Dependent origination

[Phaelyn]

It would be great if somebody translated Buddhism into common use English.

Like:

Buddhism "Mindstream" = English "Self, Non dogmatic definition of Soul"
Buddhism "Not-Self" = English "Liberated Consciousness"
Buddhism "Self" = English "Not Liberated Consciousness, Ego"

English Consciousness = self, awareness, soul, that which is aware.
Buddhism Consciousness = false identity, product of brain, ego, mental processes.

Buddhism to English may lead to a lot of non-sense seems to me. Like a conclusion Buddhism is saying there is no self or me. If Buddhism actually taught that, nobody would be a Buddhist.

Also on using quotes from various Buddhist teachers as some kind of absolute authority. They are just individuals with their own opinions. One master posted in this thread a lot told a recent visitor to his community, where they served her pork for lunch, that it's ok to eat meat if you don't kill the animal yourself. And his quotes keep getting posted as a Buddhist authority.

Better than using somebody else's words is to just post what you believe to be true and why imho. Not I believe so and so is true cause XYZ says so. But so and so is true because I have experienced this or that. I think people like Tolle have basically translated Buddha's teachings into English and found their own version of what he was pointing to. I wonder how much of Buddha's teachings got changed or added to over time. It's kinda hard to reconcile Buddha, who was liberated from mental content, who refused to even answer basic questions about what he was, with a religion where people can post 10,000 words about what the 5 aggregates are or mean.

What is Buddhism? Someone who sees a value in what Buddha did and was and wants to pursue that. Well also many millions of people talking about Buddha and putting their thoughts and opinions to paper.