Fulfilling buddhahood right where you are

Maneesha, Zen is fundamentally a device for discovering yourself. And there have been many ways to find out about yourself; you can approach from the north, or you can approach from the south.

There are a thousand doors, or perhaps no door. The question is how to convert your seeing-energy away from the outside attachment and towards the inner world. There is no object inside, there is only a watcher, an utter silence.

Because for centuries and for many, many births, we are attached to objects in the outside world, it becomes difficult to enter into a space where there is nothing to hold onto, nothing to concentrate upon. One feels afraid. The very earth underneath your feet disappears; you are just hanging in pure space.

This fear has prevented people from even thinking about meditation. To avoid it they get engaged in every kind of thing, just to look busy. If they sit silently, automatically the desire to explore the inner arises. You are carrying a great world and you have not even knocked on the doors of it.

One Sunday morning, as a bishop entered his church in New York, he was very much puzzled, shocked: standing there was a man looking just like Jesus Christ. And to all practical purposes, this was just not possible. He seemed to be a hippie. Jesus lived a hippie life - but how to decide?

He asked the man, "What are you doing here?"

The man said, "You are asking me? I should ask you what you are doing here. I am Jesus Christ!"

The bishop started trembling. He said, "My God, I had never thought this encounter would happen."

Now, how to decide whether this man was a hippie or really Jesus Christ? He looked like Jesus Christ. He immediately phoned Rome, and asked the pope, "This is the situation - I'm caught.

Nobody is here, the people of the congregation have not come yet, it is still early morning, and a young man looking like Jesus, but also looking like a hippie, says that he is Jesus Christ, the Lord we all have been worshipping. What should I do?"

Now the pope started scratching his head. He had never been in such a difficult situation himself - "The poor bishop!" He said, "Do one thing: look busy. Who knows? Just look busy, and inform the police that a hippie is pretending to be Jesus Christ; let them decide."

To avoid something, the simplest way is to get busy with something else.

The whole problem for someone who wants to get into meditation is to know all the tricks that the mind can play to prevent you.

Daikaku is discussing the device of meditation in a very pragmatic way and in particular detail.

THIS SCHOOL IS AN EXCEEDINGLY DEEP AND SUBTLE TEACHING; ONCE YOU HAVE HEARD IT, IT BECOMES AN EXCELLENT CAUSE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ALL TIME.

The only condition is, ONCE YOU HAVE HEARD IT. How difficult it is to hear! Our minds are so engaged: there is no space left to hear anything other than the mediocre, trivial, unnecessary things of life. We are so full of rubbish that there is no place for a diamond.

ONCE YOU HAVE HEARD IT...

There are two points to be remembered: your openness to hear, and who is the man that you are hearing, whether he is a meditator or just a scholar. If you hear a scholar, even if you are open, the scholar cannot help you in any way to enter into yourself, although he may be repeating the right words, just like any enlightened one.

But the words take on a different color, a different sound, a different song, a different aliveness when they come from the lips of the awakened one. When they come from deep, meditative consciousness, they carry around them some fragrance - it is invisible - which is more important than the dictionary meaning of the words.

Hearing can be of tremendous importance if the hearer is open and what is heard is not repetitive, parrot-like - like a scholar, a rabbi, a pundit.

If a man is saying what he knows himself, without quoting the scriptures, if he is quoting himself in this situation where the hearer is ready and open and the meditator himself is ready to shower, then the miracle happens. Something invisible is sown in the heart of the hearer.

ONCE YOU HAVE HEARD IT, IT BECOMES AN EXCELLENT CAUSE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ALL TIME.

AN ANCIENT SAID, "THOSE WHO HEAR THIS, EVEN IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE, HAVE BLESSINGS GREATER THAN HUMANS OR GODS."

A very strange statement, but very beautiful and true.... It does not matter whether you believe or not. Those who ask you to believe in what they say are slave creators. What I am saying to you - it does not matter whether you believe it or not, what matters is whether you hear it or not. If it is truth, just hearing is enough, believing is not needed. Believing is needed only when it is not truth, but only a quotation from the scriptures, from other buddhas. When it is not coming from your own heart-source, it does not have the freshness of the breeze passing through the pines, it does not have the freshness of the rose in the rain, it does not have the aliveness of a small child just born. It is stale, it is dead, and dead words are very dangerous. It is just like a dead corpse - it looks exactly like the living man, only it does not breathe. There is no other difference.

