I think the Buddha is alive and well nowadays. There are lots of folks out there who are doing Buddha work (and not necessarily Buddhists)... Unfortunately, the image of the Buddha (or of Jesus Christ for that matter) that we tend to see, that of a lone individual, slogging through the vicissitudes of life, is only muddied through the eyes of a distinctly United States, and possibly Western, individualism that posits a lone individual as making it, saving the community...
Instead, it has always being about how transformation, love, compassion, kindness, etc. rests with us, how we can bring it all into a flow of being and becoming... that capability is not the sole domain of "Buddhists" nor does it have to be spiritually tinged nor religiously governed. I've met folks for whom "living like Jesus Christ" means precisely what I've stated above -- filtered through a narrative of redemption and suffering very similar to the Buddhist narrative.
Right on!
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