My summary of the philosophy and guidance of the Buddha, also known as the

Tathagatha, Sakyamuni, Siddhartha, and Gotama (with some observations and

notes):
Two extreme paths are to be avoided: the paths of profligacy and mortification.
The middle path, as explained by the Tathagatha (Wayfarer), is the path of calm
and knowledge. It presupposes a fourfold truth, namely, suffering, its
aggregation, alleviation, and the path. The first truth is suffering. This is
conceptually and experientially diverse. Its truth value is not independent, and
its experience is not fatal. So it ought not to be a bleak view of the world, meant
to discourage or demotivate. Rather, it should allow for greater happiness by
extrapolation. The second and third truths are the aggregation of, and the
alleviation of, suffering. This occurs along a series of twelve interdependent
phases whose relations are variously causal. The linear progression of these
phases is representational, similar to a map of the earth. In progression from
effects to causes, the phases are: entropy-death, birth, existence, existentialfield, craving, impulse, contact, hexagonal-sense-field, name-form-duality,
dispositions, science, and nescience. Each prior cause increases the aggregate
of suffering. The fourth truth is the middle path itself. The wayfarer on this path,
between birth and entropy-death, decreases the aggregate of suffering by
weakening the network of causality of nescience and so forth. The wayfarer
resolves to practice temperance in eight matters of conduct, variously related,
as follows: perspective, will, speech, operations, subsistence, exercise, memory,
and being. Metaphysical questions may be pursued only when they have
positive utilitarian effects. Otherwise, any notions of permanence, everlasting
perfection, etc., ensnare the wayfarer in a net of dogma. There is no
independent truth value in such phrases as supreme being or individual soul,
or their component concepts. They are megalomaniacal abstractions of the self,
which itself is a function of a fivefold sub-aggregation within the twelve
interdependent phases. This aggregation, called the five branches, is meant to
be meditated upon as not-self. The branches are first to be contemplated
severally or in a progression, for the trunk is the self and not conducive to notself thinking. The branches are: the form aspect of name-form (non-labelled
forms; meditating upon the form of a book while decreasing association with its
name), impulse (sensation, feeling; being aware of sensations and feelings
within the body and not reacting to them as much as possible), cognition (which
is a composite of the previous two and the next of the series; meditating with
simple, regular awareness) dispositions (hermeneutic filters built upon past
experience; meditating calmly upon differences of opinion and taste), and
science (observations from deductive and inductive reasoning that avoid
universal, superlative judgements; meditating upon scientific observations). An
alternative meditation contemplates the sixfold sense-faculties and their
respective fields as not-self, as follows: What I see and what is seen is not self,
what I hear and what is heard is not self, what I smell and what is smelled is not
self, what I taste and what is tasted is not self, what I touch and what is touched

is not self, what I feel and what is felt is not self, what I think and what is
thought is not self. (suitable to counter excessive mirth or sorrow). Such
meditations might be depressing to a wayfarer accustomed to sense-indulgence.
Temperance is therefore in order. Equating realization and happiness to
nothing, non-being or nothingness is fallacious for they are also dependently
originated derivatives of the twelve phases. A wayfarer avoids Buddhism,
whether Tibetan, Chinese, Mahayana, Theravada, etc. This is discussed at length
by the Taoists. The unfalsifiable notion of the Buddha being an incarnation of
some inscrutable deity or god is, needless to say, self-defeating. In the opinion
of this writer, a quiet life dedicated to mathematics, science, any forms of
movement, or creative pursuits, might be more conducive to the middle path.
Competition is valuable (but not necessary) in the beginning, and superfluous
further along in the journey. The end is vague, and happily so. Fare thee well!