The hunter

Maneesha, there are two kinds of masters, not in any way different in their experiences, but different in conveying their experience to others.

One is simply using old methods, well tried, which have given sure results. The other is a creative person, who does not follow any traditional method or device to transform a person, but responds to each person according to his need.

Ma Tzu belongs to the second category, of very creative and inventive masters. He never repeats himself. In every situation he will bring a new device; he will function just as a mirror. And whatever comes spontaneously out of his empty heart, he will use it as a vehicle of dhamma.

This type of master is very rare, because you don't know whether a method is going to succeed; you don't know what will be the outcome. You are simply trusting in your own heart, that your heart cannot let you down. This is an immense trust in one's own enlightenment and awakening -- that whatever comes out of your illumination is going to succeed, there is no question about it. Hence a man like Ma Tzu has a tremendous freedom.

Other masters have thousands of methods given by the tradition, and they choose one of them; but it is a dead device, even though success seems to be more certain.

With Ma Tzu success is not the point; success is the last point in the journey. All those masters in the first category are looking at the success -- the method must succeed. And because the method has been used again and again, and has been successful, why bother to look for a new method? Their emphasis is on the end, the success.

Ma Tzu's method, his approach, is totally different. It depends on the first point of the journey, from where the arrow comes. If it is coming from your empty heart, then there is no need to bother about success. That is no more the question for Ma Tzu. His whole life he invented thousands of methods, according to the person confronting him. And he had tremendous success.

But his success is the success of the empty mirror. He reflects the man so accurately that there is no need to fall back on old methods. He can go straight forward with the man who is confronting him, and make a situation in which the transmission happens; in which, heart to heart, something moves, something is inspired, something takes the light from one heart to the other heart.

It is said about him:

WITH MA TZU, ZEN TOOK ON A TRULY CHINESE FLAVOR -- OPEN-HEARTED AND NOT HIGHLY CONTROLLED. UNDER MA TZU, MYSTERIOUS MEDITATION AND RENUNCIATION FOR THE PRACTICE OF ZAZEN IN THE MOUNTAINS DROPPED.

THE SPECIALITY OF ZEN AFTER MA TZU WAS NOTHING BUT THE FRAGRANCE OF INTENSE LIVING.

He reduced everything to intense inquiry, intense living. Intensity became the focus of his whole teaching.

One hundred and thirty persons became enlightened under Ma Tzu. Just as an example of his working...

MA TZU WAS NOTED FOR HIS RESOURCEFULNESS IN FINDING EXPEDIENT MEANS OF WORKING WITH HIS DISCIPLES. THIS IS ILLUSTRATED BY HIS CONVERSION OF SHIH-KUNG, WHO WAS ORIGINALLY A HUNTER, LOATHING THE VERY SIGHT OF BUDDHIST MONKS. ONE DAY, AS HE WAS CHASING AFTER A DEER, HE PASSED BY MA TZU'S MONASTERY. MA TZU CAME FORWARD TO MEET HIM. SHIH-KUNG ASKED HIM WHETHER HE HAD SEEN ANY DEER PASS BY.

MA TZU ASKED, "WHO ARE YOU?"

Now, it is out of the blue... Shih-kung is asking about the deer, and Ma Tzu changes the whole situation into a totally new dimension. Such was his resourcefulness.

MA TZU ASKED, "WHO ARE YOU?"

This was not an answer, certainly, to the question asked.

"A HUNTER," HE REPLIED.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOOT?"

He has changed the whole subject matter.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOOT?" QUERIED MA TZU.

"OF COURSE I DO," REPLIED THE HUNTER.

"HOW MANY CAN YOU HIT WITH ONE ARROW?" ASKED MA TZU.

"ONE ARROW CAN ONLY SHOOT DOWN ONE DEER," SAID SHIH-KUNG.

"IN THAT CASE, YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHOOT."

