Clear the mind

The great Zen teacher Ta Hui comes from the same lineage as Bodhidharma. He was born four hundred years after Bodhidharma had left for the Himalayas, to disappear into the eternal ice, the eternal silence there.

I have called Ta Hui the great Zen teacher -- not a master ... it has to be explained to you clearly. The master is one who is enlightened. but sometimes it happens that the master may be enlightened, but is not articulate enough to give expression to what he has known. That is a totally different art.

The teacher is not enlightened, but he is very articulate. He can say things which the master, although he knows, cannot bring to words. The teacher can say them, although he does not know.

The teacher he has heard ... he has lived with enlightened people, he has imbibed their energy, he has been showered by their flowers. He has tasted something transpiring from the enlightened ones, so he has a certainty that something like enlightenment happens, but he has no authority of his own; his authority is borrowed. And if the teacher is a genius, he can almost manage to express things over which masters have faltered, or they have remained silent.

The teacher has his own utility. He is more available to the people -- he belongs to the people. The master is on a high sunlit peak. Even if he shouts from there, only echoes reach to the people's ears. But the teacher lives amongst the people, knows their life, knows their language, knows how things should be expressed so they can understand. The master remains committed to his experience, while the teacher is more committed to the people, to spread the message.

Once in a while it happens that the master cannot express at all. For example, Ramakrishna was an enlightened man, but utterly uneducated, uncultured, knowing nothing of great literature, knowing nothing of what other enlightened people have said. He experienced the beauty of his inner being, but he was absolutely handicapped as far as conveying it to others. He had to take the support of a man, Vivekananda, who was not enlightened but was a great genius -- very intelligent, rational, logical, intellectual, well-versed, well-educated. He became the mouthpiece of Ramakrishna. He went around the world spreading his message.

Whatever exists today as Ramakrishna Mission, is completely the work of Vivekananda, but he himself died in utter agony. The agony was more intense because he had been spreading the good news of ecstasy, but inside he was empty. His whole message was only verbal, but he managed it so cleverly that many started thinking of him as enlightened.

The same thing happened with Ta Hui. When he was just sixteen years old he was so intelligent ... he left the world, and after one year of preparation he was initiated as a monk, when he was just seventeen. Then he went from master to master, seeking the right enlightened man who could show him the way.

He found his master in Yuan Wu. It seems almost the same situation: Yuan Wu knows, but cannot say it. Ta Hui does not know, but can say it. Just living with the master, imbibing his energy, watching his grace -- the way he walks, the way he sits, the way he remains silent ...

Rarely, once in a while, Yuan Wu speaks a word or sentence. His statements are collected in a small book, BLUE CLIFF RECORD, but they are almost impossible to understand. They don't seem to be related to each other, relevant to each other; they look fragmentary. They don't create a system.

Even though his words were recorded in BLUE CLIFF RECORD, Yuan Wu never addressed the people. On the contrary, he simply asked Ta Hui just to look into the BLUE CLIFF RECORD and express his opinion, say what he thinks of them. He was not certain that he had been able to say what he wanted to say, and whether what he had said conveyed anything or was just a futile exercise. In every case Ta Hui completely comprehended the subtle meaning.

By saying this he is saying, "You must have been born almost enlightened, just a little bit is missing; perhaps you may be able to manage it in this life. But you have understood my expressions perfectly well." This was his seal, when he said "You must be someone who has come again!" -- you cannot be new. You have been on the path for a long, long time; although you have not achieved the ultimate end, you are very close.

But the master could not be deceived just by Ta Hui's understanding of the words, which any intelligent man of great talent like Ta Hui could have done. Yuan Wu again said to Ta Hui, "It was not easy for you to get to this stage" -- you have struggled hard -- "Too bad that having died, you are unable to come back to life." This will be clear to you if I refer to Jesus who says, "Unless you are born again, you will not understand the truth."

