Jesus and Buddha

My wife and daughter were watching "Little Buddha" because my daughter's class was studying Buddhism since they are in their religions section in History.

My wife asked, "Is Jesus Buddha?"

I said, "Many Buddhists and others think Jesus is a reincarnation of Buddha. One reason is that their teachings are so similar. For example, if you take compassion and place it in a middle eastern cultural heritage you might come up with forgiveness. I, myself believe that Jesus sometime from 12 to 30 traveled by Camel train as a camel driver or other caravan helper to India where he likely was exposed to Buddhist monks and teachers and also Mahasiddhas who could raise themselves and others from the dead and heal people and many other things. Likely Jesus was extremely intelligent and intuitively gifted and was a very quick study. So even for me, I think it is very possible that Buddha could have reincarnated as Jesus. Many highly evolved spiritual teachers do stuff like this so it is possible that they are the same being.