The first sutra:

“Buddha” is the medicine for sentient beings; once the disease of sentient beings is removed, the medicine has no further use.

It is perfectly true as far as medicine is concerned, but buddha is not the medicine. Buddha is the state when you are cured and no medicine is needed. Buddha is your innermost nature.

A man who knows through experience would have said, “Meditation is the medicine for sentient beings. Once the disease of sentient beings is removed, the medicine has no further use. Meditation is no longer needed for one who is enlightened.”

But to use the word buddha instead of meditation shows tremendous confusion in the mind of the person. He may have heard someone talking about how once the disease is gone the medicine has no use. That’s true, but is buddha the medicine? Buddha is your absolute help. He is your intrinsic eternal nature – you cannot discard it. It is you, in your very innermost authentic being.

Meditation is a method, and the method is for a particular purpose. When the purpose is fulfilled, the method is not of any use. Do you think I meditate? The disease is gone and at the same moment, simultaneously, meditation has also disappeared.

I have told you before that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root. Medicine is to cure the body, and meditation is to cure the consciousness, but their function is to cure. Once the cure has happened they become of no use, but to use the word buddha is absolutely absurd. That’s how a man who tries intellectually to understand is bound to commit small mistakes, and he will not be able to figure out where he is committing the mistake. He is very careful, but carefulness alone is not going to help. Consciousness is needed.

If you want to attain oneness, just give up both buddhas and sentient beings at once.

The same mistake continues. It is true: if you want to attain oneness you have to drop all kinds of duality. The duality between the ignorant and knowledgeable, the duality between birth and death, all kinds of dualities have to be dropped.