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the Buddha spoke of himself as the Tathagata, the "Thus Come/Thus Gone One." In other words, he was able to operate both in the realm of conventional reality in order to teach and impart liberation as the "one who comes from the realm of Truth" and in the realm of freedom from the fixed, independent and finite self as the "one who goes to the realm of Truth." The Tathagata, therefore, did not think of himself in terms of existence or non-existence, both, neither, or any other form of classification. Again and again, he pointed his disciples back to his pragmatic teachings concerning suffering and the end of suffering and away from idle speculation as to the nature of his existence...
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