The mysterious one

Maneesha, one of the most important things to be understood is that language goes on changing with time. What looked very significant one thousand years ago will not look very significant now. What was thought to be very profound in the times of Gautam Buddha will be thought to be childish today.

Talking on these ancient masters I am in a constant difficulty because their language does not fit with contemporary intelligence. I have to bring the essence into a contemporary context, otherwise it will look just mythological ... talking about nonsense. Perhaps it was possible for the primitive man not to object to it, but for the modern mind it is impossible not to object.

The master's whole position should be such that your trust deepens and is not disturbed. If the master disturbs your trust he is taking you farther away from yourself, because your undisturbed being -- settled, centered, at home -- is the realization of truth.

So I have to be very careful with all these old masters. They use the language of their times. It was perfectly right then, and today the essence is perfectly right, but the language is no more relevant. It is true about all the masters I will be speaking to you about. It is not only about Rinzai; I will tell you where it becomes difficult for the contemporary intelligence.

In a simpler way, what he is saying is: "Don't be concerned with what I say, but be concerned with who is listening in you. It does not matter what I am saying. What matters is that you are awake and listening." Listening is a great art. Just experience the listener, and you will not go astray.

Particularly Zen masters want you to be free from birth and death. That is not the case with other so-called religions. Most of the religions prevalent in the world begin with birth and end with death. The East has concentrated its genius on a single point: to search where we were before we were born, and whether we are going to survive death.

And, without any exception, the extraordinary conclusion that has been found is that if we go deep enough into ourselves, there is a space which is eternal, immortal. It knows nothing of birth, nothing of death. It is simply a traveler -- an eternal traveler. It is an explorer of different forms, different ways of being. It has been in a tree and blossomed into flowers; it has been in a lion and roared like a lion; it has been throughout the universe in different forms. It is a great journey. If you can see the variety of the experiences ...

Man is at a point from where he can either continue the journey into forms, or he can jump out of the circle of birth and death and merge into the universe -- losing his individuality, becoming one with the cosmos.

It is possible only for man. That is his dignity. But many human beings will not use this opportunity to jump into the universal soul and dissolve themselves.

Rinzai is saying:

We have to bring the statement to this moment. Who is listening to me? Is it just your mind? If it is just your mind it is not going to transform your being. If you are listening with silence, then you are listening with the heart. That is going to transform your being. The heart simply gets the essential message. Mind only gets the words, and the message is between the words. Only the heart is capable. And if you go even deeper, then your being is there. Heart is a door towards your being, and your being is the opening towards the universal being.

Listening to a master is not necessary. You can listen to the wind passing through the pine trees; with the same silence you can listen to the music of Mozart, you can listen to the birds. The whole universe is expounding the Dharma. Just the listener is missing.

The art of meditation

is the art of listening with your total being.

This very moment, in this silence,

your boundaries drop,

your defenses drop.

You become one whole.

There are not ten thousand people,

but just one ocean of consciousness.

Just listen so deeply that you disappear,

and only the essential and the eternal in you remains.

A very great statement. Such statements come only rarely in the world. They make the mystic a miracle. What he is saying is: if you try to seek it, you will not find it, because it is not an object. Secondly, if you try to find it you are being very foolish, because it is within you; the seeker himself is the sought. Once you start seeking it somewhere else you are going on wrong paths, of which there are thousands. There is only one path which is the right path, and on the right path you have not to go anywhere, but to remain home.

Just be -- no search, no desire, no longing. And in that silent and peaceful moment there is a possibility you will find your buddha. It is there, but if you start looking for him here and there you are going to be a failure. Search for him, he will flee away. And if you long for him he will oppose you. Neither seek nor desire nor long -- just be at ease. You are already it! You don't need any improvement, any refinement, and you don't need to go somewhere else. And you don't have to become somebody else; as you are, existence is expressing itself in you with all its glory. Don't go anywhere, and don't long for anything, because everything is already given to you.

Because of this situation Rinzai says:

The mystery is: if you seek it, you will never find it. And if you long for it, you are lost. Just no seeking, no longing, no desire; sitting at ease, becoming more and more settled and centered, and you have it -- because you are it.