Those who have learned the strategy of stopping their breath for long times - and there are many techniques for it - they can play the game....

I have told you about one Zen master who said to his disciples, "Today I'm going to die. Don't prevent me, enough is enough! I have been with you, I have tried my best and now the time has come, I have to leave. But I don't want to leave in an unoriginal way. Find some original way for me to die."

His disciples looked at each other, "Original way to die? People simply die!"

There was silence. Finally, one man said, "Just lie down on your bed and die."

The master said, "That is too common, too mediocre." Almost ninety-nine point nine percent of people do it that way. The bed is the most dangerous place in the world.

He said, "As far as I'm concerned, the moment the lights are off I jump out of bed. I lie down on the floor, that is safer. To sleep in a place where ninety-nine point nine percent of people have died, to sleep in that place? - I wonder how people can manage to sleep. Don't ask me to be so unoriginal.

Just suggest some way that is absolutely new."

One man said, "I have heard about a buddha who died sitting in the lotus posture."

But somebody else said, "That is not new. A few more have died the same way. It is unique, but not original, not ultra-original."

Another man suggested, "I have looked in the whole history of Zen, and there has only been one monk who died standing."

The old master said, "My God, that means I cannot even die standing. Somebody has done it already; it will be a repetition. Listening to you all I was wondering if you have ever heard of anybody dying standing on his head?"

They all looked at each other and said, "We have never heard of anybody dying standing on his head."

The master said, "That is perfectly original, so I'm going to do it. Look!"

He stood on his head and died.

Now, a man, dead, standing on his head... even alive it is difficult to stand on your head. The disciples were very much disturbed: "What to do now? It is suspicious... whether he is really dead or pretending."

They tried listening to his heart - no sound. They tried to hear his breathing - no sign. But a certain ritual has to be performed before a great master is put on the funeral pyre, and they were afraid that there might be a mistake, that they might put a living master on the funeral pyre. The funeral pyre was ready in the grounds of the monastery. Somebody said, "His sister is also a great master; she is just in the nunnery close by. And she is older than him - he is ninety and she is ninety-three. If anybody can do anything, that is the right person."

Somebody ran away and called the sister. She came, saying, "He is so mischievous. From the very beginning he has been doing mischievous things, but now he should die like a gentleman. He is making a mockery of death."

She came and hit him, and he fell. And he started laughing.

She said, "You behave! Death is an important occasion. Just go to your bed and die silently. I'm going. I will not be coming back if somebody comes to call me; I have other things to do." In the East, when the older sister says something, when an older person says something, one has to follow.

The old master, laughing, put his body on the bed and said to his disciples, "Okay, I close my eyes.

Take me to the funeral pyre."

They said, "Now we are even suspicious about whether you will be dead on the bed too."

He said, "Believe me, this time I'm really going to die."

But they waited. They took their time, just making excuses - that they were making the funeral pyre, and watching him to see whether he gave any sign. And he did give - he opened one of his eyes and just looked at what was happening, and said, "Be quick, I'm dead," and he closed his eyes.

Finally, they had to put him on the funeral pyre not knowing exactly whether he was dead or not.

AN ANCIENT SAID, "THOSE WHO HEAR THIS, EVEN IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE, HAVE BLESSINGS GREATER THAN HUMANS OR GODS."

The blessing is in the hearing, not in the belief. Belief is pure poison; never believe a thing.

Experiment, live it thoroughly so that you can say on your own authority that it is true. Never say, "I believe in it," because that is the statement of an ignorant man. It is better to say, "I don't know." That at least shows your honesty; that at least shows that you are not a hypocrite; that at least shows your innocence.

But all over the world you will find people talking about things of which they know nothing. Everybody is talking about God, and there is not a single case, as a fact, of God encountering any man. They are talking about the son of God. Now almost half of the world is Christian: they believe that Jesus is the only begotten son of God. There is no sign of God anywhere.

First, God has to be proved, then it has to be proved that he has a wife, then it has to be proved that they don't follow birth control.... There are so many practical things first to be decided!

