the Buddha was not a Buddhist. On the contrary, according to the Pali Canon, he requested that his image not be depicted, he worried that he might be worshiped as a god, he allowed people to continue to practice their existing religious rites, and he remained agnostic on such fundamental questions about the creation of the world and what happens

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The different yanas contradict each other profoundly. They are not superficially and arbitrarily different. Their fundamental principles are different. They have different concepts of truth, and especially of ultimate truth. For Mahayana, emptiness is the ultimate truth and ultimate goal. It is a shock to be told that in Vajrayana, emptiness is... See more

The word nirvana points to the state of a fire that has gone out. The Buddha often described our present world as a house on fire, and living beings as burning up with passions. To achieve the goal of Buddhist practice meant to "cool down" and put out these flames of suffering. However, later Buddhist thinkers such as the composers of a text called

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Vajrayana (Buddhist Tantra) began in India, and most of its main developments happened there. There is no historical doubt about this; see for instance The Origins of Yoga and Tantra .