Siddhattha Gotama / Siddhartha Gautama (सिद्धार्थ गौतम), the Buddha
c. 480-400 BC · Indo-Tibetan Buddhism · Household name
The Buddha was a north Indian ascetic teacher of the fifth century BC. He taught that nothing in experience stays put, that nothing in it satisfies for long, and that honest inspection turns up no fixed self standing behind it. He set his path between sensual indulgence and self-torture, and put moral weight on intention in place of ritual. Asked whether the cosmos is eternal, or whether an awakened one exists after death, he declined to answer. Such questions do not help.
Signature
The position Buddha is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Identity
- strongly leans Changing
- Human Nature
- No-Self
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Identity
- strongly leans Changing (90 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (85 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (92 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ethics
- leans Means (80 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- strongly leans Pacifism (0 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (35 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (79 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Buddha refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Other
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Karmic Balance
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pragmatic Test
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Intention
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Karmic Causation / Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Authority
- Wisdom
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Conventional
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Karmic Cycle
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- No-Self
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?