Do you see the shifting of the situation? Slowly he is bringing him to a totally different thing. Shih-kung has simply asked, "Have you seen any deer pass?" He has not come for renunciation, he has not come for initiation, he is not there for any inquiry into truth. But it does not matter -- once you have come in front of Ma Tzu, you will not be able to leave that place unchanged. Just the very touch of Ma Tzu's air is enough to make a difference.

He said to Shih-kung: "IN THAT CASE YOU REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHOOT."

THE HUNTER THEN ASKED MA TZU, "DOES YOUR REVERENCE KNOW HOW TO SHOOT?"

MA TZU REPLIED, "OF COURSE I DO."

"HOW MANY CAN YOU KILL WITH ONE ARROW?" THE HUNTER ASKED.

"I CAN KILL A WHOLE FLOCK WITH A SINGLE ARROW," ANSWERED THE MASTER.

AT THIS, SHIH-KUNG SAID...

Now you see the climate changing -- he has forgotten about the deer and the hunting.

AT THIS, SHIH-KUNG SAID, "THE BEASTS HAVE LIFE AS YOU DO..." Killing the whole flock, it is so life-negative -- and for a master like you..."WHY SHOULD YOU SHOOT DOWN A WHOLE FLOCK?"

MA TZU SAID, "SINCE YOU KNOW THIS SO WELL, WHY DON'T YOU SHOOT YOURSELF?"

Searching for deer to shoot... the deer has life, you have life -- why go just so far, why not shoot yourself? You are intelligent enough to understand that the whole flock should not be shot. But if you understand that much -- that the whole flock should not be shot -- why should one deer be shot? The principle is the same: don't destroy life. And if you are intent on destroying life...

"SINCE YOU KNOW THIS SO WELL," said Ma Tzu, "WHY DON'T YOU SHOOT YOURSELF?"

What does it matter whose life is lost -- whether it is a deer's life or your life?

Shih-kung answered, "EVEN IF I WANTED TO SHOOT MYSELF, I WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO MANAGE IT."

Shooting oneself is almost impossible with an arrow. With a gun, that is a different matter: you can just put it to the side of your head, and you are gone! But for an arrow, space is needed; you cannot manage to shoot yourself with an arrow, it is almost an impossibility.

At this point, Ma Tzu remarked, "THIS FELLOW HAS ACCUMULATED KLESA FROM IGNORANCE FOR NUMBERLESS AEONS."

KLESA is a Sanskrit word; it means, originally, evil, misery, suffering, torturing others and oneself.

Ma Tzu said, "THIS FELLOW HAS ACCUMULATED KLESA FROM IGNORANCE FOR NUMBERLESS AEONS. TODAY THE WHOLE PROCESS HAS COME TO A SUDDEN STOP."

He cannot shoot himself, and he has been shooting for his whole life -- perhaps for many lives.

TOSSING HIS ARROWS AND BOWS TO THE GROUND, SHIH-KUNG BECAME A MONK AND A DISCIPLE OF MA TZU.

Do you see that no device has been used? It is not a device at all; just a simple conversation in which he turns the whole subject matter to a point where the hunter becomes aware that to kill life is ugly.

Up to now he was boasting that he is a great hunter. To destroy his ego of being a hunter, Ma Tzu is saying to him, "The best way to prove that you are a hunter is: shoot yourself!"

The poor hunter came to a full stop, because you cannot shoot yourself with an arrow. In that silence, in which he started thinking how to shoot himself, he forgot all about deer, he forgot that he was a hunter. In that small gap of silence, Ma Tzu entered into his heart.

This is not visible in the story, it cannot be visible in words.

In that full stop, his mind could not function anymore; and the non-functioning of the mind is the right time for a master to enter into the very heart of the disciple. It does not need any effort on the part of the master -- it simply and spontaneously happens. Once the gap is there, the same light, the same awakening, enters into the man confronting the master.

