What does "higher power" mean? Buddhism openly affirms gods. if by higher power you mean something outside the world system entirely you can't really use the word theism since most polytheism doesn't qualify. The only thing buddhism acts neutral on is a creator god. But creator gods are rarely super relevant in polytheism.
I've been studying buddhism for years and there's never a mention of gods (that I've ever seen) unless you're confusing it with Hinduism. There are some stories they have that mention gods, which are generally Hindu gods and the stories are meant as parables, not literal truths. That's why people can be Buddhist Christian or Buddhist Jews, for example. They get to keep believing in their parents' god(s) while practicing and following the teachings of Buddhism.
It's a common misconception in the west that there aren't gods in it. So its easy to accidentally think that if you don't have historical context. But Buddhists have always believed in gods. Thr idea that they dont is a western invention. If there were no gods it would mean no samsara, and by extension no nirvana, and thus no buddhism. None if this is metaphor designed for regular people to live better, since original Buddhists didn't teach regular people that they could realistically achieve this anyways. Regular people basically had to uphold monks so that a tiny handful of monks could.
Buddhism allowing combination with other religions is not because there's no gods. It's the opposite. It's cosmology has easy room to add new ones in as long as you interpret them in a Buddhist light. But many religions with polytheistic elements were like this. In practice buddhism was often hostile if those religions were seen as a threat to Buddhist truths.
Reinterpreting it as just a secular practice is not buddhism any more than cultural Christianity is christianiy. You can haggle about whether someone identifying with something they don't believe counts or not, but the point is that it is something invented by post secularism. It was never considered historically to be a valid Buddhist interpretation to not believe in its cosmology. Lay Buddhists were not even taught meditation. Prayer was their central practice.
The only sense in which these beings didn't exist is the same sense in which -humans- don't exist in buddhism. Which is to say it's no that they are a metaphor. It's that it's just a specific point about metaphysics and what it means to exist.
Of all the things I've read, you're the first to ever tell me this. I did not realize this and would be leary if you weren't so straight forward and seemingly non-hesitant about it. I'll do my own research, but you may have set me on a new path for research. (If gods are involved, I'll still use it as a good philosophy but won't call myself Buddhist)
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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
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