In many ways, we create a bigger problem when we put people on a pedestal in our speech than when we cut them down. Whenever we make anyone--a minister, a teacher, an athlete, a genius, our ancestors, the Buddha--bigger than life, it's easy for both you and your listener to forget that the person you're discussing is a human being. And with the passing of time, the person will only become larger until, like Paul Bunyan, they're sixty ax-handles high.

We tend to bunyanize the people we admire. But this is very dangerous--particularly if your hero is a teacher of the buddha-dharma. You'll forget that you're made of the very same stuff they are. You'll forget that, like them, you're completely equipped to see Truth right here, right now.

If you keep putting an enlightened person (or, more accurately, your concept of "an enlightened person") on a pedestal, you'll miss this critical point, and get lost in confusion. As long as you think enlightenment is something special, you won't wake up.