The hunter did not answer. He threw his bow and his arrows on the ground, and fell to the feet of Ma Tzu, and asked for initiation. He had come for a different purpose, and got caught in the net of Ma Tzu.

It was not even a device, but this is how Ma Tzu was resourceful. He would convert any situation in such a subtle way that the person would not be even aware that he was being brought to a new space.

Shih-kung saw the whole situation: that he had been destroying life, and to destroy life is absolutely wrong. He dropped his bow, his arrows... a sudden awakening, that it is time to search, not for the deer, but for himself, for the source of life itself. He became a disciple of Ma Tzu. He started working in Ma Tzu's temple.

Ma Tzu asked him one day what he was doing.

"I AM TENDING AN OX," THE DISCIPLE ANSWERED.

I have to explain to you that "I am tending an ox" does not mean exactly what it says. It is a symbolic saying in Zen.

There are ten cards in Tao, just like tarot cards. Those cards are called "tending an ox."

The ox is a symbol of your own self. Searching for the self is the meaning of those symbolic cards.

When those cards were brought from China to Japan, the last card was dropped for specific reasons: it needed tremendously great understanding for the tenth card. Those cards had been made according to Buddha's own description.

In the first card the ox has escaped into the forest. A man, the owner, is standing, looking all around, and there is no sign of the ox.

In the second card, he finds the footprints on the earth. He follows the footprints.

In the third card, he sees the ox's back, his tail. He is hiding behind a big tree.

In the fourth card, he sees the whole ox.

In the fifth, he catches hold of him.

In the sixth, he is fighting hard to take him back to the house.

In the seventh, he is victorious.

In the eighth, he is riding on the ox, coming back towards home.

In the ninth, the ox is in its stall, and the man is playing a song on his flute.

These nine cards were taken out of a pack of ten cards. In China originally, and in Buddha's statement also, a tenth card is described. But it really needs guts to understand the tenth card. Even the Japanese masters thought it is better to drop it, because it is very difficult to make people understand it. Even Buddha said, "I am at the ninth card" -- because the tenth is certainly difficult.

The tenth shows that the man, feeling so happy that he has found his ox, takes up a whiskey bottle and goes towards the pub.

Now that is very difficult -- a buddha with a whiskey bottle going towards the pub!

But I don't want to drop the tenth card, because it is as symbolic as the other cards. You accept the ox as yourself; you accept the search and inquiry as your meditation. Part by part you become aware of your inner reality.

The tenth is the ultimate point, when you become intoxicated with the universe. That whiskey bottle is not a whiskey bottle -- just as the ox is not the ox -- they are all symbols.

Those masters who dropped that card were a little weaker. It was so simple to explain it:

that when you have found yourself, you have found the ultimate nectar; you will be drunk twenty-four hours a day. You don't need ordinary alcohol, you don't need any drug -- your very experience will be a drug.

And you all know after your meditation, when you start moving towards the canteen -- I have been watching -- everybody looks drunk. A few get up early, but very reluctantly; a few are sitting still, utterly drunk, remembering finally that they have to go to the canteen. This drunkenness...

By the way, I want to tell you that it is the only possibility for humanity to get rid of all drugs, of all alcohol, because they are very ordinary compared to the purity of the drunkenness that happens at the very source of life. Nothing is comparable to it. It takes you higher, it gives you tremendous euphoria -- which is not hallucination -- and it lasts.

It is not a question of taking the drug in greater and greater quantities, of becoming addicted to it. You become the nectar itself, you become the euphoria, the ecstasy itself.

You don't need anything; just remembering your buddhahood is enough to live with immense ecstasy in your day-to-day life.

So this "tending an ox," you should remember, is an old metaphor for searching for the self. Otherwise you will not be able to understand the anecdote.

The disciple answered, "I AM TENDING AN OX."

"HOW DO YOU TEND IT?" ASKED MA TZU.