There is no God. Still, millions of people believe that Jesus is the son of God. The whole of humanity has believed in all kinds of things, and that has kept your intelligence very low. Even your very intelligent people are on average using only fifteen percent of their intelligence. Eighty-five percent of their intelligence is a sheer wastage.

You will be happy to know that the University of Oregon did a survey about the commune: how much intelligence the commune people have and how much intelligence the average Oregonian has. They were surprised, shocked.

They did not publish the survey until after I had left and was deported from America. But now the survey is published and it says that the average Oregonian has only seven percent intelligence, and the average commune member had fourteen percent intelligence - double that of any Oregonian.

And the research is being done by the Oregonians. You might think that people who have seven percent intelligence cannot judge about people who have fourteen percent. They must have tried to bring their intelligence as high as possible. My understanding is that it cannot be more than three or four percent; seven is make-believe. And the commune people must have nearabout twenty; they were reduced to fourteen.

But still, it is so obvious that the lower intelligence destroys the higher intelligence.

Stones are very much against the flowers.

Belief is of the ignorant people who do not want to explore the truth themselves. But a man of sincerity never believes in anything - any God, any scripture, any religion. He searches.

Daikaku is giving you his method for exploring the inner world.

THOSE WHO STUDY, EVEN WITHOUT ATTAINMENT, EVENTUALLY REACH BUDDHAHOOD.

Those who hear a living word immediately reach to their very being. But those who study the dead word, even without attainment, but with the desire, the longing, the seed somehow gets planted even through study. It may take a longer time, perhaps lives, to come to attainment, but even those who study without attainment eventually reach buddhahood.

Zen's greatest contribution is that it raises everybody's dignity to the highest. Everybody is a buddha.

You may attain it, you may not attain it; it is your decision. But the buddha will wait just behind you, deep inside you, and it will wait from eternity to eternity. Any day, any moment, you can open your eyes and see it. You can go in and say, "Hi!"

A MONK ASKED DAIKAKU: "HOW SHOULD I REST MY MIND; HOW SHOULD I USE MY MIND?"

DAIKAKU SAID: THE NO-MIND HAS NO ATTACHMENT TO APPEARANCES; DETACHMENT FROM APPEARANCES IS THE CHARACTER OF REALITY.

The mind is nothing but many attachments, many thoughts, many identities, and the no-mind cuts through all these and makes a silent space in you. Through no-mind you come to know the character of reality. Mind keeps you dreaming, imagining, fantasizing. It never allows you to see reality as it is.

You are almost always imposing your idea on the reality. And your mind is capable enough: if you give it the power it can create even unreal things, as if they are real.

Where I used to live, in the village, by the side of my house there was a small, very narrow street going nowhere except to the house of a brahmin priest who was also a teacher. In the middle of the street, just by the side of my house, there used to be a huge neem tree.

The neem tree is thought by Indian medicine to have a very purifying effect on the air, on the atmosphere. Its leaves are thought to treat many diseases, and just the wind that passes through it gets purer. Every old house used to have neem trees around it. But there is only one danger: in neem trees ghosts live.

And this was a very ancient tree. When we purchased that house, the only problem was that it had been for sale for many days and nobody was ready to purchase it because of this old neem tree.

And the sign of ghosts was clear.

In India, if somebody is suffering or is possessed by a ghost, he is taken to a neem tree. Some mantras, some Vedic rituals are done, and a big nail is hammered into the tree with the idea that the ghost is now joined with the tree and he cannot leave the tree. And on this tree there were so many big nails - who would purchase the house?

I told my father, "You don't be worried, you just purchase it. As far as ghosts are concerned, I will deal with them."

He said, "What are you saying? It is an ancient tree and everybody is prohibiting: 'Don't purchase it. Even if it is given free, don't take it.'"

But we had a need for a house. Finally I convinced him, "Don't be worried. We will cut the neem tree, and when we cut the neem tree and throw it into the river, the ghosts will all go with the tree.

They are nailed, they are not free."

He said, "That's true, they are nailed."

