“This is about fear,” he replied.

“There it is again… about fear again. How is it related?” I asked.

“In the early days of the Buddha’s emergence, countless people attained Buddhahood.
When they achieved perfect Buddhahood, they vowed to continue to teach the method
of becoming Buddha. The Buddha called this group the *Ariya Sangha*, meaning the
group of people who could access noble knowledge, or the society of those who do
noble deeds, and continue to spread the concept of ‘being Buddha’ or being a noble
mind endlessly. But after the Buddha’s passing, the people and kings who had faith in
the Buddha feared that his methods would disappear, so they decided to record all the
methods in writing. In the early stages of recording, they focused only on the important
principles and the history of the Buddha. But later, they added more and more detailed
content, classifying the teachings more and more, through meetings or what you call
‘councils,’ to add more content over many eras, especially the meeting to revise the
content about 200 years after the Buddha’s passing, which was the time when the
content was turned upside down.

And because at that time the Buddha’s fame had spread to distant lands, and there
were many Sangha members, but those Sangha members did not truly have the
qualities of Buddhahood, so this group of Sangha members who arose merely from
going through the ordination ceremony was called the ‘hypothetical Sangha.’ This
group’s role was to take the knowledge in the recorded scriptures and teach it. From
then on, the number of people who were *Ariya Sangha* gradually decreased until they
disappeared completely,” he explained.

“This story is so complicated and difficult to understand,” I began to complain.

“Let me compare it to a story. Imagine a music teacher who teaches students who
aspire to be musicians. This teacher is skilled at playing musical instruments and can
compose beautiful new songs, so he is called an ‘artist.’ He teaches all the methods.
Every time he teaches, he can guide every step of playing the instrument because he is
fully proficient and an artist. He can train all the students to play the instrument and
take it further, so each person can compose and create new songs endlessly. In other
words, a teacher who is an artist can teach students to become artists, and new artists
can teach others to become artists.

But later, a curriculum was recorded to be used for learning. The teacher who taught it
did not have the qualities of an artist, could not play instruments, and could not create
beautiful new songs. What he taught was the knowledge of the teachers who had
recorded it, not his own knowledge. The result was people who could memorize the
knowledge and teach others to memorize the knowledge. The artists disappeared
because neither the teachers nor the students were artists,” he explained.

“Oh… textbooks can’t make people artists?” I asked.

“They can… if they take the knowledge they gain and put it into practice, by picking up
the instrument and playing it, practicing creating and composing new songs. But what
appeared at that time was that they only memorized the old knowledge and competed
to see who could memorize more, ranking the memorizers by level, without actually
practicing anything. In fact, some artists may not need to learn from the curriculum
that the teacher teaches. They just pick up the instrument and practice on their own,
with trial and error. If they have enough effort, determination, love, care, attention to
detail, and patience, they can develop the skills to reach the goal of becoming an artist,”
he replied.

“I understand that musicians or artists have to go through practice, but for the Buddha,
for the state of spiritual liberation, what is practice?” I asked.
“I think you should save this question to ask the Buddha. But for sure, the result of
being a Buddha-mind is certainly not the same as being a human-mind,” he replied,
leaving me with a mystery to follow.

“Ask the Buddha…!! Does that mean the current me will get to talk to the Buddha in the
past?” I asked immediately.

“Yes,” he replied.

“At first, I thought it would just be seeing him through the eyes of Achita. I can talk to
the Buddha too?… Why is that?” I asked.

“Don’t forget that you are currently traveling with your mind, and the important
quality of the mind is that it is beyond time. One moment of mind, which is a moment
of worldly time, can be divided into countless moments in between. It’s like time on
your world is a horizontal plane, while the time of the mind is a vertical line that can
intersect the horizontal plane infinitely,” he tried to elaborate.

“Do you think I will understand the language you speak?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just saying what I understand,” he replied.

“To be honest… none of it makes sense to me,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter whether you understand it or not, because even if you understand it,
if you don’t have experience or haven’t tried practicing it yourself, you won’t directly
know what I’m saying. One day, when you do something and you encounter the kind of
experience I’m talking about, you will remember that you already knew this. But in the
past, it was just knowledge, and at that time you will know it thoroughly, know it with
understanding, know it clearly, because you have directly realized it yourself without
any explanation,” he added.

“I can sense that understanding, but I just don’t understand it yet,” I teased.

“I think you’re starting to have qualities like us because you’re starting to speak
‘circularly’ like us. Alright, you’re now returning to Savatthi, your hometown. Go
explore it clearly again,” he said.

“Alright. I remember that in the past, this place didn’t change much. But this time,
Savatthi has changed dramatically. It looks more prosperous than before. Many new
houses have sprung up. Shops are bustling with goods. Caravans of people from
different regions have set up camp outside the city and mingled in the market, as can
be seen from their clothing and jewelry.”

“What is clearly visible from the time when I was the royal priest of this city is that the
city of Savatthi looks more vibrant. The city walls, which were originally made of bricks
and about three stories high, are now plastered with white lime mixed with sugarcane
juice and tree sap along the entire wall, making it look clean and tidy, and even taller
than before. Moreover, along the walls, both above and below, there are colorful flags
and paper lanterns filled with oil lamps for lighting, making me imagine what it would
be like at night. The area around the walls must be bright with lights from these
lanterns,” I observed.

“Do you think it’s because of the Buddha that this city has become so remarkably
prosperous?” I asked.