SHIH-KUNG REPLIED, "AS SOON AS IT RETURNS TO THE GRASS, I RUTHLESSLY PULL IT BACK BY ITS NOSTRILS."

THIS WON GREAT APPROVAL FROM THE MASTER, WHO REMARKED, "YOU CERTAINLY KNOW THE TRUE WAY OF TENDING AN OX!"

As an anecdote in itself, if you don't know its connotations, it is absurd. But if you understand it with all the metaphors... because these anecdotes carry a tremendous tradition.

SHIH-KUNG REPLIED, "AS SOON AS IT RETURNS TO THE GRASS..." Do you understand? We use the word 'grass' for the mundane also; for the rude, for the primitive, for the uncivilized, uncultured.

Shih-kung says, "AS SOON AS IT RETURNS TO THE GRASS -- to the mundane -- I RUTHLESSLY PULL IT BACK BY ITS NOSTRILS." He is saying that he does not allow himself to be attracted by the grass. He pulls himself away from the grass, towards the great, towards the magnificent, towards the inner splendor.

If you understand this connotation, then you will be able to understand why the master approved it.

THIS WON GREAT APPROVAL FROM THE MASTER, WHO REMARKED, "YOU CERTAINLY KNOW THE TRUE WAY OF TENDING AN OX!"

Soseki wrote:

WHEN THE MASTER WITHOUT A WORD

RAISES HIS EYEBROWS,

THE POSTS AND RAFTERS,

THE CROSSBEAMS AND ROOF TREE,

BEGIN TO SMILE.

THERE IS ANOTHER PLACE FOR

CONVERSING HEART TO HEART:

THE FULL MOON AND THE BREEZE

AT THE HALF-OPEN WINDOW.

Soseki is a well known mystic poet and master. What he is saying cannot be said in prose.

WHEN THE MASTER WITHOUT A WORD

RAISES HIS EYEBROWS,

THE POSTS AND RAFTERS,

THE CROSSBEAMS AND ROOF TREE,

BEGIN TO SMILE.

THERE IS ANOTHER PLACE FOR

CONVERSING HEART TO HEART:

THE FULL MOON AND THE BREEZE

AT THE HALF-OPEN WINDOW.

Just standing at the half-open window, the cool breeze and the full moon, and utter silence in between...

A master is a door to the universe; a master in himself is an empty heart. You can see the whole universe through it. Coming closer to the master in deep love and trust, even his raising of his eyebrows triggers something in you.

... THE POSTS AND RAFTERS, THE CROSSBEAMS AND ROOF TREE, BEGIN TO SMILE.

Even the posts and the rafters, in the presence of a master, start to smile. The whole existence smiles in the presence of a master, for the simple reason that at least part of us has reached to the ultimate expression of our potentiality. And he is a symbol that we can also reach to the same height, to the same depth.

The disciple's heart immensely rejoices in the master's presence -- just his presence. He may not say a single word, he may remain silent, but just his presence takes you to another world of silence and peace, of love and joy, of blessings that you have not even dreamed of.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked a question:

Maneesha, it is absolutely right, it is just that in my context you become aware of it. It is as if all the lights go out: these ten thousand buddhas will be still sitting here, but you will not be able to see them. Then the lights come on, and suddenly you see ten thousand people sitting around you. You were not alone in the darkness.

The context of the master is simply a light in your darkness. Everything seems to be true, everything seems to be beautiful -- but it is not the master's light that is making them beautiful. They are beautiful in themselves, but a light is needed to see them.

If you grow your own light, the master's context will not be needed.

The master's whole effort is that he should not be needed; that you should be enough unto yourself; that your own light should shine and radiate; that the existence should smile with your smiling heart.

It is true that I am a little crazy. (SARDARJI'S FAMILIAR LAUGH COMES LOUDLY FROM THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM.) Now, Sardarji, I have not yet told the joke, don't trust me too much!