There are two parts of the path. The first part is to let your ego die. It is strenuous, arduous, difficult, because you know only your ego, you don't know your authentic self. You are jumping into an abyss, not knowing whether you will survive or not; THAT Ta Hui has done.

But the second part -- of resurrection, of giving birth to your new individuality, or your authentic being -- has not happened.

died as an ego,

-- and it is a beautiful statement from the master:

That is the most important part in it: hanging from a cliff, let go.

That is accepting death of the ego. But don't do it with effort, with tension. Don't do it to achieve anything based on greed or ambition; just do it simply to discover your real self. The right way of doing is ... agree to accept the experience.

Yuan Wu tells Ta Hui: You have not agreed to accept the experience, so only the first half is complete. The ego has died and has left you in a limbo, because you have not been absolutely total in your let-go. Let-go you managed -- but it was a managed let-go, it was not a spontaneous acceptance. You have not enjoyed the let-go. If you had enjoyed, then:

He was a man of few words. It is unfortunate ... very rarely a few people become enlightened, but out of those few the major part never say anything. The few who say anything say only fragments, and in a language ... unless you are enlightened it will not be possible to comprehend their meaning. And a few never say a single word. They don't leave any trace on the sands of this bank, of this shore; they simply disappear into the other shore.

Ta Hui, hearing this saying from the master Yuan Wu, hanging from a cliff, let-go -- and agree to accept the experience ... If you can manage this falling into the abyss as a celebration, with a joyful heart, then after annihilation, come back to life -- then there is no problem: you will come back to life. In fact, what you used to think of as life was not life; now you will come to the eternal life. But the bridge between the two is total acceptance.

Yuan Wu must have seen in the eyes of Ta Hui some doubt, some question mark. That's why he adds, "I could not deceive you."

Ta Hui remained with Master Yuan Wu; he fell in love with the master. When the master could even see in his mind just a little doubt, and had to say, "I could not deceive you," it was clear that he had come to the right man, who could look into his very being and could say in exact words what had happened to him. Half of his journey was over, but because he had not been in a total accepting mood, the half had been incomplete ..."Now accept totally, and resurrection will happen on its own."

Naturally Ta Hui would have doubted; that is the nature of intellect, to doubt, and he was a very intelligent man, young, fresh, and belonging to the genius category. He must have realized that the master had even seen the unexpressed doubt in his mind, and that is why he is saying, "I could not deceive you."

He remained with the master. Listening to the master, imbibing his spirit, his presence, slowly, slowly he became very articulate, although enlightenment perhaps was still far away ...

And it became even farther away, because he started receiving honors from the people -- even from the emperor, from the government -- as a realized man. These are very dangerous things.

When you are not realized and the government recognizes you, and great honors are conferred on you, you can get into a deluded state about yourself. You can start thinking, "Perhaps I am enlightened."

Two things can do this. One: he has learned in moving from master to master everything that Zen teaching is. So if you listen only to his words, it is very difficult for you to find that he is not enlightened. Unless you are enlightened, you will not be able to see the flaws, the small gaps, which are bound to be there because it is not his own experience; it is simply clippings from other masters that he has collected -- collected with tremendous intelligence.

He almost deceived the Imperial Power. They honored him as the "Buddha Sun," as the "Sun of Enlightenment."

Ta Hui means the "Great Master of Wisdom."

Only at the last moment it seems he attained enlightenment, just before he died, but then he did not say anything except a small verse. So I have called him "The Great Teacher" -- and he was certainly a great teacher. He influenced millions of people; he was a great leader in the sense that anybody who came in contact with him was immediately intellectually convinced.

But he had no presence, and he had no inner silence. It seems that only at the last moment he attained the goal, he completed the journey.

That is the first indication that he knows when he is going to die. The second ... towards the pre-dawn hours, his attendant asked Ta Hui for a verse. That is an old tradition in China:

when a great master dies, as his last statement, his last gift to the world, people ask him to write a verse.

