..續本文上一頁e district commissioner. You have to show him some deference. When he leaves the district offices and goes home, that”s when you can pat him on the head. It”s the district commissioner”s head you”re patting, but when you do it in his home, it doesn”t matter. If you were to do it in the government offices in front of a lot of people, it”d be wrong. This is called showing respect. If you know how to use suppositions in this way, they serve a purpose. No matter how long you“ve been close friends, if you touch him on the head in front of a lot of people, he”s sure to get angry—after all, he”s now the district commissioner. This is all there is to our behavior in the world: You need a sense of time and place, and of the people you”re with.

　　So we”re taught to be intelligent, to have a sense of suppositions and a sense of release. Understand them when you use them. If you use them properly, there”s no problem. If you don”t use them properly, it”s offensive. What does it offend

　　 It offends people”s defilements, that”s all—because people live with defilement. There are suppositions you have to follow with certain groups, certain people, certain times and places. If you follow them appropriately, you can be said to be smart. You have to know where these things come from and how far they lead. We have to live with suppositions, but we suffer when we cling to them. If you understand suppositions simply as suppositions and explore them until you come to release, there are no problems.

　　As I”ve often said, before we were laymen and now we”re monks. Before we were supposed to be laymen but now, having gone through the ordination chant, we”re supposed to be monks. But we”re monks on the level of supposition, not genuine monks, not monks on the level of release. If we practice so that our minds are released from all their fermentations (asava) step by step, as stream-winners, once-returners, non-returners, all the way to arahantship, then all our defilements will be abandoned. Even when we say that someone is an arahant, that”s a just supposition—but he”s a genuine monk.

　　In the beginning we start with suppositions like this. In the ordination ceremony they agree to call you a “monk,” but does that mean you can suddenly abandon your defilements

　　 No. It”s like taking a fistful of sand and saying, “Suppose this is salt.” Is it salt

　　 Sure it is, but only on the level of supposing. It”s not genuine salt. If you were to put it into a curry, it wouldn”t serve any purpose. If you were to argue that it”s genuine salt, the answer would have to be No. That”s what”s meant by supposition.

　　The word “release” is something supposed into being, but what it actually is, lies beyond supposition. When there”s release, all our suppositions are released. That”s all there is to it. Can we live without suppositions

　　 No. If we didn”t have suppositions, we wouldn”t know how to talk with each other. We wouldn”t know where things come from and how far they go. We wouldn”t have any language to speak with one another.

　　So suppositions have their purposes—the purposes we”re supposed to use them for. For example, people have different names, even though they”re all people just the same. If we didn”t have names, you wouldn”t know how to call the person you wanted. For instance, if you wanted to call a particular person in a crowd and said, “Person! Person!” that would be useless. No one would answer, because they”re all “person.” But if you called, “Jan! Come here!” then Jan would come. The others wouldn”t have to. This is how suppositions serve a purpose. Things get accomplished. So there are ways for us to train ourselves that arise from suppositions.

　　If we know both supposition and release in the proper way, we can get along. Suppositions have their uses, but in reality…

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