2011-10-17

The Medicine of the Unique Taste


“Also, Oh good man! As an example, there is a medicine in the Himalayas called 'pleasing taste'. Its taste is very sweet. It grows hidden under the dense growth of plants, and we cannot see it easily. But from its scent, we can come to know the whereabouts of this medicine. In times past, there was a Chakravartin who, placing wooden tubes here and there in the Himalayas, collected this medicine. When it had ripened, it flowed out and entered the tubes. Its taste was perfect. When the king (Chakravartin) died, this medicine has become sour, salty, sweet, bitter, spicy or mild. So, what's unique, has different tastes according to the different places. The true taste of the medicine remains in the mountains, it's like the full moon. Any common mortal, sterile in virtues, can work hard, dig in and try, but cannot get it. Only a Chakravartin, high in virtues, appearing in the world can arrive at the true value of this medicine because of happy circumstantial concatenation. The same is the case [here]. Oh good man! The taste of the hidden storehouse of the Tathagata is also like this. Shrouded by the flourish of defilements, clad in ignorance, the beings cannot hope see it (or feel it). We speak of a 'unique taste'. This applies, for instance, to the Buddha-Nature. Due to the presence of defilements, several tastes appear, such as the realms of hell, animals, of hungry pretas, devas, human beings, men, women, non-men, non-women, Kshatriya, Brahmin, Vaishya and Sudra .

The Buddha-Nature is strong and vigorous. It is hard to destroy. Therefore, there is nothing that can kill it. If there were something that could
indeed kill it, the Buddha-Nature would die. [But] nothing can indeed destroy such Buddha-Nature. Nothing of this nature can ever be cut. 'The nature of the Self is nothing other than the hidden storehouse of the Tathagata’. This storehouse can never be crushed, set on fire, or extinguished. Although it is not possible to destroy or see it, one can know it when attains the unsurpassed enlightenment. Hence, there is nothing that can indeed kill it."

Read More on the Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 12 - On the Nature of the Tathagata.

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