Wouldn't a Pacheco Buddha be benefiting others because everything is interdependent?
I see.
Just by becoming enlightened.
Well, first of all, let's dispel the myth.
A Pacheco Buddha is not an island in isolation.
A Pacheco Buddha still interacts with their fellow beings, still benefits, very, very much benefits.
their fellow beings simply as an example for starters and also because of their teachings.
Pacheco Buddha is not able to teach the Buddha's teaching.
It's not able to come up with, for example, the four Satipatthana, the five Khanda, the four noble truths.
But they are able to teach people.
They are able to say things to encourage other people.
They just don't have what it takes to really understand what it is that they've realized themselves.
They can talk about good things and they can encourage people in good things.
I'm not sure how far they can go with that, and I don't want to step out of line, but there seems no reason for them to not be able to even teach people to give up desires and so on, to practice meditation, to encourage them insofar as they understand themselves.
There doesn't seem to be anything stopping them.
So the idea that if a Cheka Buddha is someone who keeps their mouth shut and never whispers a word of what they've come to know for themselves,
is I think has no backing.
I mean in the commentaries there's a story that's probably fairly famous among Buddhists of Anuruddha.
Anuruddha in a past life was a servant, a serving man and he gave alms to a Pachayka Buddha and
he made a wish, he gave his only meal for the day because of course he was so poor that he only had one meal he gave his one meal of the day he gave it to Pacheco Buddha and he said as a result of this gift may I never hear the words Nati or the word Nati Nati means there isn't any or there is not but in this case his meaning was there isn't any
May I never hear the words, there isn't any.
So whenever, meaning whenever he wanted something, he would always get it.
And the Pachayika Buddha said something like, may it be like that, and went away.
So Anuruddha was very, very happy, and he went back.
I think he also made a vow, may I also realize, may I realize the teaching, the truth that you have come to realize, and while I still haven't realized the truth, may I never hear the word nothing.
When he goes back,
and he tells he he's so happy that um something like he's so happy that his his boss his owner or whatever his employer asked him what what happened you know why is he so happy and he he tells him and the owner says i'll give you something like a thousand gold coins if you give me the merit if you give me the merit the goodness of what you've done
Give me all of your goodness and I'll give you a thousand gold coins.
All that you've gained from it.
Because there was a big idea that even in old times that doing these deeds got you some kind of punya.
The idea that he had was that maybe it could be bought because of course he was probably a fairly rich man and everything of course could be bought, even people.
So why couldn't you buy punya?
Anuruddha, or the man who was to be Anuruddha, he was of course totally horrified by this and afraid that it might somehow be possible to buy his punya, his goodness, the goodness that he had gained from doing this.
And so he said, no way, I would never give this to anyone, not for any price.
And the man, the guy was so upset and so desirous of this goodness that he said, well, okay, you give me half of your punya and keep half for yourself and I'll buy half of it for whatever 500 gold coins.
And here Anuruddha was thinking, but what does that mean?
Does that mean I lose half of my goodness?
And so he's thinking and he's not sure.
And then he goes back and he's something like he asks his wife and his wife says, well, why don't you go ask the Pacheca Buddha?
And so he goes back and he goes to the Pacheca Buddha and he says, no, look, this is the case.
I've got this great, wonderful merit for doing this good deed of giving you alms.
But now my boss wants to take half of it.
Does that mean I'm going to lose half of my punya?
But the Pachika Buddha teaches him.
It's the only direct teaching that I can remember of a Pachika Buddha that occurs.
It's the only one I can remember.
He says, well, consider this.
Suppose you have a candle and you light the candle.
And then you've got one light.
Now suppose everyone in your whole village comes and lights their candle from your candle.
Suppose you were to do that for a thousand people.
Would you lose the light from your candle?
And he replied, he said, no, it would be like one candle became a thousand.
One light became a thousand lights.
And
And the Pachika Buddha says in the very same way, goodness can never be transferred.
It can only be multiplied.
When you dedicate your merit, your goodness to someone else, it's as though your goodness had become twice.
And of course he was very happy with this because he's going to get money and keep his punya.
So he goes back and he says, yes, yes, I dedicate half of my punya, or even I think something like all of my punya, I dedicate it to you.
I give it all over to you.
Which actually, I used to use this story as an example of how actually it gives you more merit to do that.
When you dedicate your merit and wish for your merit, the power of your goodness, may it benefit someone else, you actually get more merit as a result.
Of course, because your heart becomes pure.
And so that's an example of the teachings of Pacheco Buddha.
The story goes on and talks about how he actually does never hear the word Nati.
And as a result, one day his mother runs out of cakes.
And he says, well, then bring them.
And she says, so nutty.
She says, tell him there are no cakes.
Nutty.
And he says, nutty, nutty, what does this mean?
And he says, well, then tell her to bring the nutty cakes.
That's fine.
I'll take the nutty cakes.
It was funnier when I read it.
So, okay, so I haven't even answered the question yet.
So the point being that they do benefit directly.
They are able to teach directly.
They're just not able to teach someone the path to become enlightened.
That's what makes them a Pacheco Buddha.
And of course they would be different.
So some of them might be better to teach than others.
Some of them might even teach things that lead people on to practice the Buddhist teaching later on and so on.
I wouldn't say there are any hard and fast rules in that regard.
But whether someone, be they a Pacheco Buddha or even an Arahant, benefits others by just becoming enlightened simply because of interdependence
I'm all for it.
I think as we better ourselves, those people who are connected with us benefit as well.
Consider what it would have been like had you not practiced and become enlightened.
If you take just an ordinary meditator, suppose they practice, suppose they become an arahant.
Suppose they hadn't done that.
if you compare the state of things if they hadn't done that and if they had if they become an arahant and then they die or something or then they go off in the forest and live the rest of their life well if they hadn't done that they would have of course based on their defilements based on their attachments they would have encouraged all sorts of unpleasant things if you consider it just from that aspect they've benefited others immensely they've freed others from the karmic
so if you have a karmic cycle of vengeance towards someone where you might not have bad feelings towards them but somehow you're going to do something to hurt them because they've hurt you in the past then by becoming enlightened you and going off in the forest for example you free others from that so you might even say that by becoming enlightened the world the world around us becomes freer you'll also often find that these beings pull others in with them
So as a result of their becoming enlightened as an example or even just because of karmic relationships, they pull all the people around them in as well.