Symbolic Lesson Plan

For this blog, I would like to highlight some of Ganeri's use of symbolism and example. Buddha's way of individualizing a lesson was not a contradiction of message but a teaching technique. This technique, composed of examples and knowledge, on how that follower was going to properly understand the message. For example, the parable of the 'burning house' in the Lotus Sutra, where "a father cajoles his children to leave the burning house with the false promise of toys, [in] that the compassionate lie is a skillful way to bring good," (99). Another great lesson ins the analogy of the teaching as medicine with the purpose to cure the persons of their suffering. He makes a clear distinction where "it must expel itself as well as the disease, for otherwise the treatment will be worse than the illness it was meant to cure," similarly to the example of the fire consuming the fuel and then destroying itself (102). Other examples lie in 'belief like a solvent,' and 'burning up the persons beliefs,' (105), and the character telling the other character that he is 'merely a character in a work of fiction,' (106), 'the mind produced, like a foetus in a thorough maturation of the elements,' (109).

You see, like the medicine example, it needing access into your body to cure the illness, does not imply permanent residence in your body or it will be worse than the illness. This is not a contradiction; by making broad ideas or statements doesn't mean he lied; “just like a grammar teacher has students [first] study the matrix of letters, so the Buddha taught trainees the doctrines according to what they were capable of,” (110).