Auspicious Guidance for Every Being — Human and Deva Alike

There is a matter worth raising for the first time at this very moment. Right now, though you may not sense it, I can see a great many divine assemblies gathering around this place, unseen by you. They have come together, drawing close, because this occasion has become an opportunity for them to find answers to their own difficulties and their own paths. A group of good spiritual friends has also gathered close to me to be part of this occasion. This gathering — this teaching assembly — exists so that whatever wholesome merit and Dhamma is available within this conventional world can be used to resolve difficulties that have remained unresolved until now. That is what everyone here, in this moment, has gathered for.

You may bring forward any unresolved difficulty to this assembly. Just as you may, so may any being in any realm — deva, brahma, or any of the realms extending down to the four lower worlds.

(A silence settles over the assembly.)

A deva raises a question at this moment: "Everyone gives various things in various ways, regardless of race or religion — of all those things given, what is the best?" I will begin my answer this way. The best thing each kind of being can give to the world, to others, is exactly what I am about to describe.

• What an animal can give, at best, is the expression made through the movement of its body — that is the only real thing an animal can give.
• The best a young child can give is a smile.
• The best a youth can give is love.
• The best a young adult can give is passion.
• The best an elder can give is the wisdom gathered through their own experience.
• The best a virtuous person can give is patience.
• The best a human being can give is humaneness.
• The best someone on the path of stream-entry can give is faith.
• The best a stream-enterer can give is pointing out delusion.
• The best someone on the path of once-returning can give is a message about the world.
• The best a once-returner can give is emptiness.
• The best someone on the path of non-returning can give is solitude.
• The best a non-returner can give is renunciation.
• The best someone on the path of arahantship can give is the cessation of mental formations (freedom from conditioning).
• The best an arahant can give is explaining, from their own experience, the path they themselves travelled.
• The best a Buddha can give is truth.
• The best a fully self-enlightened Buddha (samma sambuddha) can give is the fourfold noble energy — teachings that meet the level of that fourfold power.
• The best a fully self-enlightened Buddha-king can give is the awakening of wisdom within a being.
• The best a sat-Buddha (supreme Buddha) can give is...

Starting from wherever the animal's contribution begins, a sat-Buddha restores and fulfils, in full, what a fully self-enlightened Buddha-king can give — because the reality of a sat-Buddha contains all of these within it.

Give the best you are able to give.

A sat-Buddha represents the highest point that arises within the evolution of Buddha-nature — the final result. Beyond the cultivation of the bases of psychic power (iddhipada), no further evolution is possible; instead, the field of Buddha is restored anew. Because this is the highest point of Buddha's evolution, such a one is also known as a sat-Buddha, or supreme Buddha.

A Second Teaching

I will now give you another teaching.

• If you are to take something, the best thing to take is what you do not already have. Many people apply this only to material goods, and not to anything else. The best thing to take is what you lack.
• If you are to gather something, the best thing to gather is merit.
• If you are not to gather something, the worst thing to gather is other people's waste.
• If you are to act, the best action is to become a strength to yourself.
• If you are not to do something, the worst thing is to weaken yourself. You will never regret having made yourself strong. Nothing is more damaging to you than weakening yourself.
• If you are to search for something, the best thing to search for is happiness. Only by searching for it will you find it. If you never search, you will never find happiness. Happiness is something you must earn.
• The thing you should not search for is what serves no purpose for you.
• The best thing you can do for someone who hates you is to allow them to hate. That alone will let their hatred subside. But do not go creating situations that increase that hatred.
• The best thing you can do for someone who is patient is to allow them to be patient.
• As for Dhamma — what is that Dhamma? The best Dhamma is freedom from the notion that there is a fixed self.
• Within non-Dhamma, the worst non-Dhamma is building oneself upon that very notion of self.
• As for Buddha — Buddha is the untainted, noble purity present within one who is a Buddha.
• Non-Buddha-conduct is the absence of that purity.
• As for parents — a mother and father are those who love you, protect you, and give you security. Simply bringing a child into the world does not make one a mother or father.
• The fool is one who sees the truth and still becomes deluded by it.
• The wise one is one who opens their world to the truth.
• A husband is one capable of building trust within another.
• A wife is one capable of preserving that trust.

To avoid any misunderstanding here about what "trust" means, let me clarify with an example. When someone says to another, at a certain moment, 'don't be afraid — I'm here,' that is where this trust is built. Say someone is about to go outside at night. Telling them, 'don't be afraid, go ahead,' gives them trust — trust that says, don't be afraid to learn, you are capable. The one who gives that trust is the husband. The one who receives that trust and takes it as 'yes, I can' is the wife.

