by Thich Nhat Hanh: With great understanding, you are no longer afraid of being born, of dying
the light of the teaching, everything is impermanent. Nothing in reality can remain exactly the same in two consecutive moments. But nothing is lost, and creation in Buddhism means manifestation. From nothing, you cannot become something. So creation, if you look deeply, it is really a continuation of manifestation. If you don’t manifest in this way, then you manifest in that way like the cloud and the snow. So if you get that, you are no longer afraid. And that is your supernatural power already if you have non-fear. And then you are quite different from other because you are subjected to fear, fear of dying, fear of being nothing.
But with non-fear in you with that deep wisdom in you, you become supernatural. You are no longer immortal, but you don’t need to be a god because a god is supposed not to be a human being. So to say that the Buddha has a supernatural power, that is true also, but he does not need to be a god in order to have that. He needs only to have freedom. Freedom from wrong views and freedom from fear. It’s like birth and death are like waves and you are riding on the waves of birth and death and you go without fear. It’s wonderful. That is supernatural power.
The Buddha did have teachers. He followed a number of teachers and he practiced with communities and he had made some progress in his path of looking deeply, but he realized finally that this kind of realization was not enough for his liberation. And that is why he had to continue by himself. Sitting at the foot of the Bodhi tree, he was able to make a breakthrough and discover the nature of interdependence, the nature of inter-being. He discovered the way of looking deeply and he could transcend his idea of birth and death, coming and going, being and non-being, and he was completely liberated from suffering. The happiness, the salvation of Buddha was possible thanks to maha prajna, great understanding. And when you got great understanding, you are no longer afraid of being born, of dying, and that is why you want to share your insight and your practice with other people.