This is the whole idea of Gautam Buddha's philosophy of suchness condensed. Birth is thus ... thusness or suchness mean exactly the same. There is no reason to think why it is: it is there.

There is no reason why you are dying. A tremendous acceptability is part of the philosophy of thusness, or suchness. Everything that happens, the man of understanding simply accepts it -- this is how things are, this is how nature functions. There is no complaint, there is no grudge.

BIRTH IS THUS

DEATH IS THUS

VERSE OR NO VERSE

WHAT'S THE FUSS?

THEN HE LET GO OF THE WRITING BRUSH AND PASSED ON.

Perhaps in this moment, when he was writing this verse, he completed his journey.

The discourses that are going to follow were given when he was not enlightened, but he was very clear in explaining everything to the ordinary people. He moved amongst laymen, he talked to the ordinary people, and he talked in a way that they could understand. His whole approach was that the great masters are not available to the people; they are available only to very intimate disciples, or perhaps only to the devotees -- who will take care of the millions?

So he started moving amongst the people, and the people were rejoicing; that's why the emperor honored him as a great master, as a sun of awareness.

Masters don't move, they don't go to the people; they know the gap between them and the ordinary people is too big, almost unbridgeable. Unless somebody comes close to the master on his own accord, there is no way for the master to penetrate his being.

But Ta Hui was not a master, he was a very articulate teacher. He was not talking Zen; he was talking about Zen. All that he had gathered ... and he had gathered really very consistently, very logically. Only once in a while will I tell you that he has committed a mistake -- which is natural, because he has nothing inside himself to compare it with. He has no criterion except his intelligence, his logic, his reason. But enlightenment is beyond your mind, beyond your rationality, beyond your intellect. That ultimate criterion is not within him.

But he is certainly of immense cleverness, although blind; he has not seen the light. He describes the light as if he is a man who has eyes. He has only heard people who have eyes.

But he has collected every piece of information in a very systematic way. So remember this:

he is a teacher, not a master. And I make an absolute distinction.

A teacher is one who transfers knowledge which he has collected, borrowed from others.

He can be very articulate. If you face a master and a teacher perhaps you may choose the teacher, because he will be more appealing to your intellect and mind.

The master will look a little crazy. He will be jumping from one point to another point without creating a systematic philosophy. But the master has the real treasure, the teacher has only heard about it. The teacher is poor, howsoever clever.

The sutras:

BUDDHA SAID, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE REALM OF BUDDHAHOOD, the world of ultimate awareness, YOU MUST MAKE YOUR MIND AS CLEAR AS EMPTY SPACE.

It is another way of saying that you should move beyond mind into a state of no-mind, because there is no such thing as empty mind. That's why I say such flaws will be there.

Empty mind? Empty space? A man of enlightenment would have simply said, "You should move beyond mind to no-mind."

There is a very famous book by a rabbi, Joshua Liebman. It has sold millions of copies in many languages. It is a beautiful piece of work; the name of the book is PEACE OF MIND.

Naturally, everybody wants peace of mind.

I wrote a letter in 1950 to him, saying "Your very title shows that you don't know anything about meditation. Peace of mind is a contradiction in terms: when mind is there, peace cannot be; and if peace is there, then mind cannot be. They cannot both be there together." In fact, mind is your anxiety, your anguish, your tensions, your thoughts, your emotions, sentiments, moods, ups and downs -- everything is mind. Peace is possible only if you go beyond mind.

So I told him, "If you are really sincere, in the next edition you should change the title.

Peace is equal to no-mind." I had made it so clear in many ways to him. But this is the situation of our intellectuals -- he never replied, because there was nothing to reply. He must have seen that what I am saying is a fact.

But I can forgive Joshua Liebman because he knows nothing of Eastern meditation. He is an American Jew, and meditation is simply a strange phenomenon to them. Peace of mind? ...

