Dalai Lama: ~ ‘We should quickly seize enlightenment but Buddhism do not believe the existence of Atama because they believe in emptiness. Without the Athma, Buddhist cannot get enlightenment.+

His Holiness the Dalai Lama: ~ ‘We should quickly seize enlightenment while we still have the chance. In much less than a century, all of us will be dead. We cannot be sure that we will be alive even tomorrow. There is no time to procrastinate. I who am giving this teaching have no guarantee that I will live out this day.

But remember:~

Buddhists do not believe in the existence of Atama because they believe in emptiness. Without the Athma, Buddhists cannot get enlightenment. 

Sage Sankara disagrees with Buddhists who say, there is nothing - a nonentity. Sage  Sankara believes there is some reality, even though things are not what they appear to be. If one knows the truth, he will know what to do to find inspiration for action.  The seeker of truth‘s subject is to know what is it that is Real.

Buddhism says: that all things are illusory and nothing exists.  However, Advaita avers that it is not so.  It says that the universe, of course, is illusory, but there is Brahman (consciousness), that exists forming the very substratum of all things (illusion or universe). 

Dalai Lama said:  Buddhism need not be the best religion though it is the most scientific and religion and inquisitive. But Buddhism has no answer to certain questions like the existence of Atama (Soul) and rebirth.   Dali Lama said that as an individual he believes in rebirth as he had come across a few cases of rebirth.  Modern science, Dalai Lama hoped would unearth the mystery behind the rebirth. (In DH –dec-212009-Gulbarga).

Buddhism has not proved the truth of Non-duality.  There is no doubt Buddha pointed out the unreality of the world. He told people they were foolish to cling to it. But he stopped there. He came nearest to Advaita in speech but not to Advaita fully.

Buddhists do not believe in the existence of Athma because they believe in emptiness. Buddhists fail to recognize that emptiness is the nature of the Athma. Without the Athma, Buddhism cannot prove nonduality or Advaita.

Buddhists believe in rebirth so they will not be able to prove the truth, because, they have accepted the present experience of birth, life, death, and the world as a reality.

Bhagavan Buddha:~There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way... and not starting.

Bhagavan Buddha was a Gnani, not his followers. Bhagavan Buddha’s wisdom was lost, it is because it was mixed up and messed up with other religions in Asia wherever it existed. Bhagavan Buddha started the quest and Sage Sri, Sankara completed the journey.

Unless we bifurcate Bhagavan Buddha from Buddhism and Sage Sankara from Hinduism the Advaita (Soul), which is hidden by the Dvaita (ignorance) will not be revealed.

There is no need to argue Bhagavan Buddha is wrong and Sage Sankara is right but the seeker must find out where he is going wrong in understanding the great Sages of truth.

The distinction between Sage Sankara’s Advaita and Vijnanavadin Buddhism is that the former is mentalism i.e. mind is the real, whereas the latter is idealism, i.e. ideas are real. Advaitins follow the former.

Buddhism did not graduate its teaching to suit people of varying grades; hence it failed to affect society in Asia.

Bhagavan Buddha as a constructive worker committed an error in failing to give the masses a religion, something tangible they could grasp something materialistic, if symbolic that their limited intellect could take hold of, in addition to his ethics and philosophy. Here Sri Sage Sri, Sankara was wiser and gave religion; such as Bhakti, worship, etc.--to the ignorant masses, as well as wisdom to the true seekers.   

Bhagavan Buddha's teachings that all life is misery belong to the relative standpoint only. For you cannot form any idea of misery without contrasting it with its opposite, happiness. The two will always go together. Bhagavan Buddha taught the goal of cessation of misery, i.e. peace, but took care not to discuss the ultimate standpoint for then he would have had to go above the heads of the people and tell them that misery itself was only an idea, that peace even was an idea (for it contrasted with peacelessness). That the doctrine he gave out was a limited one, is evident because he inculcated compassion. Why should a Buddhist sage practice pity? There is no reason for it.

Advaita is the next step higher than Buddhism because it gives the missing reason, viz. unity, non-difference from others, and because it explains that it used the concept of removing the sufferings of others, of lifting them up to happiness, only as we use one thorn to pick out another, afterward throw both away. Similarly, Advaita discards both concepts of misery and happiness from the ultimate standpoint of non-duality, which is indescribable.

Buddhists say that a thing exists only for a moment, and if that thing has still some of the substance from which it was produced, how then can they deny that its cause is continuing in the effect; hence its existence is more than a moment. Vedanta is concerned with whether it is one and the same thing which has come into being or has it come out of nothing. 

Remember:~

Moksha meaning liberation from the cycle of transmigration pertains to the lower or purely religious sphere. This doctrine is on the lower level because it is based on the reality of the form, time and space.

From the Advaitic perspective, the interpretation of the word is "liberation from ignorance." Similarly, the word Nirvana is interpreted in Buddhist countries as a meaning release from the cycle of births and deaths. This too is the popular interpretation, not philosophical which is precisely the same as the Advaitic perspective.

 It is quite true that Bhagavan Buddha constantly taught that man should seek release from transmigratory existence, but we must remember however that what the sage knows is known only to himself in its fullness and that he gives out to the public only so much as they could grasp and no more. 

Remember:~ 

Blinded by the illusion very few grasp the Advaitic truth. Only a few people escape from the web of illusion, and only a few seekers can acquire Advaitic wisdom. 

The ‘I’ implies the duality. Thus, holding the ‘I’ as the ‘Self’ is holding the duality as the reality. The duality is merely an illusion from the ultimate standpoint. 

The duality (form) becomes oneness in deep sleep and Oneness (formless) becomes the duality in waking or dream. 

The one that becomes the duality (form) and one that becomes Oneness (formless) is not the ‘I’ because the ‘I’ is present only in waking and dream. 

The one, which is aware of the coming and the going of the ‘my’, is the Soul, the innermost ‘Self’. The Soul is formless and apart and eternal. The Soul is present in the form of consciousness. Soul or consciousness is the ultimate truth or Brahman. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar