To wait, to wait for nothing

TANKA ASKED CHORO, "WHAT IS THE SELF BEFORE THE EMPTY EON?"

AS CHORO WAS ABOUT TO ANSWER, TANKA SAID, "YOU'RE STILL NOISY - GO AWAY FOR NOW."

ONE DAY, AS CHORO WAS CLIMBING BOL PEAK, HIS MIND OPENED UP INTO ENLIGHTENMENT. HE TOOK A SHORTCUT DOWN AND WENT BACK TO STAND BY TANKA, WHO SLAPPED HIM AND SAID, "I THOUGHT YOU KNEW IT EXISTS." CHORO BOWED JOYFULLY.

THE NEXT DAY TANKA WENT INTO THE HALL AND SAID, "THE SUN ILLUMINES THE GREEN OF THE SOLITARY PEAK; THE MOON SHINES IN THE COLD OF THE VALLEY STREAM. DON'T PUT THE WONDROUS SECRET OF THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS IN YOUR LITTLE HEART."

THEN HE GOT UP OFF THE SEAT.

CHORO CAME DIRECTLY FORWARD AND SAID, "YOUR ADDRESS TODAY CAN'T FOOL ME ANYMORE."

TANKA SAID, "TRY TO RECITE MY ADDRESS."

CHORO REMAINED SILENT.

TANKA SAID, "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A GLIMPSE."

CHORO THEN LEFT.

Friends, It has been a long awaiting, but that is the very essence of Zen - to wait, to wait for nothing.

There is no God, there is no ultimate meaning.

Life is all there is.

Those who have found, have found nothing but that there is nothing to be found.

Zen is the ultimate manifesto of non-finding, of rejoicing without any reason, of laughing and loving and dancing without any cause.

There are believers in the world, many types of them. There are non-believers in the world; they are not in any way different, just their beliefs are negative. Somebody believes in a God, and somebody believes in a no-God, and both are as fanatic as each other.

Just the other day I was reading the manifesto of the Humanist group of intellectuals, a small, very elite group of American intellectuals. But their manifesto made me laugh. Every statement begins, "We believe..." And a belief is always ignorance. Somebody believes in God - he is ignorant.

Somebody believes in no God - he is as much ignorant as the one who believes.

Each sentence of the whole manifesto begins, "We believe that there is no God." But on what grounds? Finally they give their grounds: "We believe our faith is reason. Because God is not reasonable, we will not believe in God." These are the most intellectual people of America, and it is a very prestigious thing to be accepted by the group as a member.

I am making this statement just before some of my friends in the group are going to propose my name as an honorary member in their coming meeting. It is good for me to make my situation clear to them.

In the first place, I don't become a member of any party, any organization, because every membership is a subtle slavery.

Truth can live and blossom only in freedom.

Love can blossom and be fragrant only in freedom.

Every membership is a concession and a compromise.

Sannyas is not a movement and not an organization. On the contrary, it is a declaration of independence from all organizations and all parties and all churches.

I laughed at the Humanist manifesto because finally they say, "Our faith is in reason." But if you have a faith, every faith is unreasonable. And it is so simple to see. To have faith in reason means you will not allow anything unreasonable in life.

Love is unreasonable. What is the reason of love? What is the reason of existence itself? What is the reason of reason itself? If there were no reason, would you complain to somebody? If there were no life, would there be any way to complain to some court, to some higher authority? If there is nothing, there is nothing; if there is everything, there is everything. Reason itself is unreasonable.

And if one has to be vast enough, one has to include contradictions. Reason on the one side, and irreason on the other side - both have to be accepted.

The Zen Manifesto is not for anything special. It is simply for this life, this existence, this moment. It does not ask for any source, and it does not ask for any goal. Every source will make a limitation, and every goal will make another limitation, and existence is unlimited. It is not limited by reason.

So if the Humanist group wants me to accept their membership, they will have to change their manifesto. I don't believe in anything, and I don't ask for anything to have a reason. It is perfectly okay as it is. If it were not, that too is perfectly okay.

Hence, I said to you that you have to wait long for me, but it is part of the game.

Zen accepts both the presence and the absence, life and death - all the contradictions. Zen is vast enough to contain all contradictions.

Perhaps Zen is the only way that contains contradictions, and that does not disallow anything. It rejoices in everything without any conditions. It accepts everything as it is without making any demands on it. It has no commandments, "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not..."

Zen knows nothing about commandments.

Zen knows only a vast life which contains all kinds of contradictions in a deep harmony. The night is in harmony with the day, and life is in harmony with death, and the earth is harmony with the sky. The presence is in harmony with the absence. This immense harmony, this synchronicity is the essential Manifesto of Zen. This is the only way of life which respects and loves, and denies nothing, condemns nothing.