I use everything, that's why I said that the Japanese masters who brought those ten cards and dropped one on the way were not very courageous. They were intelligent, but not geniuses. They could not find an explanation for the tenth card.

And to me, without the tenth card the nine are useless. What is the point of searching for yourself? The whole point is to become a drunk! The tenth card is the most essential, but even Gautam Buddha was afraid. Although he described the ten cards, he said, "I am myself at the ninth," just to avoid the complication of the tenth. The bottle of alcohol in the hands of a buddha simply does not look right. Even he avoided the tenth card -- but I will not avoid it.

In many countries, sannyasins wanted to take my picture with a bottle, to make the tenth card. I said, "It is perfectly okay, just fill the bottle with Coca-Cola! It is so simple, because in the photograph it won't show that there is Coca-Cola, and your purpose will be served."

I am just a little crazy, not too much.

You are right, that nobody has worked the way I work. And I love to work in every possible way -- not denying anything -- a total approval of life and all its turns, all its paths. I have accepted it in its totality, so I can use anything as an indicator. And from any point of view I can bring you to seek and search for the escaped ox.

Now, Sardarji's time has come at last!

Before you go into your meditations, in search of the ox, it is perfectly good to go in a happy mood; not serious, but smiling. Remember it: existence smiles when you smile, and when you are serious you are alone. Existence does not bother about your seriousness. If you want the whole world with you, just smile, and look all around and you will see trees smiling, and the flowers smiling. And at least when you are entering into meditation, it is good to enter with a smiling heart.

I have used jokes for the first time in the whole history of mankind, because such beautiful jokes... and nobody has used them for meditation. And they create such a good feeling all around, that one becomes courageous enough. A laughing heart is more courageous than a serious one. A serious heart doubts, hesitates, thinks twice. The laughing one is the heart of the gambler, he simply jumps in. And meditation is a question of jumping into the unknown.

Friar Fruck, the Jesuit missionary, is in Africa looking for a few Christian converts. He is marching across the plains with his crucifix and Holy Bible in hand, when suddenly he comes face to face with a huge, ferocious lion.

Friar Fruck's eyes roll to the back of his head, and he drops to his knees in a near-faint.

"Beloved God Almighty, King of Kings, all-knowing, all-seeing Father of the world,"

pleads Friar Fruck, praying feverishly, "save my blessed ass!"

The lion watches the Christian closely, and then he bows his own head, crosses his paws, and murmurs in a soft growl, "Beloved God Almighty, King of beasts and Lord of the jungle, please bless this poor food I am about to eat!"

Angela Angelovitch, the greatest ballet dancer in living memory, is going to give her last performance.

"Angela," says Petrov, her manager, "for this performance, you must give everything, EVERYTHING!"

That night, when the curtains are drawn back, Angela is standing on a platform, high above the stage, wearing a small pair of wings. The orchestra is playing and Angela leaps into the air and lands gracefully on the stage, to loud cheers.

Immediately, Angela jumps up and daintily climbs a ladder, and goes even higher than before. The orchestra plays loudly, and Angela springs into space. She spins through the air and lands on her tiptoes.

A rope descends and, to thundering applause, Angela is lifted right to the roof. The drums roll and then there is a deathly hush.

Angela jumps. She flies, spinning through the air, and lands in the middle of the stage with her legs apart, in a perfect split. The audience is hysterical.

At last, the curtains close and the audience starts to go home. Angela is resting motionless on the stage. Her legs are still split wide apart.

"Bravo! Encore!" shouts Petrov, her manager, walking onto the stage, clapping his hands.

"Petrov," says Angela, "will you do me a favor?"

"Yes, my darling," replies Petrov, "after a performance like that, anything!"

"Okay," says Angela, "then rock me a little, and break the suction!"

Just take your time! Has everybody got it?

Where is Haridas? -- because he is the polar opposite of Sardarji. They both are great friends, and their friendship depends on one thing: Sardarji can get any kind of joke, Haridas never gets any! So he laughs -- what else to do? Understanding is not his thing.

