..續本文上一頁an”t see the flavour, but it”s there. When will you know it

　　 When you pick up the apple and eat it.

　　The Dhamma we teach is like the apple. People hear it, but they don”t really know the flavour of ””the apple.”” When they practice, then it can be known. The flavour of the apple can”t be known by the eyes, and the truth of the Dhamma can”t be known by the ears. There is knowledge, true, but it doesn”t really reach the actuality. One has to put it into practice. Then wisdom arises and one recognizes the ultimate truth directly. One sees the Buddha there. This is the profound Dhamma. So I compared it to an apple in this way for them; I offered it to that group of Christians to hear and think about.

　　That kind of talk was a little ””salty2.”” Salty is good. Sweet is good, sour is good. Many different ways of teaching are good. Well, if you”ve got something to say, any of you, please feel free to say it. Soon we won”t have a chance to discuss things.... Sumedho”s probably run out of things to say.

　　AS: I”m fed up explaining things to people

　　AC: Don”t do that. You can”t be fed up.

　　AS: Yes, I”ll cut that off.

　　AC: The head teacher can”t do that. There are a lot of people trying to reach Nibbāna, so they are depending on you.

　　Sometimes teaching comes easily. Sometimes you don”t know what to say. You are at a loss for words, and nothing comes out. Or is it that you just don”t want to talk

　　 It”s a good training for you.

　　AS: People around here are pretty good. They aren”t violent and mean-spirited or troublesome. The Christian priests don”t dislike us. The kinds of questions people ask are about things like God. They want to know what God is, what Nibbāna is. Some people believe that Buddhism teaches nihilism and wants to destroy the world.

　　AC: It means their understanding is not complete or mature. They are afraid everything will be finished, that the world will come to an end. They conceive of Dhamma as something empty and nihilistic, so they are disheartened. Their way only leads to tears.

　　Have you seen what it”s like when people are afraid of ””emptiness””

　　 Householders try to gather possessions and watch over them, like rats. Does this protect them from the emptiness of existence

　　 They still end up on the funeral pyre, everything lost to them. But while they are alive they are trying to hold on to things, every day afraid they will be lost, trying to avoid emptiness. Do they suffer this way

　　 Of course, they really do suffer. It”s not understanding the real insubstantiality and emptiness of things; not understanding this, people are not happy.

　　Because people don”t look at themselves, they don”t really know what”s going on in life. How do you stop this delusion

　　 People believe, ””This is me. This is mine.”” If you tell them about non-self, that nothing is me or mine, they are ready to argue the point until the day they die.

　　Even the Buddha, after he attained knowledge, felt weary when he considered this. When he was first enlightened, he thought that it would be extremely troublesome to explain the way to others. But then he realized that such an attitude was not correct.

　　If we don”t teach such people, who will we teach

　　 This is my question, which I used to ask myself at those times I got fed up and didn”t want to teach anymore: who should we teach, if we don”t teach the deluded

　　 There”s really nowhere else to go. When we get fed up and want to run away from disciples to live alone, we are deluded.

　　Monk: We could be Pacceka Buddhas 3.

　　AC: That”s good. But it”s not really correct, being a Pacceka Buddha, if you simply want to run away from things.

　　AS: Just living naturally, in a simple environment, then we could naturally be Pacceka Buddhas. But these days it”s not possible. The environment we live in doesn”t allow that to hap…

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