Every other religion, every other philosophy depends on choosing - "Condemn this, deny that, accept this, respect this..." But there is always choice. And a man who has chosen has always chosen a part, and a part is never alive, only the whole is alive. Your hand is not alive separated from you, and your eyes will not be able to see separated from you. You are an organic unity.

Zen is a declaration of the organic unity of all contradictions of life. And because existence accepts everything, who are you to choose? Who are you to judge? Zen knows no judgment. Nobody is a sinner and nobody is a saint. Both are playing a game of their choice, and both will receive their rewards accordingly.

If you have done something wrong, something wrong will happen to you. If you have been blissful to others, existence will be blissful to you... a simple arithmetic. Zen does not believe in complexities, it is a very simple acceptance of the totality that surrounds us.

These days I have been away from you, but I was aware of you, as you were aware of me. I heard your sound of joy, I heard your songs... and I was waiting for the right day to come. I was going to come yesterday, but yesterday was Sardar Gurudayal Singh's day, so I had to remain in my room just for poor Sardar's sake.

Before the sutras, a few questions.

Question 1:

One sannyasin has asked:

I don't know what Nyogen Senzaki's and Paul Reps' inner meaning is, because their hearts are not available to me. I have also read their words and wondered that without explanation they are using words which are meaningless in themselves.

What purpose? Life has no purpose. The very use of the word 'purpose' shows that both these people, Senzaki and Paul Reps, have not understood the meaning of Zen.

Zen is rejoicing in purposelessness. What purpose is in a flower? What purpose is in the sun rising?

For what purpose are you here? There seems to be no purpose to me.

I have looked deep enough in every corner of my being - there seems to be no purpose at all, and I consider it a great freedom. If there were a purpose, then you would be in bondage, then there would be a destiny you have to fulfill. Then you could be a failure.

Every purpose creates failures and successes. But if there is no purpose, nobody is a failure.

Wherever you end up, that is the place you were destined to end. Wherever your boat leads you, and wherever the river moves, that is the direction. If you have any direction, you are going to be in conflict with many directions.

Don't have any direction, and don't have any desire. That does not mean repress desire. That simply means, rejoice in every desire, rejoice in every moment. Whatever is available, whatever has come across your path, love, be friendly.

Don't make any demands on existence, otherwise you will be in suffering. All those who live in misery, live in misery for the simple reason they are thinking that a certain purpose has to be fulfilled, a certain success has to be achieved, a certain ambition. And when it is not achieved - and there are more possibilities of not achieving it - you will be in misery. And even if you achieve it, it makes no difference, you will be in misery. You will be in misery because when you achieve it you will find nothing is achieved.

You have become the world's richest man, and suddenly you find you are surrounded by all kinds of junk. You cannot live if you are trying to be richer. You will be richer if you live.

Live each moment in as much intensity as possible, and you will be richer. But if you are living for riches, then it is always tomorrow, the day after tomorrow... and you are wasting all these valuable moments, you are becoming poorer every moment.

You are forgetting the language of living the present, and that is the only poverty.

I know of no other richness than to live each moment without bothering about the past which is no more, and without desiring of the future which is not yet. Live it! When it will come you will be able to live it too. You will be more efficient in living tomorrow if you are intensely living life today.

So I don't know what Paul Reps and Senzaki mean by "purpose." As far as Zen is concerned, there is no purpose. And I don't know what they mean by "the wine jug of his true desire."

Zen knows about the wine, but it is not of desire, it is of a silence.

It is of a desireless deepening of your life.

It is a silent song without sounds.

It is a music without instruments.

It is pure being.

At such a moment where being and non-being become equivalent, their presence and absence are synonymous. You are so present that you are almost absent, or the other way round - you are so absent that you are totally present.

Rather than Senzaki and Paul Reps, listen to your own heart. When you are no more, you are.

When you are no more, you are the whole vastness of existence. When there is no desire, you are fulfilled. It is not that any desire has to be fulfilled. When there is no desire, when you have learned the art of remaining in a non-desiring moment, you are fulfilled.

When you are not doing anything, your action is perfect. Only non-doing can be perfect. Any doing is bound to be imperfect. No man is capable of doing anything perfectly. Perfection is of the imagination.

Life consists of all kinds of imperfections. You have to love the imperfect, and you have to respect the imperfect - not only in others, but in yourself too.

What Paul Reps and Senzaki are thinking of - the wine of desire - has nothing to do with Zen.

Zen knows about one wine, and you have all tasted it. It is the wine that comes through the silent, meditative ecstasy of your being. It has nothing to do with desire. It has nothing to do with purpose.

Every day, whenever you reach to the point of your innermost being where everything is silent, where you cannot even say you are, a pure isness, unbounded, a tremendous drunkenness arises. I have called it divine drunkenness. That is the only wine I am acquainted with. And I don't think either Paul Reps or Senzaki understand the essence of Zen, otherwise they would not have used such wrong words.

