Andrew Cohen?

It's a good thing that I qualified it as being my opinion. Grammatically I prefer to use "s" instead of "z". It may be due to my mind being bi-lingual. I have to be aware not to use "re" in place of "er," too. So even spelling 'December' may come out 'Decembre'. That is just how my mind works.

I would say that one cannot truly convey one's existential experience because words will usually fail. What one usually ends up doing is using words as a mechanism to try to come to an understanding. But one who has fallen in love will probably not be able to convey what the feeling of love is to one who has never experienced it. In this case existential experience overrides opinion because opinion is usually second hand.

Take any of Buddha's sayings or teachings. How is one to approach them? How is one to relate?

If we accept blindly that there is no soul, no nata (anatta), is that not a belief? How have we changed by mere acceptance or rejection? Are we not encouraged to find out for ourselves? That "action" is existential, no one can take it away from you. The experience itself may be true or false, but it is still an experience. If the "I" doesn't exist, if the "ego" does not exist, then neither can attachments, for it is the ego which supposedly forms the attachments. Likewise if the ego does not exist, then neither can views exist, because it is the ego which has views. Where then does that leave one? If you say "nowhere," that may not be the right term. One can be "rudderless" or directionless, but it is a state of befuddlement not of clarity. One must come to a realisation what 'nowhere' means and is. Who or what is it that realises, then? We could say that it is the "Witness". But then one must define what this 'witness' is. We could say that it is awareness itself, but how can one who is not aware relate, how can they understand?

How can those who know, those that have experienced, convey what they have experienced? How does one accept the word of Buddha?

Yes, you can say that views, opinions, feelings, time, ego, self, soul, birth, death, re-incarnation, desire, karma, liberation, etc. and et. al., are not real. But that is something which everyone must come to realise for themselves. That realisation usually comes in the form of an existential experience, a satori, an epithany, a feeling after the fact, etc. It may not be samadhi, (but it is a glimpse, a clue), but it is better than a belief.

It would be like you saying to me, "drop the ego". If you also told me that the ego is an illusion, that it is false, that it does not exist, then I would say that I cannot drop an illusion, I cannot drop what doesn't exist, so why bother?. All that has happened is that I have short circuited the possiblity of me trying to find out the truth of what you said for myself.

My rationalisation for using "s" is that I connote an existential experience to it. My frame of mind is one of looking from within, it is an ongoing process, a verb; I see the "i" before the "s" and read it as "is". So if you said that "Buddha realized," it has a finality to it. Had you said that "Buddha realised," then I envision his realising not ending, it is everlasting; we are looking back in time but Buddha himself has not stopped realising, it still exists, it still is. It is a subtle point, not one which I would expect you to share. (You could hold that Buddha went into nothingness, but to me that nothingness still exists, it is real, even if it is empty or "no-thing". (I also tend to use "-ness" a lot. It also connotes an ongoing process which does not stop.)) It is not done to draw attention to myself, it just is how I express myself, it is how my mind thinks.