"So, moved by compassion, he had decided to teach. He, the Tathagata, is the one who has come into the world for the welfare of beings. And ever since, so much has been said and goes on being said, commented and expounded upon, counteracted, speculated over, proved, and rebuffed. The Theravadins have developed their interpretations; a whole range of Mahayanists had their ways; Pure Land Buddhists were taking refuge in the name of the merciful Buddha who would reward their faith with rebirth in Paradise; bodhisattva aspirants were avowing rebirths for the welfare of all sentient beings;Western empirical sceptics stripped away all the ritual and the devotion and dictated that we should rely only on what we can know for ourselves. Some had even sacked the Buddha from authorship of the teachings altogether.
And thousands of years later, after the suttas and the sutras and the Abhidhamma and the Great Vehicle and the Thunderbolt Vehicle and Zen and Salvation Buddhism and Western Buddhism and Buddha-less Buddhism, it is still raining. In all that splash and fragmentation we forget where Awakening comes into the world:
Now, as before, suffering and the end of suffering is all I teach."
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