Question 2:

The second question:

The Western intelligence has taken a certain direction; there is no reason why. The Eastern intelligence has taken a totally different direction; there also, there is no reason why. Such is the case.

The Western intellect has remained logical, rational, and has tried in every way to confine existence to reasonable terms, terms which mind can understand.

The East has taken a totally different approach. What mind can understand is a very small part, and because it is only a small part, it is going to be dead, it is going to be material. That which is beyond mind has to be understood. The East has moved into the irrational, into the mystical, into the miraculous. And certainly, the Eastern approach is far wider, far bigger. It can contain the Western approach in it, but the Western approach cannot contain the Eastern. No-mind can contain mind, but mind cannot contain no-mind. That's where the Eastern approach has reached to higher peaks.

Even a Socrates or an Aristotle has not been able to comprehend the experience of a Gautam Buddha, or the taste of a Bodhidharma, or the meaning of the gesture of a Rinzai. They have chosen a very small part - that which is available to intellect. And it is very small, hence the Western mind has been able to go into details. Because it has chosen a very small part, it can go into details. It goes on knowing more and more about less and less. Drawn to its logical conclusion, it can be said that the Western mind will finally reach to knowing more and more about nothing, because that will be the smallest part: nothing.

Albert Einstein and the Neo-Physicists almost reached to that nothing. And they are puzzled because their minds cannot understand nothing, and they are confronting nothing. Their instruments have led them to nothing. Their analysis, their experiments have revealed to them nothing, but their minds are not ready to accept nothing. Nothing seems to be full of fear.

The Eastern mind has also reached nothing, but it reached nothing in a very different way. It reached nothing, dancing - not through analysis, not through logic, but through meditation. It has reached to nothingness through music, through song, through dance, through meditation. It has been a joyous experience. The nothing in the East does not create fear. It creates freedom, opens doors, destroys all boundaries. But the Western mind - it simply freaks out.

Nothing? No purpose? No God? No meaning? No destiny? Then the Western mind can only conclude suicide. But that too is meaningless. Why commit it?

So the Western intellectual lives in a very strange tragedy. All his mind can conclude is suicide, and that is what he is afraid of. So he lives halfway, wishy-washy... neither loves totally, nor dances totally, nor meditates totally. Totality is unknown, only partiality - only parts the mind can deal with easily.

The Eastern mind recognized quickly that mind is part of the body on the one hand, and on the other hand, mind is part of the education of the society. The brain is the natural part, and the mind is the part that the society has given you - the conditionings, the philosophies, the religions, the whole nurture. This small mind, which consists only of biology and sociology, cannot know the vast truth, the mysterious expanse of the ultimate.

It is absolutely needed to transcend the mind. And in a strange way, the moment you transcend the mind, you for the first time understand the mind also. Because to understand anything you have to stand apart, a little distance is needed.

A meditator can understand mind, and can understand no-mind, because he is standing apart, aloof, as a witness. He can see thoughts, and he can see the absence of thoughts, and he can understand that both are essential. Thought is for the limited, and the no-thought is for the unlimited.

Your question, that reading Paul Reps' ZEN FLESH, ZEN BONES gave you an intellectual understanding of Zen...

There is no intellectual understanding of Zen.

Zen has to be understood non-intellectually.

Zen is an experience.

It has nothing to do with reason, explanations, analytical processes. If you know what is sweet, you know you may not be able to say what it is. And if somebody asks you, "What is sweet?" you know it but you will be in trouble, you cannot say it. It is just on the tip of the tongue.

The East has not tried to approach reality philosophically, it has tried in a very different, non- intellectual, meditative way. That is the way of tasting it.

Don't ask what reality is, taste it. It is available to you; it is your very essence. Why do you go on looking in the Bibles, in the Korans, in the Gitas? Why don't you look within yourself? - it is there.

And if it is not there, it is nowhere. And if it is there, it is everywhere. It is a simple experience.

One of the greatest philosophical geniuses, G.E. Moore, has written a book upon a very small, simple subject: What is good? Although he gives his book a very intellectual name, PRINCIPIA ETHICA, the meaning is the search for good: What is good, what is ethical? After two hundred and fifty pages of thick discussion, he concludes... the last sentence is that the good is indefinable. So what was all this nonsense?

One of my teachers was a student of G.E. Moore, and because he had been G.E. Moore's student, he was thought to be the authority in the university.

I had read the book before I entered his class. He opened the book...

I said, "Please, first read the last sentence."

He looked at me, puzzled. He said, "Why?"

I said, "That will decide everything. You read the last sentence, otherwise, I have the book, I can read it."

But he said, "Why are you asking that?"