Just metaphors. All that he is saying is: any rise of thought in you, and you have missed the point. A single thought is an obstruction to your inner space. It takes you away. Whether it is a thought of love or mind or anger or greed -- it does not matter what the quality of the thought is. It may be a good thought or a bad thought, a very saintly thought or a very unsaintly one -- it does not matter. Thought as such takes you away from your settled peace with the universe.

IF YOU GIVE RISE TO A THOUGHT OF JOY, YOU WILL BE WHIRLED AWAY BY WIND.

Don't take this statement in a factual way, as Christians have done. What he is saying is simply that to the innermost being the outer world is just a dream. In the dream you have walked on water, in the dream you have flown in the sky, in the dream everything is possible. But when you wake up you find the dream water, the dream fire, the dream sky were all imagination and nothing else.

But these statements, made with absolutely good intentions, create trouble later on, because people start thinking that unless you can walk on water you are not a self-realized one.

The miracles of Jesus walking on water or raising dead Lazarus back to life ... A great search by Christian experts shows that these things never happened, that they were added later on, almost three hundred years later, to make Jesus look special -- not an ordinary human being, but really a son of God. For two thousand years Christians have been insisting that these are facts. Now, in the light of science and more intelligence, even Christian scholars are saying that these are only metaphors, added by the disciples to raise their master to a superior and higher position in such a way that nobody can compete with him.

I have heard that two Christian bishops, visiting Jerusalem, had a very great friend, a rabbi. They asked him to show them all the holy places. The rabbi took them to many places which were concerned with Jesus -- where he raised Lazarus, where he made water turn into wine. And then at the Sea of Galilee he took them to the place where it is thought he walked on water.

The rabbi said, "Would you like to have a demonstration?"

The bishops could not believe. They said, "Can you do it?"

He said, "If Jesus can do it, an old Jew, why can't every rabbi do it?"

They said, "My God, we used to think that it is something special."

They said, "It is very ordinary as far as Judaism is concerned."

So the rabbi got out from the boat, walked a few feet away, and came back. The bishops could not believe their eyes, they were stunned. One bishop said, "If you can do it ... I am a believer in Jesus, can I also try?"

The rabbi said, "It is perfectly good, you can try. If your faith is right you will be able to walk on water."

But he got out of the boat from the other side and immediately started drowning and shouting, "Help! Help!"

So the rabbi asked the other bishop, "Should we tell the old boy the right way to walk on water? It has to be on this side of the boat. There are stones ... you have to know exactly where the stones are. Then anybody can do it."

Poor fellow ... stepped out on the wrong side. Neither faith nor no-faith is going to help.

But people go on insisting, particularly the priesthood of the all the religions.

Nikos Kazantzakis was expelled from the Orthodox Church of Greece, because he wrote a book on Jesus as if he were a human being, not a son of God. Of course human beings cannot walk on water. They go on water in the proper way -- in a small boat or a big boat. But the Orthodox Church expelled him for making Jesus Christ a human being. In his book Jesus falls in love with Mary Magdalen. Now that is absolutely insulting to the orthodox mind.

Just yesterday Anando brought me the news that in America they have been trying to make a film based on that book. But continually the government comes in, the church comes in, and there are huge demonstrations that the making of the film should be stopped. And the only point in the film they insist is wrong ... It's very human, Jesus hanging on the cross falls asleep, nothing to do ... and thinks of Mary Magdalen. That is the problem, he simply dreams of his girlfriend.

Now another producer has taken courage, knowing perfectly well that the film will be banned, will have to go underground. But it is worth making to bring Jesus down to the earth, to make him a son of the earth. What is wrong in it? The poor fellow is hanging on the cross, isn't that enough? You cannot give him even the small solace of dreaming about his girlfriend? I don't think there is anything wrong about it.

In fact if Jesus was ever crucified he must have thought of Mary Magdalen. What else was there to think of? He was finished with God, he had shouted at God, "Father, have you forsaken me? -- because six hours have passed, I am hanging here and no miracle is happening. I was hoping that you would come sitting on a white cloud, playing 'Alleluia!' on the harp. I can see all around -- there is no white cloud, no song on the harp, no sign that you are even aware that your only begotten son is being hanged."