Perhaps my letter was the only one that had objected to the title. I said, "When the title is wrong I cannot read the book, because I know perfectly well that when a man writes a book and even the title is wrong, his book is worthless. If you ever change the title ... but just the change of title won't do -- you will have to change the whole book according to the title."

AND LEAVE FALSE THINKING AND ALL GRASPING FAR BEHIND ...

Now he is saying exactly what I mean by no-mind, but no-mind would not have been conceivable for him. He is a mind, and everything that he has understood is through mind.

And the people who are listening to him are able to make a bridge between his understanding and their understanding because all are minds. A mind can talk to another mind very easily.

So he has collected these words, empty space, and Leave false thinking and all grasping far behind. But I would like to make you aware how even the most intelligent people can fall into traps. He is saying, leave false thinking -- what about right thinking? A man of enlightenment will simply say, "leave all thinking." Thinking as such is a problem -- either false or not. Mind can conceive that that which is wrong can be left, and that which is good can be kept. But you cannot divide the wrong from the right. They are two sides of the same coin, and you cannot have a coin with only one side; the other side will be there.

If you protect right thinking -- whatever you think is right -- underneath will remain wrong thinking. If you try "love" ... of course love is not wrong thinking; it is one of the most beautiful emotions, and the thought of love is one of the great thoughts. But just behind love there will be hate hiding, and love can change into hate anytime. Right thinking can become wrong thinking anytime.

If it had been his own experience, he would not have said, leave false thinking and all grasping far behind; he would have said, leave all thinking and all grasping far behind, causing your mind to be unobstructed wherever it may turn.

But these are the qualities of no-mind.

He has collected the right words.

Once you are determined ... In Sanskrit and in Hindustani, the word which has been translated as "determined" is far deeper and more significant. The word is nishchaya.

'Determined' has a quality of stubbornness, adamantness. It has a quality of something that belongs to the ego, such as, "I am determined to do it." The word nishchaya does not have all these connotations.

Nishchaya is a very beautiful word. It means when you come to the master, just his presence, his fragrance, his eyes, his gestures, his words, his silence give you a tremendous trust within. It is not your determination; it is the deep impact of the enlightened man in your heart.

Instead of saying 'determined,' I would like to say that once you are in trust, in nishchaya, no doubt arises. All doubts have disappeared; you feel completely at ease.

This nishchaya -- that you want to know this realm -- is bound to create in you a longing, not a desire. These words may mean the same in the dictionaries, but in actual existence they are so far apart. When you have attained to nishchaya -- "This is the man to whom I belong, this is the man whom I have been searching for lives. These are the eyes I have seen in the silences of my heart, this is the face I have been looking for in so many, many ways in so many lives" ... suddenly a nishchaya, a trust which knows no doubt. It is not a belief; belief is always about doctrines. Trust is always about persons.

It is not what the master is saying that you believe; it is what the master is that creates a nishchaya, a trust in you. And that trust will start growing into a deep longing -- you would also like to enter into the same world of awareness, into the same world of blissfulness, into the same paradise where your master is.

... your longing will just go on becoming deeper and deeper and deeper. You will be waiting with tremendous love. You will not demand of existence, "Give me this state," because any demand on existence is ugly. You will simply wait; you will not even pray. You will simply feel thirsty, and existence is compassionate enough. You cannot dominate it, but if you are simply thirsty, you will find existence fulfills your longing.

He has at least heard well!

You can see the discrepancy! If you say that your mind is as open as empty space, it is no longer mind. It is as if you are saying, "When your fire is as cold as ice" -- then why call it fire? Just calling it ice will be the right thing! But for an intellectual it is difficult; he is simply collecting opinions. And nobody is going to raise a question, because they don't know that he is committing a mistake either.

How much space is there? Do you know? The whole universe is empty space. The mind does not have the capacity to be so broad.

But he goes on making the distinction that you should keep your good thoughts.

In a state of absolute silence and peace there are no good thoughts, no bad thoughts.