I said to him, "I am not asking it for any intellectual reason, I am asking it so that you can throw the book out of the window, because the last sentence is: 'Good is indefinable.' Then why bother? Then let us do something significant. Why waste time?"

He looked at me. He told all the students to go out, and he said, "We have to come to a settlement.

If you insist on reading the last sentence first, you are right, the book has to be thrown. But my whole purpose here is to teach the book."

I said, "There is nothing in it to teach."

He said, "You are right that way also, because finally, I have to come to that conclusion."

I said, "You know it, and I know it, so why waste time?"

He said, "What do you suggest? What should we do?"

I said, "What will you do after the book is finished?"

He said, "I have never thought about it."

I said, "You have been G.E. Moore's own student, and you did not ask the fellow that if you know that it is indefinable, then why waste time, why not do something significant? Then why not approach it in the Eastern way?"

The East never says anything is indefinable. It only says things are either definable or experienceable. That is the distinction the East makes clearly. If something is indefinable, it means it is experienceable.

Sweet is indefinable. How are you going to define it? The yellowness of a flower is indefinable. What are you going to say? What is yellow? Yellow is yellow - but that is tautology, that is not definition.

There are things - and those are the most valuable things - which have to be experienced. Good has to be experienced, not defined.

He said, "You are a tough student, but have mercy on me."

I said, "On one condition: if you give me one hundred percent attendance. I will never come to your class. You can go on with your indefinables; I can do something else."

He said, "I have to agree. I will give you the attendance mark whether you come or not."

I said, "That is not the question, whether I come or not. I will not come, and I will make it clean and clear to everybody in the class. Only idiots will come, because if something is indefinable... and you know it, and you have agreed with me.

"Nobody is going to come. You go on sitting here, reading your book, finding finally something which you knew already - that good is indefinable. Meanwhile, we could do many things which are worth doing. Even growing a rose plant, even planting a lawn, may create a little good, a little beauty, a little experience in existence. Or not doing anything, just sitting..."

I told him... just behind my university campus there was a small hillock, and there were three trees.

I told him, "If you want me anytime, you can come to the hillock. In the middle tree, I sit there on top of the tree. That is when I want to experience good."

He said, "You experience good there?"

I said, "You experience good in this book which says it is indefinable; I experience it there. There, clouds are so close, and the flowers of that tree are so fragrant. And day and night nobody goes there - no traffic, no disturbance, utter silence. In that silence, perhaps someday you may know the experience of good."

What is the experience of good?

Just a feeling of well-being, a feeling of great rejoicing. Just because you are breathing, just because the blood is circulating, just because the heart is beating, just because the wind is blowing and the tree is fragrant, and the sky is clean, and a bird is on the wing.

The man was certainly intelligent. He said, "One day I am going to come with you."

I said, "Remember, the middle tree belongs to me. You can sit on the first tree or the third tree. And as far as good is concerned, it is available on all the trees. Just sit silently, and don't bring any book, and don't ask any question."

One day he came, and from the very beginning I showed him, "Go up!" So he sat on the tree. After an hour he came down. I asked him, "Did you experience something?"

He said, "Really, it is so silent here. It seems almost out of the world. And I unnecessarily wasted my time in Oxford studying with G.E. Moore what is beauty, what is good, what is silence. These trees can experience."

I said, "These trees can experience much more than is contained in any book on aesthetics, ethics, philosophy, religion."

You just have to be utterly in tune with the surroundings - when just the bamboos are giving you the definition of good, and a roseflower is defining for you what is beauty....

There is no intellectual understanding of Zen. There is an experiential understanding of Zen, that is through meditation - a taste. Something opens within you, something that has not been available to you because you were keeping your back towards it. Something, just because you look for it, suddenly comes in the mirror of your eyes, fills your very being. A tremendous dance... in small things, a beauty, a joy. But if you start defining, you start missing.

You are asking why the Western mind has been missing it. It went on a wrong track, and it is still on the wrong track.

I have told you about the Humanist manifesto. These are America's most famous intellectuals.

Everything has to be defined clearly. If it is not defined, it is not acceptable. But these great intellectuals have not questioned that reason itself is undefined - what is reason? what is the purpose of it? why should it be there?

And it is a very simple thing to see, that in life there is always the opposite. If there is reason, there must be something irrational, otherwise there is no point in calling anything rational. If there is beauty, there is something that is bound to be ugly. If there is something good, then something is bound to be evil.

The moment you say, "Reason... our faith is reason," you have defined your territory. Beyond that territory, whatever exists you will not accept it - but existence accepts it. Whether you accept it or not does not matter.

There was a time when only Aristotle's logic was available - for two thousand years. Just now, this century, non-Aristotelian logic has come into existence because Aristotle's logic is very confined.

