MB> I'm addressing this to you, but also to any and all lurkers who may
 MB> have heard about Buddhism but who don't understand the basic teachings
 MB> or how Buddhism has evolved over its 2500+ year history.

 MB> Siddhartha Gautama was born to a raja of the Sakya clan in northern
 MB> India/ southern Nepal in approximately 583 BCE.  Legends abound
 MB> concerning the manner in which prophecy played a part in his
 MB> upbringing, which along with the legends of his upbringing should be
 MB> the subject of a separate discussion.  He married at 16, fathered a
 MB> son; but at twenty-nine left his exalted position to live the life of
 MB> an aesthetic in order to satisfy his thirst for spiritual truth.

 According to Theravada, he left the wife and son when the child was an
 infant.
                               
 MB> After
 MB> two or more experiences of becoming the student of a guru whose
 MB> teachings led him basically nowhere, Gautama struck out on his own and
 MB> became the ideal aesthetic -- spending long hours in meditation and
 MB> subjugating the demands of his body to the point that legends state
 MB> that he was living on only one grain of rice a day.  The strength of
 MB> this practice had attracted five followers.

 Um....well...in Theravada the legend says he learned much from his teachers,
 but they could not teach him the way to end suffering, also he joined the
 group of five aestetics, they didn't join him. After almost drowning when
 bathing in the ganges (from weakness brought on by starvation), he realized
 that rigorous aesceticism was wrong and of no profit. A fisherman pulled him
 out of the water and a paesant women gave him some rice and milk. When the
 five aestetics saw this they said he had given into a life of luxury and
 that he had failed in his practice, so he left and then went on his own. 

 MB> The first is the Vinayapitaka, which is the
 MB> collection of rules and instructions for monastic discipline.  Secondly
 MB> is the Suttapitaka which contains the discourses and sermons.  Thirdly
 MB> is the Abhidharmapitaka, which is the scholastic compilation of
 MB> metaphysical understanding.
  Abhidhamma is not really "metaphysics" but the explanation of causes and
  effects.
                               
 MB> However, *all* schools of Buddhism, whether Hinayana, Mahayana or
 MB> Tantrayana, will agree on certain basic ideas: 1. life is suffering and
 MB> deliverance desireable; 2. rebirth; 3. Karma and rebirth as elements of
 MB> a natural law neither created by deity nor supervised by one;

 MB> 4. phenomenal world as illusion;

 Theravada would have you clarify just what you mean by "illusion".

... "Hatred by hatred never ends,only by kindness does it end" The Buddha