• Is happiness something substantial, or something insubstantial? Happiness is your right. Every human and deva has the right to be happy. Happiness is an entitlement. You and I both have the right to be happy. Whatever your happiness may be, do not betray it for anyone's sake. Someone unable to feel happiness is, though alive, like one who is already dead. Be happy — that is your right. No one can obstruct it. If you are not happy for the world's sake, that is your own foolishness. Being happy is your right. Everything we do is ultimately for the sake of being happy. Remember always: happiness is your right.
• As for the wealth you should possess, there are a few kinds of wealth worth holding on to:

• Independence — not being anyone's servant.
• Time — something that cannot be earned but is always being spent regardless. The greatest wealth anyone should possess is time. Someone who says 'I have no time' is a beggar.
• Love — we all want love. This is the third form of wealth. Love is a value that reaches the heart. If it isn't that, it is not the love you imagine. If someone's heart receives value from another, love exists there. But many people go about demanding value for their own heart, in the name of seeking love. That is not what love is. Love is the value that naturally reaches someone's heart. It can come from a beggar on the roadside; it can come from you.
• Freedom of the heart.
• Social acceptance — the acceptance received through society, through people.

These are the forms of wealth one should hold.

• The best form of veneration is veneration of Buddha — not veneration of clay statues, but veneration directed to Buddha.
• On what aim should all the beings of the world rest? A being should live with their own final end as their aim. It may be a particular existence, or another existence. It may be the end of samsara itself. Live with that ending as your aim.
• The best decision to make is a decision made for the sake of unity.
• The best promises one can give to the world: the promise made in giving up Buddhahood itself; the promise made in giving up final nirvana; the promise of a Buddha's continuing to shine forth in the world.

There are sages who have cultivated exceptionally vast wisdom across samsara — their maturity is immense.

Across this universe there exist sages and seers of extraordinarily developed wisdom — those who have cultivated the bases of psychic power, wisdom, strength, higher knowledge, and psychic ability — who have come to know all things, whether spoken of or not, including even wrong views. Those noble ones, having known all this, aligned themselves fully with that wisdom. And even having aligned with it, they remain aligned with it still.

Even having understood all of it, those sages and seers cannot cross beyond samsara through that alone. That is not the path that leads beyond samsara. There is one further matter these all-knowing sages and seers still need to understand.

You noble ones who have understood everything must also come to understand this one further thing.

You dwell, having understood and brought to fullness an understanding of countless real teachings existing in this universe, of the systems of conditioning — the domain of Buddha, the domain of citta, the domain of karma, the domain of the world, the domain of wisdom, the domain of jhana, the domain of the body — vast fields of knowledge, and abide, fully engaged, within that understanding. Yet the passing away of you who possess all these psychic powers — the passing of your wisdom, the passing of your intelligence, the passing of your psychic power, the passing away resting upon the cultivation of the bases of psychic power, and the passing away of each of these various domains — remains unknown to you.

That passing away means: extinguishing the final citta that is still felt.

There is a great many who, from the distant past through to this very moment and even into the future, have exerted themselves, spending time and effort, striving to bring a Buddha into the world. Not all of them, once that Buddha has arisen, go on to accept that Buddha. This is because the image of "a Buddha" they had constructed in their minds does not correspond to who that person has now become. The one who has become Buddha is not the person who lived within their imagined picture. Because they do not know this — because of this not-knowing — they go astray, going astray specifically with regard to the Dhamma. Yet that same group is essential. That group is accepted precisely by the very gap left open by these emptied-out sages and seers.

Questions and Answers

"What is this teaching?"

This teaching contains the messages that resolve the worldly, transcendent, and spiritual difficulties of all beings — human and divine — living in this world. Included here are matters that flow in parallel with the auspicious guidance given during Gautama Buddha's era. What you are to do is bring these points to the attention of people.

"You said happiness is a right. How is this explained to a being?"

Each being has a happiness unique to themselves. That happiness is necessary. Have a plan for your happiness; identify what you can do to work toward it. Enjoy your right to happiness in a way that harms neither yourself nor others.

"Is suffering simply the absence of happiness?"

That has no connection. Suffering is a matter of someone regarding something as suffering. What feels like suffering to you is not suffering to me. You are the one who has chosen to regard a particular thing as suffering. Imagine someone has a friend. That friend's death may be suffering to them, often — but that friend's death is not suffering to everyone else.

Suffering is your own choice, but happiness is not a matter of choice — it is a knowing unique to you. It is not a matter of saying or thinking "I am happy" — happiness is something felt.

"Is karma suffering?"

Karma is the natural law that constructs opportunities. It is not suffering in itself. You are the one who chooses to regard it as suffering. It has nothing to do with the opportunity that karma has constructed.