Thoughts as such are a disturbance, whether they are good or bad. The sinner may be having bad thoughts in his mind, and the saint may be having good thoughts in his mind, but both are in the mind. There is no qualitative difference between them.

The true sage, the buddha, has no mind at all.

He lives without mind, he acts without mind.

It comes from his very innermost being; hence, it has a quality, a freshness, a great splendor. Thoughts are always dusty and old. The sage always acts afresh, not out of any old thoughts; he responds to the situation moment to moment. There is no need for him to think. It is almost like a blind man: if he wants to go out of this auditorium, he will have to ask, "Where is the way?" And then, with his walking stick, he will find the way and go out. But you never even think about it when you want to go out; you simply see the way out and you go. There is no thinking involved in it, and certainly no walking stick.

I have heard about a blind man whose eyes were operated upon. He had come with his walking stick, and after a few days the doctor opened the bandage on his eyes and told him, "Now, slowly, slowly open your eyes. Your eyes are perfectly good; now you can see."

He was amazed at what he had been missing, all the colors, the sun, the moon, the stars, people's faces -- everything he had been missing. He thanked the doctor, but out of old habit he took his walking stick. The doctor said, "What are you taking that walking stick for? Leave it."

But he said, "Without it how am I going to find my way?"

The doctor said, "You are an idiot. Now you have eyes, there is no need to find the way; the way will be clear to you. Just put that walking stick on that pile."

There were many walking sticks. All the people he had cured had come with their walking sticks, and he had been collecting them as souvenirs, showing how many people he had cured.

And he said, "It is not only you! Every blind man, when I cure his eyes, immediately picks up his walking stick to start going out."

Unconscious habit ... too long he has had the walking stick; he cannot believe that life is possible without it.

The same is the situation of all who have lived with the mind for millions of lives. That has been their guide, whatever they wanted to do. It is inconceivable for the mind that you can live even for a single moment without it. But it is just a walking stick for a blind man.

There is far more consciousness beyond the mind -- so broad, so spacious, so silent that you need not think. It simply goes on responding. In the mind you have to think what to do and what not to do. It is always a question of either/or.

The moment you are beyond mind there is no question of either/or. You simply know what has to be done and you do it, and there is no repentance, ever. You never look back, you never feel that you have done something wrong -- you cannot do wrong.

These are the reasons why I have not called Ta Hui the great Master. I am simply calling him a great teacher; perhaps at the last moment he became enlightened -- but at the last moment. These teachings were given before it.

He goes on using the word "mind" for "no-mind." Because he has been collecting, and he has no inner criterion, you will come across many contradictions. In the second sutra, which is called mindlessness ... now what has happened to the mind that he was talking about in the first sutra?

The ox is an old symbol in Zen tradition for the lost soul, the lost self that you have forgotten all about. Mindlessness will show you the path, will indicate to you the soul; it will become an arrow, and you have simply to follow without any tension, without any effort.

... Again he starts using the word "mind." This is the trouble with a teacher.

... but it is still there. Then why did he start calling the sutra mindlessness? The mind again comes in. It is settled, but that which is settled can be unsettled any moment. It is imperturbable, but that which is imperturbable can be perturbed.

That it does not cling to anything ... but it is there. And clinging is an old habit; it can start clinging tomorrow, if not today. It can fall back.

If it is there, there is every possibility of its being stained. Mindlessness is the right word to explain pure space, without any possibility of falling back.

You can see his mind continuously wavering, because all these statements he must have collected from different people. Some may have been enlightened, some may have been just teachers, some may have been just learned people. He has made a good collection -- but I can see that there are inconsistencies in it, because I have a criterion within me.

If mind and body are illusions, then what is the need of making them broad, making them spacious, making them non-clinging? If they are like dreams or illusions, just wake up and they are finished. That wakefulness is mindlessness.

He is utterly messed up! He may have been helpful in bringing people to the masters, but he himself is not yet clear on what he is saying.