Because of that neem tree it was such a joy for me. The brahmin priest who was also a teacher in the high school, was my teacher also. He talked very much about bravery and this and that. And in the night when he would come home, because he used to do private tuition, he would run, saying, "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama! Hare Krishna, Hare Rama!" And he would run, because that was the dead end - his house.

I asked him one day, "You are such a brave man. I don't see you doing this 'Hare Rama, Hare Krishna' anywhere else except near the neem tree."

He said, "That neem tree is dangerous."

One of my fellow students used to go to his house at night to study, and he was very much afraid.

His teacher was afraid, his father was afraid - but that was the shortcut; otherwise they had to go almost one mile round, then they would reach there - so he used to bring a lamp.

I told him, "You are stupid. In darkness you may escape, but if you have a lamp you are declaring yourself. The ghost cannot see in the darkness, but in the light of the lamp..."

He said, "You seem to be right." He asked the teacher.

The teacher said, "No, don't be worried. But he has a point. If you see some ghosts in the darkness, you can escape, this way or that way. But if you have a lamp, the ghosts will go directly towards you."

But he said, "Without a lamp I cannot enter this street."

So the teacher said, "Don't be worried."

The boy said, "You are asking about being worried? - I'm so afraid I cannot go home now." I had made him so afraid with so many stories about the ghosts of the neem tree - that they jump over people, that it was not one ghost but almost a company, a whole regiment - that he demanded of the teacher, "You please come with me, at least to the main road."

He said, "I can do it one day, but not every day."

I was sitting up in the tree with an old kerosene oil drum. The teacher came with great braveness, to show his disciple that there was no hurry. But then I beat the drum and threw it on the teacher so that his head was covered... and there was so much havoc! He fell down, the student fell down, the whole neighborhood gathered, "What is the matter?"

I also came down to ask, "What is the matter?"

The teacher looked at me and said, "Please save me!"

So I said, "What is the matter? I was just going to sleep and I heard this noise. But it has happened before also. It is better that you should go the long way. This way is dangerous."

Even the teacher was trembling, perspiring... "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama," because who knows?...

he had to go back also.

The boy went home and the teacher said, "What am I supposed to do now?"

I said, "You have to go through the dangerous place. I cannot help; anything is possible. It is not one ghost. If it was one ghost I could have convinced him not to bother you, but there is almost a regiment."

He said, "Then it is better I go the other way."

I said, "You go the other way, but never talk about your bravery and all those things that you teach in the school."

It was very difficult to find a woodcutter to cut the tree. My father wanted to remove it, because it was an unnecessary trouble for all the neighbors. And who knows? - it might be true.

So I brought an old Mohammedan who said, "I don't believe in ghosts." He was a very old Mohammedan. I frightened him as much as I could.

I said, "Don't take this risk. You are old enough, and it is almost a regiment."

He said, "Don't be worried."

The more I frightened him... And my whole plan was that he would take it as a challenge, otherwise nobody was ready. I had gone to many woodcutters. They all had said, "That tree we cannot touch."

So this was my final device - that I started talking about ghosts, not about the tree or the cutting of the tree.

He himself proposed it, "If you want, I can cut that tree."

I said, "No, I will not say that you do that. You are old and the ghosts are many, and you will be alone. Although I will help you as much as I can, but I'm so small."

He became more and more challenged. He took his axe and told me, "Come with me. I'm going to cut the tree at the risk of my life." Everybody in the neighborhood prevented him, physically prevented him - "Don't touch that tree!"

And I asked people, "Has anybody ever seen the ghosts?" Nobody had ever seen any ghosts, except for that teacher. And that was not a ghost, it was a kerosene drum. And he was suspicious about me, because here and there he said to people, "I suspect that ghosts cannot carry kerosene drums."

But that man was so adamant: he cut the tree. There was no ghost or anything, but he became so much afraid inside of what he was doing just for the challenge... one never knows.

The day the tree was cut, he fell sick. I went to see him. He said, "You were right. Now I'm alone in the house and those ghosts torture me."

I said, "Which ghosts?"

"Those ghosts that the neem tree had; they have all come with me."

I said, "Can you show me?"

He said, "That is the trouble. If anybody else is here, they completely disappear. And when I'm alone, they torture me in such ways you won't believe - somebody is sitting on my chest, somebody is pulling my hair. And the fear is such that I cannot even scream."

