William Hart

This person — Siddhatta Gotama, known as the Buddha, “the enlightened one,” — never claimed to be anything other than a man. Like all great teachers he became the subject of legends, but on matter what marvellous stories were told of his past existences or his miraculous powers, still all accounts agree that he never claimed to be divine or to be divinely inspired. Whatever special qualities he had were pre-eminently human qualities that he had brought to perfection. Therefore, whatever he achieved is within the grasp of any human being who works as he did.

The Buddha did not teach any religion or philosophy or system of belief. He called his teaching Dhamma, that is, “law,” the law of nature. He had no interest in dogma or idle speculation. Instead he offered a universal, practical solution for a universal problem. “Now as before,” he said. “I teach about suffering and the eradication of suffering.” He refused even to discuss anything, which did not lead to liberation from misery. This teaching, he insisted, was not something that he had invented or that was divinely revealed to him. It was simply the truth, reality, which by his own efforts he had succeeded in discovering, as many people before him had done, as many people after him would do. He claimed no monopoly on the truth. Nor did he assert any special authority for his teaching — neither because of faith that people had in him, nor because of the apparently logical nature of what he taught. — The Art of Living