..續本文上一頁nt of radio receivers, and none of us would have experienced microscopic life were it not for the invention of the microscope. Even now none of us here, unless there is any physicist in this room, have actually observed electrons and yet we accept them because there are those among us with the special training, and special instruments who have observed electrons. So here too as regards the possibility of the end of suffering and the possibility of attaining Nirvana, we ought not to reject the possibility of attaining Nirvana outright simply because we have not experienced it, simply because we have not seen it for ourselves. Many of you may be familiar with the old story of the turtle and the fish. One day the turtle left the pond and spent a few hours on the bank. When he returned to the water he told the fish of his experiences on the bank. The fish would not believe him. The fish would not believe that there existed a place known as dry land because it was totally unlike what the fish knew, what the fish was familiar with. The fish would not believe that there was a place where creatures walked rather than swam, where one breathed air rather than water, and so forth. There are many historical examples of this tendency to reject information that does not tally with what we already believe, or what we are already familiar with. When Marco Polo returned to Italy from his travels to the Far East, he was imprisoned because his account did not tally with what was then believed about the nature of the universe. When Copernicus advanced the theory that the sun did not circle the earth but in fact that the case was the opposite, he was disbelieved and ridiculed. We ought to be on guard against dismissing the possibility of the complete end of suffering or the possibility of attaining Nirvana simply because we have not experienced it ourselves. Once we accept that the end of suffering is possible, that we can be cured of an illness, then we can proceed with the steps that are necessary in order to achieve that cure. But unless and until we believe that that cure is possible there is no question of successfully completing the treatment. In order therefore to realize progress on the path, to realize eventually the end of suffering one has to have at least confidence in the possibility of achieving the goal, in the possibility of attaining Nirvana.

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