That fellow died, and there was no ghost or anything. I had been up and down that neem tree a thousand times in search of the ghosts - I never found any. But the man created the phobia.

Your mind is very creative. Once it creates something, it starts believing in its reality. And it is very difficult to know with the mind what is real and what is just your imagination.

Only in a state of no-mind do all mind-created realities disappear, all ghosts disappear. A pure, absolutely silent reality arises in your vision.

Daikaku is saying, THE NO-MIND HAS NO ATTACHMENT TO APPEARANCES; DETACHMENT FROM APPEARANCES IS THE CHARACTER OF REALITY. AMONG THE FOUR MODES OF CONDUCT - WALKING, STANDING, SITTING, AND LYING - SITTING IS CONSIDERED TO BE STABLE AND TRANQUIL.

That is true, scientifically true. These are the four positions possible for the body to create a right background for the mind to become silent.

If you are asleep, you are horizontal. In a horizontal state meditation is very difficult. If too much blood is rushing into your head, it will keep you awake. That's why pillows are used all over the world: to keep the head a little above the body, so the blood flow is less. With less blood flow, you can sleep.

Standing, you are going too much against gravitation. And you cannot go on standing for a long time, you will get tired. From where does the tiredness come? It comes from the gravitation which is pulling you down. If you are standing up, you are going against the gravitation.

Those who have experimented with all the postures of the body have found that the lotus posture, the way you have seen the Buddha sitting, is the most suitable. Because the spine is erect, gravitation is the least. When the spine is erect and you are sitting, the pull of gravitation is the least. Your body can have a tremendous rest.

For the Westerner it is difficult because for centuries, because of the cold, people have not been sitting on the ground. Their bones, their body structure, make it difficult. For a Westerner to learn to sit in the lotus posture takes at least six months to do it perfectly. Now that is too much. In six months the Western mind wants to go around the whole world. Six months just to learn to sit silently - are you mad or something? And what will you do by sitting in a lotus posture?... unnecessary torture! But it is not. Sitting in that posture it is easier for the body to be at rest and yet not asleep.

The body is at rest and then you can contemplate reality.

SITTING STRAIGHT MEANS SITTING CROSS-LEGGED AS THE BUDDHAS DO.

Crossed legs help you to remain in the same position; you cannot fall, you cannot doze off. In fact it hurts so much that you cannot even think of dozing off.

But scientifically, being in a cross-legged lotus posture is perfect. You have a base, and because of the crossed legs you cannot fall this way or that way. Those crossed legs will prevent you from falling. And you have to keep your spine erect - then there is less pull of gravitation and the body is at rest. You can remain in that posture for hours once you have learned it.

In the East, at the time of Buddha, it was an ordinary posture. Everybody was sitting that way; it was nothing special to be learned.

In hot countries chairs were used only by kings. Everybody - even the richest people - were sitting cross-legged, and if you sit that way from your very childhood, your body takes to that posture very easily. It is so restful that you cannot conceive, until you sit that way, how much the body feels rested - far more rested than in sleep. And this cross-legged posture is for a certain purpose.

CONTEMPLATING REALITY MEANS SITTING MEDITATION. FORMING THE SYMBOL OF ABSORPTION IN THE COSMOS, BODY AND MIND UNMOVING, EYES HALF-OPEN...

It has been a very controversial point amongst meditators in the East. Some prefer to have the eyes closed, because even if the eyes are half-open, the world - half of the world - is visible; you cannot turn in completely. So a few have preferred closed eyes. But that has one difficulty - the moment you close your eyes, you start dreaming.

It is habitual. You have always dreamed with closed eyes. Have you ever dreamed with open eyes?

The association between dreaming and closed eyes is so old - millions of years old - that the moment you close your eyes dreams start and meditation becomes impossible. Sleep prevents it, dreaming prevents it, thinking prevents it. All these have to disappear, and only then the pure clarity of vision appears.

A few have preferred open eyes. Their idea is that once you understand clearly that all you see is illusory, then there is no need to be afraid; just see that it is just a drama, a screenplay. There is no need to be worried about it, to be attached to it or to judge it.