For two thousand years Euclidean geometry was the only geometry. Just within fifty years, non- Euclidean geometry has come into existence. And if you know non-Euclidean geometry, all the points of Euclidean geometry are completely erased.

All the definitions of Euclid, and all the definitions of Aristotle, are denied by modern physics, because if you listen to their definitions you cannot move into existence. Existence does not bother about Aristotle or Euclid. Existence has its own ways; it is vast enough, it is bigger than Aristotle's skull.

How much can you contain in your mind? Something will always remain beyond, and that beyond does not disappear from existence, it is there whether you accept it or not.

The East has taken a far more sane view, to accept both: the rational for the material, and the irrational for the immaterial; the rational for the outside, and the irrational for the inside. This is a saner and more balanced view, and sooner or later the West has to agree to the Eastern viewpoint.

Question 3:

The third question:

There is no competitive spirit. That means, no master is thought to be greater, and no master is thought to be lesser. Even the enlightened one is not thought to be higher than the unenlightened one. One is asleep, one is awake - that does not mean that the awake one is more superior than the one who is asleep. They are different states, but there is no question of superiority or inferiority.

In this sense, no competitive spirit exists in Zen.

No master is trying to gather more people, more followers. On the contrary, there are cases on record where the master will look into the eyes of the disciple who has come to be with him, will shake his head and will say, "It will be better if you go to the other monastery on the other hill.

Although the teaching there is different and the opposite to mine, it will be more suitable to you. And the real thing is what is more suitable for you. It is not a question that I should have more disciples and the other should have less."

Once it happened...

A disciple was thrown out by the master because for many years he had been meditating, and bringing answers, and getting beaten... and he had become habituated, and nothing was happening.

One day as he was coming in, the master closed the door. The disciple said, "I have not said anything at all."

The master said, "You should not come here at all. Go anywhere...!"

Naturally, the disciple thought, "The best place will be the master who is opposite; he teaches different things."

He went to that master. The master looked into his eyes and said, "It is better you go back to your old master; he has great mercy for you. Eighteen years he has wasted on you; I don't have that much compassion. You just go back! If he closes the door, that does not mean that he is not answering you - that is his answer. Sit down at the door, don't open your eyes, and don't move from the door.

Just go back."

And the disciple went back, sat at the master's door, and closed his eyes. The whole night went by.

Early in the morning the master opened the door, and the disciple was sitting there so beautifully, so peacefully, that the master who had brought a few flowers for Buddha's statue showered those flowers on the disciple's head.

The disciple opened his eyes. He said, "What are you doing? These flowers you brought for Buddha."

The master said, "That Buddha can manage without flowers today. A living buddha I have found just sitting at my door. Come in. Where have you been this long time?"

He said, "Where? I have been here eighteen years. Have you forgotten? Just yesterday you threw me out!"

He said, "I had to, because I knew immediately you would go to the opposite monastery. And I knew that the master opposite would not accept you. You are such a dodo, and only I accept dodos and make them buddhas! So there was no fear. Wherever you would have gone they would have sent you back."

There is no competitiveness, there is no condemnation. Disciples move from one teacher to another teacher with their permission - and there is no hierarchy. Gautam Buddha is not higher than Mahakashyapa, and Mahakashyapa is not higher than Bodhidharma. The very word 'hierarchy' comes from the idea of the inferior and the superior.

The world according to the buddhas is divided into two kinds of buddhas: a few are sleeping, and a few are awake - not much of a difference. One who is asleep today may wake up tomorrow. And one never knows - one who is awake today may fall asleep tomorrow. In this miraculous existence everything is possible.

It will be difficult for your reason to accept that a buddha can become again unenlightened, but I know many buddhas who are sitting here unenlightened. And many times they come to the very verge of becoming enlightened, and immediately turn away, being afraid that, "Who knows? If you go one step more, you may never come back" - and your girlfriend is waiting outside...!

Sarjano has gone somewhere for a few days. I asked Neelam, "I don't see Sarjano...?" She informed me that she had asked Sarjano, and Sarjano said, "If I am not missing him, why is he missing me?"

Sarjano, you may not miss me - I miss you. I am my kind of a buddha. I miss people - and even people like Sarjano! Everybody was happy when he was gone....

The sutra:

TANKA ASKED CHORO, "WHAT IS THE SELF BEFORE THE EMPTY EON?"

'Eon' means before the beginning of existence. Tanka is asking, "Before existence began, there was eon...?" That is only a word: 'age'; it means simply age. It would be better translated to say, 'time' - pure time existed.

TANKA ASKED CHORO, "WHAT IS THE SELF BEFORE THE EMPTY EON?" Before that empty timelessness, what is the self... where have you been? You must have been somewhere - a relevant question. Existence may not have been here, you may not have been in a body, but somewhere, hiding in some corner, you must have been somewhere.

