I just thought, after reading these two passages, that it’s interesting in Christianity that we acknowledge that we are “followers of Jesus.” Jesus asked that specifically of the disciples: “Come, follow me.” That is fairly straightforward.

Buddha didn’t ask his disciples to follow him — but they did anyway. He asked them not to turn him into a god. They did anyway.

Where does a leader’s power arise from? Charisma? Or something else? I think with Jesus it was something else. No doubt he was charismatic. But he also took his belief all the way to the cross. He asks something much harder of us than Buddha asked of his disciples, it would seem.

Not so much a contradiction, or a riddle. Rather a different Way, capital W.