-- and that's what he is doing

-- HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM THE PERVERTED CH'AN OF "SILENT ILLUMINATION"?

These people commit many mistakes because of their attachment to a certain school. Now, he is attached to a certain school -- Mahayana also has different sects. First Buddhism was divided into two sects, Mahayana and Hinayana; then they started dividing into different sects.

In all, there are now thirty-six sects. A man of unenlightenment is continuously trying to defend, to criticize, the other sects.

In China there has been a sect called "The Sect of Silent Illumination." I don't see that there is any problem -- all illumination happens in silence. Silence is the illumination. But people fight over words: because they don't call it enlightenment, they call it illumination, that has created a rift. But you can understand very easily that both words mean the same.

'Illumination' or 'enlightenment' -- both are simply declaring that darkness has disappeared.

What you choose to call it is immaterial.

"Just get to the root, don't worry about the branches" -- he must have got this from an enlightened master. "Just get to the root, don't worry about the branches," because once you have cut the root, the whole tree will wither away. But just cutting the branches is not going to help; the foliage may become, on the contrary, thicker.

Not just emptying ... in the first place, there is no way to empty the mind. You don't have any control over your mind. It goes on in its own way, filled with dreams and thoughts and emotions and feelings and reactions, sadnesses, happinesses -- there is no way to empty it.

How are you going to empty it? From one side you will be emptying it, and from the other side a great flow will go on coming in. The only way to empty it is to go beyond it -- to become awareness.

Watch the mind, and the mind disappears.

That is one of the most important experiences of Gautam Buddha. He says that if you are just in the middle of any two polar opposites -- find exactly the middle, neither lack nor excess -- if you are exactly in the middle, you will go beyond.

The middle is the beyond.

If you go to the extreme, then you will start clinging to it; from the extreme you cannot go beyond.

That was a great contribution to spiritual science and to humanity, that the middle is the beyond. Just keep yourself balanced in the middle, and suddenly you will see you have gone above both the extremes -- neither good nor bad, neither ordinary nor extraordinary, neither knowledgeable nor ignorant.

This beyondness is his nirvana. Just to think about it you will feel an immense peace. Just visualize it and you will feel a great silence descending on you. And this is only visualization -- what will happen in actuality if you come to the middle? You cannot conceive the ecstasy of it, the blissfulness of it, the benediction of it.

I have chosen Ta Hui to help you understand the difference between the teacher and the master, because many religions have lost their masters. For example, Jainism in India has had no masters, no enlightened persons at all, for centuries -- only teachers.

Without an enlightened being, the religion loses its soul. It is only the small stream of enlightened people that keeps the religion breathing and its heart beating, that keeps it alive, flowering.

And one enlightened person is not just a singular phenomenon; he spreads his illumination all around. Wherever he is, he carries a certain energy field, and whoever is receptive will be pulled into the energy field. The teacher has no energy field. He is just repeating mechanically like a parrot.

But Ta Hui was certainly a great teacher, because he collected ... he went to dozens of enlightened masters. He was so young when he was initiated into monkhood, and he gathered like a bee gathers honey from thousands of flowers. So on the one hand he is very rich; he has brought so much honey from different flowers. But on the other hand he is very poor; he has not contributed anything from his own being. But I am happy that at least in the end, at the very end of his life, he became enlightened. His small verse is certainly of great beauty:

He has entered into a realm of ultimate serenity and silence. It does not matter whether it is life or death. It does not matter whether he is following the tradition of writing a verse, or not writing it.

Then he just let go of the writing brush and passed on ...passed on into eternal existence. It does not matter when you become enlightened. Even if you become enlightened at the last breath of your life, it is perfectly good. You have not lost anything. You will see the whole life that you have lived as a dream.

And the moment you can see your whole life as a dream, it has lost all its impact on you.

You have become totally free -- free from all bondage of the body and the mind, free from all limitations. You are ready to enter into the limitless consciousness of existence itself.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.