AS CHORO WAS ABOUT TO ANSWER, TANKA SAID, "YOU ARE STILL NOISY - GO AWAY FOR NOW."

Tanka was the master who asked the disciple, Choro, "WHAT IS THE SELF BEFORE THE EMPTY EON?" - before everything begins, what is the self?

And as Choro was about to answer - because this is not a question that can be answered... To answer is to answer wrongly. There is no right answer to it - perhaps some right action. If Choro had been a man of understanding he may have hit, slapped the master, and the master would have been happy. But it is not a question to be answered intellectually, verbally.

AS CHORO WAS ABOUT TO ANSWER, TANKA SAID, "YOU ARE STILL NOISY - GO AWAY FOR NOW. When you are silent, and there are no words in you, come back."

Only a man who has no words knows that the self can exist without boundaries. It is an experience; there is no way of proving it by argumentation. You can go into yourself and be utterly silent - no boundaries, no words, a pure isness... still, you know you are. Without knowing, without verbalizing, you experience you are.

This amness was there before the beginning, if there was any beginning. It is now, and it will remain forever. Even if there is an end, this amness is not going to end. And this amness has nothing to do with you. This amness is not your possession; hence, it is not the self.

Buddha is very accurate in his explanations. Perhaps no man has ever been so accurate. He describes it as no self, not as self, because to call it self will give it a line, a boundary, a territory. To destroy the territory, Buddha calls it no self. This was one of the reasons for his being misunderstood for centuries. Because who wants to attain to no self, who wants to become nothing...?

And that's exactly what you become when you reach to the very center of your being - nothing, no self. But that no-selfness is immortal, that no-selfness is pure joy, uncaused bliss.

ONE DAY, AS CHORO WAS CLIMBING BOL PEAK, HIS MIND OPENED UP INTO ENLIGHTENMENT. HE TOOK A SHORTCUT DOWN AND WENT BACK TO STAND BY TANKA, WHO SLAPPED HIM AND SAID, "I THOUGHT YOU KNEW IT EXISTS." CHORO BOWED JOYFULLY.

He didn't say anything. On this second occasion, Choro suddenly felt a silence as he was coming up the mountain. It happens more easily in the world of Zen, because everybody is looking for silence.

As he was climbing up, suddenly a moment of silence, and he found why the master had rejected him. He took a shortcut to reach the master.

Tanka looked at him, slapped him, and said, "I knew you would know it exists. It is not the self, it is not the no self; it is simply isness, and you will find it one day. I knew it, and I am happy that you have found it."

Choro had not said a single word, but he showed his understanding: CHORO BOWED JOYFULLY.

Now, in any situation anywhere, this type of incident is impossible. The master slaps the disciple, and he has not said anything right or wrong. But the master does not depend on your words, he depends on your grace, on your eyes, on your face, on your very vibe. The master saw that Choro was walking in a different way, with a different vibe, as only a buddha can walk. He did not miss the point, he immediately slapped him.

This slapping was just to check whether he was right or wrong. If Choro had asked, "Why are you slapping me?" Tanka would have been wrong. But rather than asking anything, Choro bowed joyfully.

Not only has Tanka understood the vibe, but Choro has also understand that slapping is not out of anger, it is out of joy.

THE NEXT DAY TANKA WENT INTO THE HALL AND SAID, "THE SUN ILLUMINES THE GREEN OF THE SOLITARY PEAK; THE MOON SHINES IN THE COLD OF THE VALLEY STREAM. DON'T PUT THE WONDROUS SECRET OF THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS IN YOUR LITTLE HEART."

THEN HE GOT UP OFF THE SEAT.

CHORO CAME DIRECTLY FORWARD AND SAID, "YOUR ADDRESS TODAY CAN'T FOOL ME ANYMORE."

TANKA SAID, "TRY TO RECITE MY ADDRESS."

CHORO REMAINED SILENT.

TANKA SAID, "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A GLIMPSE."

CHORO THEN LEFT.

What had transpired?

The next day Tanka spoke before the assembly and said, "THE SUN ILLUMINES THE GREEN OF THE SOLITARY PEAK; THE MOON SHINES IN THE COLD OF THE VALLEY STREAM. DON'T PUT THE WONDROUS SECRET OF THE ANCESTRAL TEACHERS IN YOUR HEART." THEN HE GOT UP OFF THE SEAT....

What he meant was: whenever you have found the truth, spread it, don't keep it in your heart. If you keep it, it will die. Spread it wide, sow it in as many fields as possible. The more you spread it, the more it grows, the more you have it.

Choro has become a little proud of yesterday's experience, that the master has slapped him joyfully.

CHORO CAME DIRECTLY FORWARD AND SAID, "YOUR ADDRESS TODAY CAN'T FOOL ME ANYMORE."

