Part 23-2
“Subhuti, the so-called wholesome Dharma the Realised One says is not the wholesome Dharma, it is just called the wholesome Dharma.”
Commentary:
Here the Buddha is teaching again how we should see and hear things. People, thinking that the wholesome Dharma, the Buddha’s teaching is very valuable as a way to rescue them from the ocean of suffering, tend to be attached to the Buddha’s teaching. Aware of sentient beings’ such tendency, the Buddha advised that we also ought to see and hear his teaching as empty and should not be attached to even his teaching.
The core of the Buddha’s teaching is that everything is empty, which means that the Buddha himself, without exception, is also empty. When the Buddha is empty, his wholesome teaching, no matter how plausible it may sound, cannot but be empty.
Student: “If the wholesome Dharma the Buddha said is not the wholesome Dharma but it is just called the wholesome Dharma, what did the Buddha call the wholesome Dharma?”
Master: “The Buddha showed it through the action of speaking.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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