Sublime

Elsewhere the Buddha explains this famous simile in which his teaching is compared to a raft for crossing over, and not for getting hold of and carrying on one’s back:

Buddha is not the name of a particular person; buddha is just a common name to designate anyone who has a high degree of peace and who has a high degree of understanding and compassion. All of us are capable of being called by this name.

Once again, the Buddha reminds us that this teaching does not come from buddhas, rather buddhas come from this teaching.

Over the next several days, the truth emerged to Siddhartha—that release from suffering comes not from renunciation of the things of the world, but from release from attachment to those things. A Middle Way shunned both ascetic extremism and sensuous indulgence, because both are attachments and thus lead to dissatisfaction. At the moment of this re

In this final chapter, the Buddha sums up this teaching that combines wisdom and compassion: not only is it grasped without grasping, it is explained without explaining. Whoever explains this teaching like this does what a buddha does. This is why the Buddha gets up in the morning and goes to town. This is the way to buddhahood and the way of buddh

This gatha is simply an offering given to us by the Buddha, the Buddha’s way of saying goodbye: “Until we meet again, here is something for your empty bowl: regard all things, all beings, this teaching, this sutra, this body of merit, this realization, regard them all as unreal.”

Gautama’s insight was that no matter what the mind experiences, it usually reacts with craving, and craving always involves dissatisfaction.