Twenty-One

"Subhuti, do not say that the Realized One entertains this thought: `I should preach some doctrine.' Do not entertain this thought. Why? If any say the Realized One preaches any doctrine, they are slandering the Buddha, because they cannot understand what I say. Subhuti, the explanation of the teaching is that there is no doctrine to preach---that is called teaching."

At that point Subhuti, whose life was wisdom, said to the Buddha, "World Honored One, if living beings hear this teaching in the future, will they believe in it or not?"

The Buddha told Subhuti, "They are not living beings, but not not living beings. Why? Subhuti, the Realized One says living beings are not living beings, they are called living beings." [Translation by Thomas Cleary]

The Buddha said: "Does the Tathagata think, `I have demonstrated dharma'? If anyone says `The Tathagata has demonstrated dharma', he speaks falsely, for he misunderstands the Tathagata by grabbing at what is not there. There is no dharma which could be taight as a demonstration of dharma."

Subhuti asked: "in the distant future when the way is obscured, will there be beings who, upon hearing these dharmas, will believe them?"

"Subhuti," Buddha replied, "they would be neither beings nor non-beings, for the Tathagata has taught that beings are not in truth beings, even though he has called them `beings'. [Translation by Joshua Pritikin]

The Buddha said, "Subhuti, what do you think? Does it occur to the Tathagata: `I teach a dharma'?"

Subhuti replied, "No, indeed, Bhagavan. It does not occur to the Tathagata: `I teach a dharma.'"

The Buddha said, "Subhuti, if someone should claim, `the Tathagata teaches a dharma,' such a claim would be untrue. Such a view of me, Subhuti, would be a misconception. And how so? In the teaching of a dharma, Subhuti, in the `teaching of a dharma,' there is no such dharma to be found as the `teaching of a dharma.'"

Upon hearing this, the venerable Subhuti asked the Buddha, "Bhagavan, will there be any beings in the future, in the final epoch, in the final period, in the final five hundred years of the dharma-ending age, who hear a dharma such as this and believe it?"

The Buddha said, "Neither beings, Subhuti, nor no beings. And how so? Beings, Subhuti, `beings' are all spoken of by the Tathagata, Subhuti as no beings. Thus are they called `beings'. [Equivalently: When you say `being', bear in mind that beings are no beings.]"[Translation by Red Pine]