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Comment by eurasiantiger | Hacker News Reader

> aren't you supposed to have a master, when you're working with koans?

Buddha is my master, teacher and guide, etc. This is all sorts of hilarious from a Zen perspective; interpreting Tathagatagarbha as monism, or Buddha as anything, heh.

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“A teacher when one is required, no teacher when one is not required,“ or something like that. :) The Buddha is an existence proof of the possibility of direct independent observation and understanding.

A unique point of evidence, 3,500 years old. Not really "proof" of anything.

And as a teacher, The Buddha has certain limitations - like when you ask him "I'm having problems - am I doing this right?" - answer came there none.

What about pratyekabuddhas? And why would one expect The Buddha to have an answer other than The Buddha?

Sincerely, a stream-enterer.

I was told that pratyekabuddhas are rather odd, and very rare.

Rarity is a matter of perception — at the time of the Teaching, the population of the world was a hundred times smaller. Oddity can be attested to, but what was once a rarity is now a minority statistic. As much as the population has multiplied, the number of pratyekabuddhas must have risen in tandem: to suggest otherwise would be to assign pratyekabuddhahood to external entities or mechanisms as something bestowed upon someone, but as it is, pratyekabuddhas arise independently — were that not the case, would they still be pratyekabuddhas?

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