In such a situation it is absolutely natural that he must have said in his mind, "Fuck it!" What else to do? And he must have realized that he had been unnecessarily stupid, otherwise a beautiful woman ... and he could have lived silently, peacefully. But he unnecessarily got into this trip ...

All these people have been made ninety percent fictitious simply to raise them above the rest of humanity.

Buddhists believe that the body is made of four elements. And the fifth is your consciousness, which is not part of the body but lives in the body; which can go out, can enter into another womb. This fifth is your reality. In your deep silence you start disentangling yourself from the body, from the mind, from the heart. And what remains is just a pure space.

This pure space is the origin of you and of all. This pure space has never changed, it is always here and now. It knows no time, no space. It fills the whole universe, which is infinite. Once you have known it, your life changes.

Remember, it should not only be a view. If you experience such a space, YOU WILL THEN BE FREE TO GO OR STAY. Once you have known this space you have known freedom. And then it is up to you to remain in your form, to change the form, or simply to disappear into the infinity of existence.

As far as I know, nobody who has known this space has ever entered into another form. The enlightened man's life is his last life. Why should he bother to get into another headache? Why should he get into another imprisonment, which has illness, sickness, oldness, death and thousands of miseries?

It is only the unconscious human being who goes on groping from womb to womb. The conscious one simply leaves this body and becomes part of the sky. There is no need to be confined unless you love to torture yourself. Nobody has done that up to now. Perhaps nobody can do it. Seeing the freedom of infinity, who is going to look back towards a form, a body, with all its suffering, misery, troubles? It is just against nature.

Ni-butsu wrote:

ONE WHO RISES, RISES OF HIMSELF. It is spontaneous. ONE WHO FALLS, FALLS FROM HIMSELF -- that too is spontaneous. AUTUMN DEW, SPRING BREEZE -- NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY INTERFERE. Your freedom is total. You just have to know your innermost center and from there everything becomes spontaneous. Your love, your joy, your dance, your song -- everything arises on its own, and then it has a beauty. Totally different ... when a poetry arises out of this silent space, it is not your composition.

Ancient poets have not signed their names, ancient sculptors have not signed their names on their statues. Even people who made immensely beautiful things like the Taj Mahal have not left their name. Nobody knows who was the architect. But it must have arisen just like a poetry. It is poetry in marble.

Music has arisen, but it is a totally different kind -- not the kind that you compose. On the contrary, it composes you. Once a man has tasted the meditative space within him, everything that he touches becomes gold; everything that happens around him has a grace and a beauty and a splendor and a majesty. It is a miracle.

Bunan wrote:

Just remember the buddha in your flesh and the world is yours. You don't have to conquer it, it is already yours. But find out the buddha in the flesh. Just a few words, and a whole philosophy ... REMAIN APART ... That is what I mean when I say, be a witness. Remain apart, just a watcher on the hill. REMAIN APART, THE WORLD IS YOURS -- A BUDDHA IN THE FLESH.

This remaining apart brings two things. One, a buddha inside awakens; and the other, a new mastery over the whole existence. It is not political, it is existential. It does not need to have any map, it has no boundaries.

Finding the buddha in you, you have found the emperor.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, neither can you do anything negative to harm the buddha inside you, nor can you do anything positive to nourish the buddha inside you. It is complete and perfect in itself.

All that you can do is: by being conscious in your actions you can recognize it; by unconscious actions you can forget it. But you cannot do anything to it. Either you can remember and recognize and be transformed, or you can go on doing things which take you away from it and completely forget the way back. But whether you are positive or negative, your innermost buddha remains the same. You cannot do anything favorable or unfavorable to it. It is your transcendence.

Before we enter into the temple to have a look whether the buddha is there or not ... a few little laughs, just to prepare the ground. Laughter takes away much of your seriousness, which is a hindrance. It takes away your burden. In a deep laughter you become total. It is not that you laugh fifty percent, that this time you laughed thirty percent. When you really laugh, remember Sardar Gurudayal Singh: he laughs a hundred percent. And it does not matter whether it is time to laugh or not. Laughter in itself is such a healthy, enjoyable phenomenon, that you don't have to have some reason for it.

