Once You Reach the Other Shore

The Last Part of the Series…

I thought I would put a fork in my thoughts about the Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake with to me one of the most profound and hard to comprehend parts of what the Buddha says. To quote the text the best I can; “I have given this teaching on the raft many times to remind you how necessary it is to let go of all the true teachings, not to mention teaching that are not true.” Okay, I know I still haven’t told you about the raft, but I will in a few minutes. But let that sentence sink in. Let go of the true teachings.

Let’s take a step back and talk about this raft I have been talking about all week. It goes like this. A woman comes to a river and has to cross it, so she gathers sticks and branches and makes a raft so she can get across the river. When she gets to the other side, what does she do with the raft? Well, she put a lot of time and effort in to making this awesome raft, and it would be a shame to just leave it at the river bank. It is now a prized possession, and besides, what if 20 miles down the walk there is another river to cross! She picks up the raft and drags it along on her journey across the land. The Buddha asks the monks if this is the wise thing to do. To paraphrase their answer: Hell, no! The Buddha tells the monks that it would have been much wiser for her to leave the raft at the rivers edge for the next traveler to use to get across the river. It is of no use for her anymore.

I know what you are thinking; “What if there is another river a few miles down the path! She is going to have to build a whole new raft? Hell no. I would drag that damn thing along behind me. It’s my raft! I built it!”

Letting go of the teachings that aren’t true is the easy place to start, but not always the easiest thing to do. Arittha, our monk friend that I have been trashing all week, had some pretty wrong ideas and despite pleas from his friends was unwilling to let go of them. It is difficult to let go of something learned wrong when you are unable, or unwilling to see that it was not correct. We are a stubborn lot, and we tend to create our wrong conclusion, and shoehorn our own “facts” in to justify that conclusion. Blissful ignorance gets us all. The monks finally threw in the towel and ratted out Arittha to the Buddha. They gave up trying to pry him out of his happy place of complete ignorance. The Buddha set him straight. He found the right teacher and was able to let go of the untrue teachings. Although he didn’t ask for help, his friend’s took it upon themselves to help him see things right. He easily left the not true teachings at the rivers edge. That raft was a burden.

But the true teachings? Why are we letting go of those? Don’t we want to know the true teachings? The thought of “true teachings” is a trap. The raft was the true teaching that got this traveler across this one river, but it may not have worked for the next one. She might have hauled this raft down the trail, it falling apart and becoming unsteady as it takes a beating from the trip. But if left at that river, it would be useful for the next person who comes along. That teaching (raft) is useful for that lesson (river) only. It must be let go as she travels on to learn her next lesson. Even the teachings we experience are all based on impermanence. We must learn to let go of the teachings in order to learn the next lesson.

We like to become attached to ideas. True and not true teachings can hook us and lead us down the path to blissful ignorance. It is an easy path to wander down and we are unable to even notice we are on that path most of the time.

In the teaching profession we want to pass on our knowledge, not keep it to ourselves. We want to gather knowledge and pass it on to others. And we should all look at ourselves as teachers, but not just so we can show off our knowledge and teach for the sake of self satisfaction and from a place of intense ego (I have seen way too much of that over the years.)

We need to let go of the teaching and move on to the next one. It is our responsibility to share the raft with the next traveler in hopes that it will help them cross the river. We should keep the knowledge of how to build that raft but not become too attached to it. If we become determined that this one way is the only way to build the raft, we will lose sight of so many possibilities. And what happens if we come to that next river and there are no trees nearby to build the same exact raft. We must take that knowledge and expand it. We must let go of the original true teachings in order to get our next lesson.

If we think about:

Asking others for help when needed and understanding we don’t always know the answer

Who is a true teacher in what we are looking for?

Dealing with stress

Dealing with a crisis

And we put all of those things together, we may just continue to learn and be better people.