If you link up with someone who is a teacher, and you feel, "Oh, this person's extra special for me," fine. Visit that teacher regularly, don't let much time go by in between visits. Because there's a thing called Paramis matching. Let's go back to school. I was interested in math. If the math teacher loved math as well, (because some of them didn't of course) it was automatic. You know, I was clicking with that teacher. There was no problem at all, we enjoyed the same thing. When I had a math teacher who wasn't enjoying teaching math, it dampened my interest, because I couldn't connect with that teacher.
Now, I learnt a little bit of German in college. "Sprechen sie deutsch." The first teacher I had, I loved. I was so interested. It was so exciting, this guy was out of his chair, he was grabbing tables and waving them in the air! You know, and doing all sorts of wild things, and it was interesting. Sad for me, he transferred to another university after that term. So I had four more teachers who weren't very interesting. And I didn't get as good marks in German as I got with the first teacher. So this kind of connection, it works for every one of us in school, we've seen it before, I would think each one of you knows this.
Now when I say Paramis matching: When you look at say someone like me or Rosemary, you can see certain Paramis bigger than others. The Compassion and Lovingkindness Parami is obviously out front, the Wisdom Parami is there. Patience and Equanimity, we're very good at it. As to being a "gung ho, macho" type, "sit still three hours" Determination and Energy Paramis type teacher, no, we're not quite that same style. But there are other teachers who are like that. Now if you have got the kind of Energy drive that wants to be so determined in Energy, you're not going to do that well with me as a teacher because I'm more laid back. So you're going to go run over and find this other teacher and going to match Paramis they say. But anyone who's a little bit more relaxed and wants the Wisdom to be forefront with the Compassion, they're going to more or less match with me and with Rosemary, and feel very comfortable. This is what they call Paramis matching.
Now, let's go back to school. While I was still in high school I started tutoring, I started teaching some of the younger kids after school, making a bit of money, helping them with their math. I could do that because I was very good at teaching math. I was very good, even when I was about 16, better than some of the math teachers in the school. But they had a title, they had a certificate, they had gone to University, they were qualified. I wasn't qualified, yet I could actually teach better than some of them.
When we think of enlightenment in Theravadin Buddhism, it's defined that whoever achieves enlightenment, whether it's a Buddha or what they call an Arahant (everyone else), they've all achieved the same sort of understanding, the same sort of wisdom regarding penetrating Dukkha, the understanding of it and destroying all the causes for it. But they don't all have the same understanding regarding teaching the Dhamma. They haven't all gone up the mountain in the same way. They say the Buddha knows every path up the mountain. The Arahants don't. They only know the path they've gone or a little bit left and right. But they actually don't know all the ways up the mountain.
So even if a person is fully enlightened, if their main Paramis are Energy and Determination, I can't match with that easily. Even though they're enlightened, I may not be able to learn from them very much because they're teaching in a way that just doesn't work for me. It's like they're teaching violin, but I want to play the piano. So if you match Paramis, it actually doesn't matter if the person is enlightened or not. Just like in high school, I could teach better, I could bring that student up in their practice level faster and higher than the teacher could, even though they had the certificate. So some of the teachers that you meet, if they match your Paramis, and they're a bit above you, you can grow faster with them than you can with someone who's enlightened yet doesn't match your Paramis. That's something very interesting to know about. So any time that you have a teacher who you're feeling very close with, and you have got Paramis matching, it's very good. Go and visit the teacher regularly. And keep your ears open.