I have to tell you the jokes just because you will not laugh without a reason. They are unnecessary; if you start laughing without a reason, that will be more spontaneous and fresh. Soon there will come a time that just a drumbeat, and everybody goes one hundred percent.

These jokes are only for beginners. The old sinners don't need them.

It is the weekend in Harlem, and we find Zabriski in an all-black disco called the Horny Honky, having a high time and partying like crazy.

A beautiful woman named Kootchee slithers up beside Zabriski and asks, "Hey, baby! Buy a lonely girl a drink?"

Zabriski smiles at this unbelievable luck and says, "Okay, sure, but to tell you the truth, I would really like to get screwed."

Kootchee is cool and she can dig it, so she takes our Polack by the hand and leads him across the smoke-filled, music-thumping dance floor to a door with a small slit in it marked, "Private."

"Just wait here, white boy," says Kootchee, and she disappears behind the door.

Suddenly the slit opens and a woman's voice asks, "What would you like, Sugarpie?"

"Like?" repeats Zabriski. "Like I said, I wanna get screwed."

"Sho-thing, darling," replies the voice. "But as you can see, this is a private club. You have to slip one hundred bucks into this slot for a membership fee."

At this, the partying Polack shouts, "Right on! Get down! And get funky!" as he puts a hundred dollar bill in the slot.

Five minutes go by and nothing happens, so Zabriski knocks again. When the little slot opens, Zabriski shouts, "Hey! I wanna get screwed!"

"What?" comes the reply. "Again?"

Devageet and two friends are hailing a rickshaw when they see pretty young Ma Yoga Butter also trying to hail the same rickshaw.

Devageet, seeing the situation and being such a gentleman, offers, "Come on, Butter, you might as well sit on my lap. I'm too old to give you my seat, and don't worry, I'm too old for it to be dangerous for you to sit on my lap."

Yoga Butter smiles and accepts the invitation. But after jolting around Bund Garden Road in the rickshaw for a while with Butter bouncing all over his lap, Devageet smiles and says, "I'm afraid I was wrong, Butter. You will have to get off. I'm not as old as I thought I was!"

A potato and a carrot are hitchhiking at the side of the road when a cyclist comes around the corner and runs down the potato.

The next day, the carrot goes to visit his friend in the hospital. The potato does not look too good.

"Tell me, doc," says the carrot, anxiously, "do you think my friend will be okay?"

"He may recover," replies the doctor, "but frankly, for the rest of his life he will be a vegetable."

Olga Kowalski wins the draw, and is selected to be a contestant on the famous TV game show "Popular Polacks."

It is the end of the show, and the excited emcee announces the final category of questions and the grand prize of one million dollars.

Olga is selected, and the emcee asks, "Okay, Mrs. Kowalski, for one million dollars, what category of questions would you like to choose from?"

"Well," says Olga in a nervous voice, "I think I will choose 'Religion'."

"Good!" shouts the emcee. "From the category 'Religion', and for the big money, the question is -- What did Eve say to Adam that fateful night in the garden of Eden?"

Olga gets worried and thinks and thinks, but after a few minutes she gives up completely and says, "Oh, my god! That is a hard one."

And the emcee shouts, "Right! You win one million dollars!"

Go, Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel the body to be completely frozen

and go in ...

Deeper and deeper.

You have nothing to lose ...

but your eternity to find.

No desire ... no longing ...

just go in

for the simple sake of finding out the buddha.

Everybody who has gone in

has always found him,

without any exception.

To make it deeper and more clear, Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat)

Relax, let go.

Feel the body apart from you,

the mind apart from you.

You just be a watcher.

This watcher is the buddha.

This blissful evening,

and thousands of buddhas make this place

the holiest one, this moment the most miraculous.

Nivedano, call all the buddhas back.

(Drumbeat)

Come back with your full glory

and ceremony and grace.

Sit down at least for a few minutes.

Recollect the experience.

Be soaked in it ...

drunk with it ...

drowned in it ...

so that it can become a constant stream

flowing in your every action

or non-action,

waking or asleep.

This way I teach you the buddha.

You don't have to become buddhas,

you are ...

just a little recognition,

a little courage to look within yourself.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Can we celebrate all the buddhas?

Yes, Beloved Master!