He thought that he had gone beyond the understanding that is contained in the sermon of the master.

TANKA SAID, "TRY TO RECITE MY ADDRESS. If you cannot be befooled by it, please try to recite it. Let me see whether you have even heard it or not."

CHORO REMAINED SILENT.

TANKA SAID, "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A GLIMPSE."

Those slappings were of joy; this statement: "I THOUGHT YOU HAD A GLIMPSE," is of sadness.

The master is saying that in the first place this is impudent - "coming before the assembly and making the statement..." Secondly, "When asked to recite, if you cannot recite it, you can at least ask for forgiveness. But you remained silent like a dead lamppost."

Tanka said, "I was wrong. I thought you had a glimpse. Yesterday you had a different vibe. Today that vibe has changed."

This makes me aware of you - that whenever any recognition from the master is given to you, don't make it part of your ego. Otherwise, rather than helping, it becomes a hindrance.

The master's looking into your eyes, or his hand pointing to you, is a recognition. In his love there is a recognition. Every moment he is recognizing you with great reverence, as possible, potential buddhas. But don't become proud of it, otherwise that proudness will delay your enlightenment.

Issa wrote:

HEEDLESS OF THE DEW

THAT MARKS OUR CLOSING DAY,

WE BIND OURSELVES TO OTHERS.

There are few haiku poets of the caliber of Issa and Basho. This haiku says: "Heedless of the dew that marks our closing day..." Every day so much dust is created around - so much anger, so much sadness, so much misery, so much misunderstanding.

Heedless of all this that marks our closing day, we bind ourselves to others. Our love remains unmarked, unscratched. Our hearts are just like mirrors which don't gather any dust.

That is the way of a man of Zen. Go on removing the dust, and remember your unity, your union with the whole existence. Nothing allows you to separate yourself - no anger, no desire, no failure.

Nothing divides you from existence.

Every evening remove all the dust.

Go to your bed with a clean mirror, in a silent song, harmonious with existence.

Question 4:

Maneesha's question:

There is a possibility... the one hundred and twelve techniques of VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA are basically one technique in different combinations. That one technique is witnessing. In different situations use witnessing, and you have created a new technique. In all those one hundred and twelve techniques, that simple witnessing is used.

And there is a possibility that it may not be joined directly with Shiva's book. VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA is five thousand years old, and Gautam Buddha is only twenty-five centuries old. The gap between Shiva and Buddha is long - twenty-five centuries - and there seems to be no connecting link.

So it may not be that he has directly taken the technique of witnessing from VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA. But whether he has taken it directly or not, there is a possibility that somehow, from somebody, he may have heard. He had moved with many masters before he became a buddha.

Before he himself found the technique of witnessing, he had moved with many masters. Somewhere he may have heard mention of VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA, but it does not seem to have a very direct connection, because he was still searching. In fact, it was not witnessing that he was practicing when he became a buddha.

The situation is just the reverse: he became a buddha first. Then he found, "My God! It is witnessing that has made me a buddha." It was not that he was practicing witnessing, he had dropped everything. Tired of all kinds of yogas and mantras and tantras, one evening he simply dropped... He had renounced the kingdom, he had renounced everything. For six years he had been torturing himself with all kinds of methods.

That evening, he dropped all those methods, and under a tree which became known by his name, the bodhi tree, he slept silently. And in the morning when he opened his eyes, the last star was disappearing. And as the star disappeared - a sudden silence all around, and he became a witness.

He was not doing anything special, he was just lying down underneath the tree, resting, watching the disappearing star. And as the star disappeared there was nothing to watch - only watching remained. Suddenly he found, "Whoever I have been seeking, I am it."

So it was Buddha himself who discovered that witnessing had been his path without his awareness.

But since Buddha, witnessing, or the method of sakshin, became a specific method of Zen.

Paul Reps' guess has a possibility, but it cannot be proved historically. And according to me, Buddha was not practicing witnessing. He found witnessing after he found that he was a buddha. So certainly it has nothing to do with VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA, but the method is the same.

Because the method is the same, in the mind of Paul Reps, a scholarly mind, the idea may have arisen easily that Buddha's method, the Zen method, is connected with VIGYAN BHAIRAVA TANTRA. But this connection seems to be only his guesswork. It has a possibility, but no validity.

The bamboos are asking for Sardar Gurudayal Singh's time. Put on the lights!

It is midnight at the Rotting Saint's Graveyard in Cologne. All is quiet, when suddenly, there is a rattling noise under one of the gravestones, marked Himlish Humper. Slowly, the stone begins to lift up, and the earth begins to crumble, and a bony hand reaches out into the air.

Slowly but surely, the skeleton of Himlish Humper creeps out of the ground. Himlish brushes the dust off his bones, and then knocks on the next stone marked Hector Herpes.

