Enochian: Also buddhism is not about the four noble truths, eight fold path or any of that garbage people learn in high school. It is about DEPENDENT ORIGINATION.
Pardon me, I suggest you do some reflection. The very first thing the Buddha taught as an entry to the path was the Four Arya Truths, it is the proofstone of all Buddhist practice and teachings. The eightfold path, divided into ethics, concentration and wisdom, is the actual core of the fourth Arya (Noble if you wish) Truth.
These are completely in synch with dependent origination, and practicing them is the way that we finally understand the true nature of sunyata/dependent origination. To say that cause and effect is not important but dependent origination is, is to my mind incredibly... um well, ignorant/stupid.
Did I say 'entry into the path'? That doesn't mean just studying learning and pronouncing the refuge formula, or even just doing an academic study without further commitment. It means when you apply yourself to the practice to such and extent you actually begin a transformation of your innermost views so that they become aligned with the Buddha Dharma. Probably the majority of Buddhists have not actually properly entered the path.
To be polite: what you stated is not only untrue, it is misleading, demeaning the Buddha as someone who would have taught irrelevant doctrine. The Buddha taught many different aspects, we talk about the 84,000 divisions of the dharma he taught, we also talk about the 64 (or 60) qualities of the Buddhas speech, one of which is that from his utterance each listener gets the level of understanding that is appropriate to them, whatever type of being they are.
Furthermore:
I don't assume to know what kind of awareness or practice you have attained or do, however I do know that the everything that the Buddha taught, whether on a level for those who needed simpler or on more sophisticated levels, integrates perfectly. This applies to Sravaka, Pratekyabuddha, Mahayana practices, including Tantra, Dzogchen and so forth. It's not like you can put a 5 yr old kid (at least not one without extremely strong realizations from a previous lifetime) into post grad programs without going to kindergarten etc first. Every level of the education is important, and forms the basis of our understanding.
Those of us who squabble and presume that their version of Buddhism is the only correct one are in fact doing the Buddha Dharma great harm. If we don't know better, then we should listen and study more, and reflect very carefully, then we should try and integrate what we learnt. Otherwise if we don't practice it is like making breakfast and just looking at it and expecting it to be nourishing.
