With the right question we get the right answer. But not all questions, just because they are questions, are intended to give us the right answers or better yet, the most important answers.
If we wish an answer that befuddles the average person it must first begin with a question, while seeming to be straightforward and honest, is phrased in such a way as to mislead. For example, if I ask, "What did the Buddha teach?" I can open up any book of the Buddha's discourses and say he taught, for example, the origin of suffering, or impermanence, or the 12-Fetters, and so on. Asking a question like this is sort of like asking, “What does Walmart sell?” Yes, it’s a stupid question.
The real direction we want, first begins with a question which asks, "What did the Bodhisattva awaken to by which he became the awakened one or buddha?" We can even go a step further and ask, “Did the Bodhisattva awaken to a supramundane (lokuttara), unconditioned (asmaskrita) reality?” This is certainly not unanswerable. The answer is yes.
The Bodhisattva’s awakening is the very foundation of Buddhism. What the Buddha subsequently teaches is intended to lead the adept to this awakening. On the other hand, a book like Walpola Rahula’s, What the Buddha Taught is intended to mislead. Rahula never asks the important question, “To what did the Bodhisattva awaken to become Buddha?” The book is little more than a sectarian book which, like most, never gets to the heart of Buddhism.
Comments