"Come on, Hector!" cackles Himlish. "It is time!"

Then, from under the stone marked Hector Herpes comes the sound of bones rattling, and slowly the stone lifts up and out slides the skeleton of Hector.

The two skeletons clatter and rattle as they stand up and shake hands.

"We are free!" rasps Himlish. "Let us go!"

The two guys start running and rattling down the streets of Cologne. Suddenly, Hector Herpes stops dead in his tracks. He spins around and starts rattling back towards his grave.

When he gets there he picks up the huge gravestone and carries it back to where Himlish is standing.

"What the hell are you bringing that thing for?" screeches Himlish.

"Hey!" replies Hector. "You cannot travel in Germany without your papers!"

Young Father Feever finishes his training at the Bleeding Cross Jesuit Monastery, and moves to New York as the priest of the Immaculate Conception and Miraculous Resurrection Church.

Feever soon discovers that one member of the congregation, Lucy Legs, is a prostitute, and decides to try and put her right.

Feever invites Lucy to the back of the church for an informal discussion. But when the young priest arrives, he finds Lucy sitting naked on an old tombstone, with her legs stretched wide apart.

"Ah, My God!" moans Feever, beginning to perspire. "I prayed for you last night...!"

"You idiot! There is no need for that," snaps Lucy, "I am on the telephone. But don't worry! You can have me now - just fifty dollars!"

"No! No!" cries Feever, loosening his dog collar. "You misunderstand me. I expected to find you on your knees. In fact, I think we should both start by getting down on our knees right away! Okay?"

"If that is how you want it!" smiles Lucy. "But it is a hundred dollars for doggie-style!"

In an effort to try and show the world that all Catholic cardinals are not homosexuals, Pope the Polack throws a huge ball at the Vatican. All the priests are given dancing lessons, and many glamorous women are invited to attend.

On the great night, the Vatican chapel, which has been converted for the event, is soon full of dancing couples.

At one point in the evening, Gorgeous Gloria finds herself in the arms of Cardinal Catsass, being swirled around the dance floor. Gorgeous Gloria is dressed in a skintight, off-the-shoulder dress, which highlights her figure perfectly, but many of the cardinals find the dress too revealing.

"Do you know," says Cardinal Catsass, "that I have always been a great admirer of yours, and I have always wanted to be in the same joke as you?"

"Thank you," replies Gloria.

"Yes," says Catsass. "You are also very beautiful!"

"That is very nice of you to say so," replies Gloria, wondering how she is going to get away from the old idiot.

"But I ought to tell you something," says Catsass, frowning at her strapless dress, "that I have just one thing against you."

"I know," says Gloria. "I can feel it!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Be silent...

Close your eyes, and feel your body to be completely frozen. This is the right moment to enter inwards.

Gather your energies, your total consciousness. And with an intensity, rush towards the center of your being. A deep urgency is needed, as if this is going to be your last moment of life.

Deeper and deeper...

As you are coming closer to your center, a great silence descends over you. Your heart opens up just as a lotus opens. Fragrance from the beyond surrounds you.

One step more, and you are at the very center of your being. This is the point where you are absent and present both: absent, as you have known yourself, and present, as a buddha knows himself.

This is your pure sky, your freedom, your eternity, your ecstasy.

Witness that you are not the body.

Witness that you are not the mind.

Witness that you are only the witness - a pure witness, just a mirror.

This witnessing is the only revolution that has ever happened to any man, the only revolution that has produced a line of buddhas.

Make it deeper...

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax, but remain a witness....

Gautama the Buddha Auditorium becomes an ocean of consciousness. You have just disappeared into this ocean, without boundaries.

Flowers of silence, flowers of peace, flowers of joy, have sprung up all over the place.

At this moment you are the most blessed person on the earth, because everybody is lost somewhere in the marketplace.

You are one of those chosen few who are searching the truth of your being. And it is always found, because it is always there waiting for you. It is your authenticity, it is your existence.

Zen is an existential path.

Experience your buddhahood before Nivedano calls you back.

Collect all these experiences. You have to bring them with yourself, you have to make them part of your daily life.

And remember these three things, these three steps....

First, Gautam Buddha follows you like a shadow.

Second, you become a shadow of Gautam Buddha.

And third, you disappear even as a shadow and become one with Gautam Buddha....

A pure consciousness...

A white cloud floating in the sky of ultimate freedom...

As you come back, persuade the buddha to come along with you.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back... but slowly, peacefully, gracefully, showing your buddha nature.

Sit down for a few moments just to remember where you have been, where you are.

Has there been an experience? Can that experience remain twenty-four hours with you like a shadow?

It is your very nature, hence there is no question. It can become your very breathing, your very heartbeat.

And look... feel the presence of Buddha behind you.

If the first step is taken, the second is not far away, and the third is the easiest.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.