Even One Word Is Enough¹

Talking about these kinds of beings is talking about the mind. It's not that one is born a Pacceka. This is what's called ''explanation by personification of states of mind'' (puggalādhitthāna). Being a Pacceka, one abides indifferently and doesn't teach. Not much benefit comes from that. But when someone is able to teach others, then they are manifesting as an omniscient Buddha.

These are only metaphors.

Don't be anything! Don't be anything at all! Being a Buddha is a burden. Being a Pacceka is a burden. Just don't desire to be. ''I am the monk Sumedho,'' ''I am the monk Ānando''... That way is suffering, believing that you really exist thus. ''Sumedho'' is merely a convention. Do you understand?

If you believe you really exist, that brings suffering. If there is Sumedho, then when someone criticizes you, Sumedho gets angry. Ānando gets angry. That's what happens if you hold these things as real. Ānando and Sumedho get involved and are ready to fight. If there is no Ānando or no Sumedho, then there's no one there - no one to answer the telephone. Ring ring - nobody picks it up. You don't become anything. No one is being anything, and there is no suffering.

If we believe ourselves to be something or someone, then every time the phone rings, we pick it up and get involved. How can we free ourselves of this? We have to look at it clearly and develop wisdom, so that there is no Ānando or no Sumedho to pick up the telephone. If you are Ānando or Sumedho and you answer the telephone, you will get yourself involved in suffering. So don't be Sumedho. Don't be Ānando. Just recognize that these names are on the level of convention.

If someone calls you good, don't be that. Don't think, ''I am good.'' If someone says you are bad, don't think, ''I'm bad.'' Don't try to be anything. Know what is taking place. But then don't attach to the knowledge either.

People can't do this. They don't understand what it's all about. When they hear about this, they are confused and they don't know what to do. I've given the analogy before about upstairs and downstairs. When you go down from upstairs, you are downstairs, and you see the downstairs. When you go upstairs again, you see the upstairs. The space in between you don't see - the middle. It means Nibbāna is not seen. We see the forms of physical objects, but we don't see the grasping, the grasping at upstairs and downstairs. Becoming and birth; becoming and birth. Continual becoming. The place without becoming is empty. When we try to teach people about the place that is empty, they just say, ''There's nothing there.'' They don't understand. It's difficult - real practice is required for this to be understood.

Footnotes

...¹

To the Western Sangha newly arrived in England, 1979

...''salty²

Not the same connotation as in English. Here it means 'hard' or 'direct'.

... Buddhas³

The ''solitary enlightened ones''

...⁴

Or: the communists will still let us eat rice, won't they?