The Tree of Enlightenment

emained silent, and after a time Vachchhagotta left. Ananda,
who happened to be nearby, asked the Buddha why he had not
replied. e Buddha explained that if he had said that the self
existed, he would have been siding with those Brahmins who
believed in the absolute existence of the self, but if he had told
Vachchhagotta that the self did not exist, it would have been confusing
for Vachchhagotta, who would have thought, ‘Previously
I had a self, but now I no longer have one.’ e Buddha chose
to remain silent because he knew Vachchhagotta’s predicament.
Similarly, when confronted by those who did not believe
in rebirth, he taught the existence of the self, whereas to those
who believed in the reality of karma, in the fruit of good and bad
actions, he taught the doctrine of not-self. is is the Buddha’s
skill in the means of instruction.
We can see how this ties in with the Buddha’s rejection of
absolute categories when we look at his use of the symbol of the
water-snake. Here we find the Buddha saying that the factors of
experience are similar to a water-snake. When a person capable
of handling a water-snake and knowledgeable in the method of
capturing one attempts to catch one, he will do so successfully.
But when a person unaccustomed to handling a water-snake and
ignorant of how to capture one attempts it, his attempt will end
in lamentation and pain. Similarly, phenomena – the factors of
experience – are nothing in themselves. ey are not absolutely
existent or absolutely nonexistent, neither absolutely good nor
absolutely bad; rather, they are relative. Whether they result in
happiness or pain, in progress along the path or in retrogression,
depends not on the phenomena themselves but on how we
handle them.
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