The Buddha is not venerated because devotees see him as a God and worship him, but rather because hes the ultimate teacher, the embodiment of enlightenment. The Sanskrit word Buddha means the awakened one, he who has realized the truth. In Tibetan, the word by which its translated, Sang-gyé, has two syllables, sang meaning that he has dissipated everything negative that obscures wisdom and awoken from the dark night of ignorance, and gyé that he has developed everything positive, all the spiritual and human qualities that there are, which can be condensed into wisdom and compassion.