Swami Deva Coconut is standing in his bamboo house watching the waters rise around his ankles. It has been raining constantly for four days and the sky is still grey and wet.

As the water reaches his knees, Coconut climbs onto his suitcase, and when the water reaches to his knees again, he goes outside and climbs onto the roof of his bamboo house.

Just then, Ma Mango Milkshake comes past on a small raft.

"Come on, Coconut!" she calls out, "come for a ride!"

"No thanks," he replies. "I am just going to wait here, and watch."

Slowly, the water climbs up the side of the bamboo house, and starts to wash against Coconut's ankles again.

Swami Cleverhead, the group leader, rows up in a small rowboat. The boat is leaking water fast, but Cleverhead seems to be managing.

"Come on, Coconut!" calls Cleverhead. "Let us go out of here!"

"No thanks," replies Coconut. "I'm just waiting here and watching."

A half an hour later, Coconut has water around his neck, on top of his bamboo house.

Just then, Captain Cliffski and Captain Kurtski, the famous Polack pilots, fly over in a borrowed helicopter.

Captain Cliffski sees Coconut, and leans out of the window.

"Come on now, Coconut!" he shouts, "or you are going to be drowned!"

Coconut waves back, "I am just waiting here and watching!" he shouts.

Later, somewhere in the realms of the universe, Swami Deva Coconut meets Osho Rajneesh, and he seems really pissed off about something.

"I waited and I waited, I watched, I witnessed," exclaims Coconut, "and you never came to rescue me!"

"My God!" says Osho Rajneesh, "I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"

Big Rock Hunk, the famous Hollywood movie star, walks into the lobby of the exclusive Screwing Sands Hotel, and accidentally hits Gorgeous Gloria on the chest with his elbow.

"I'm extremely sorry," says Rock, sweetly, "but if your heart is as soft as your breast, then I am sure you will forgive me."

"That's all right," replies Gloria, "and if the rest of you is as hard as your elbow, my room is number thirty-three!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Look inwards with absolute urgency.

This moment may be the last moment.

Always remember that every moment is possibly the last moment.

Then your urgency remains total.

Go deeper, as deep as you can, because it is your own space, your very life source -- nothing to fear.

At the very center of your being you are connected with the heart of the universe.

Your empty heart becomes a door to the ultimate heart of the universe.

And the moment you feel you are connected and rooted in the ultimate, everything in existence becomes beautiful, blissful.

Not only life, but death also becomes a dance, a celebration.

Just watch, witness.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax. Let the body lie down.

Remember you are not the body, nor the mind.

You are the witness, which is far away -- even skies are underneath it.

It is a watcher on the hills.

Your body is in the dark valleys down below.

The distance between your witness and your body-mind structure is qualitative.

It cannot be bridged.

And people go on living in ignorance, because they go on thinking that they are the body, they are the mind.

And because of this identification with body and mind, they have forgotten the language of their inner being, their inner nature, their universality, their eternity -- the buddha.

This beautiful evening.

This dance of the rain around the Buddha Auditorium, and ten thousand buddhas in utter silence, relaxed, centered...

it becomes a miracle.

It is a magic moment.

I can see there are no individuals, but only an ocean of consciousness.

This is the point where one becomes ultimately drunk, drunk without any drugs.

Let this drunkenness sink in every fiber of your being.

Soon you will be coming back.

Fill all your buckets with the nectar of the living stream of life, and bring it with you.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Now, come back as a buddha.

Silently, peacefully, with grace.

Remember how buddha will sit down, and this remembrance has to become the very milieu twenty-four hours around you.

Whatever you do, remember that the act has to show your self-nature, your original face, your buddhahood.

Every gesture, every word, every silence should arise from your spontaneity.

This is authentic religion.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Ma Tzu: The Empty Mirror