vast majority of people gravitate towards religion because they want something deep or meaningful out of it. Relief of suffering, the meaning of life, a purpose, wisdom, salvation… and in an attempt to offer this to people, religion has always sold itself by provided a method to achieve these. Calling this an instructional CD set found on Amazon makes it sound cheap and overly simplistic, but it can work as a crude analogy (the Christians facetiously say that Bible is an acronym for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth).
I’m not denying that you could be right–that Buddhism is not well understood as a method for achieving enlightenment–that it might only be the imparting of a deep truth discovered by the Buddha without any promise that it works as a “quick fix” for everyone’s plight (though it seems to work for a great many anyway)–but then that just makes it really obscure to me… and quite useless. One thing I’ve always refused to do is to pretend to understand something just because it would make me seem wise. If I don’t understand something, I’m going to say I don’t understand. If you’re saying Buddhism is not a set of instructions for achieving enlightenment (despite the way it’s been presented to me), what would you say it is?