But it has its own difficulties. In the first place, you have to blink; you cannot keep your eyes continuously open. Blinking is absolutely necessary to keep the eyes clean, no dust should gather.

That is the function of your eyelids; they are just like the wipers of a car.

But idiots are idiots. There have been instances of self-torturing saints who have cut off their eyelids, so there is no question of blinking. They sleep with open eyes, they dream with open eyes, they wake up with open eyes. There is no question - they have simply cut off their eyelids.

But this is unnecessary and confusing, because they will not know when they are asleep and when they are awake. They will not know if they are dreaming or not. Everything will become confused.

Small children feel it. They cannot make a distinction between waking and sleeping. In sleep the child is playing with a toy and suddenly he wakes up, and he finds the toy is gone. He looks all around and starts crying, "Where is the toy?" It takes some time to learn, to experience the distinction between sleep and waking.

Because of these problems, some people like Daikaku have preferred half-open eyes. You are allowed to blink, but don't look far away, just look four feet ahead of you, exactly four feet. Your eyes cover a very limited area; nothing much can happen in that small area. The sun will not rise, the full moon will not be seen. Even seeing the faces of people is impossible unless they come very close.

You can only see their feet.

This device was created to avoid women. You should not see the face of a woman, because otherwise attachment, love, liking and all kinds of nightmares arise. Saints can be defined as people who have completely escaped from the fact that there are women in the world. They are the perfect escapists. But it is not so easy to escape from something. The more you escape from it, the more you dream of it.

If it was possible to make a window into the head, you would be surprised to see that ordinary people don't dream such ugly dreams as your saints do.

The saints can maintain for a whole day the repression of their natural desires. But when they are asleep, their control is no longer there. Then if you look through their window... it will be a really great device to make windows. For anybody who wants to become a saint, it should be compulsory that a window has to be made, and you will find it more entertaining than any television. Everything will be topsy-turvy, but utterly interesting.

But some method has to be used. I don't agree with Daikaku or Gautam Buddha on this point, that the eyes should be half-open. My understanding is that the eyes should be left naturally as they are. Sometimes you feel to close them; then close them. Sometimes you feel to open them, to see the whole horizon - then open them. And sometimes you feel just to keep them half-open - then nobody is preventing it.

You are the master of your eyes. Why should any discipline be imposed on you?

Meditation has nothing to do with your eyes, open, half-open, or closed. Daikaku thinks that if you keep your EYES HALF-OPEN, WATCHING OVER THE TIP OF THE NOSE, YOU SHOULD SEE ALL COMPOUNDED THINGS AS LIKE DREAMS.

Nonsense. At least you will believe in your nose because you are so focused on the nose. Then Jews will be the great meditators! And what about people who have nothing much of a nose, just flat ground?

It has nothing to do with it - that just by half-closing your eyes, YOU SHOULD SEE ALL COMPOUNDED THINGS AS LIKE DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, BUBBLES, SHADOWS. That can be understood with open eyes. It is a question of understanding, not of the eyes. It can be understood with closed eyes.

My own preference for meditators is to close the eyes, while all the traditions of the past have been against closed eyes. The reason is that they have never allowed their saints enough time to sleep.

If a saint is allowed only four hours to sleep, naturally, whenever he closes his eyes, he will fall into a sleep.

But a man like me goes on sleeping. My eyes say, "Now it is time to open," and I say, "Don't bother.

You will find the same world there, and the same nonsense going round. Keep your eyes completely closed as long as you can. At least for that much time you are out of the world."

If I close my eyes I don't fall asleep. I have slept in advance enough for many months.

These people were worried that if you close your eyes, you will fall asleep; if you open your eyes, you may fall into some trap, into some illusion - or into some woman, to be more honest.

But my understanding is that the more you are acquainted with women, and the more women are acquainted with you, the less is the interest. It is only acquaintance that can destroy the interest.

The more apart they are kept, the more interesting men look to women and women look to men.

The distance creates the illusion.

In my university classes girls had to sit on one side of the room, boys had to sit on the other. And the professor would sit in the middle, facing nobody, because the boys were on this side, the girls were on that side.

I immediately changed it. The first day I entered the class, I said, "Immediately get mixed and sit in front of me."

They looked at each other, "What kind of man is this? Every teacher says to be separate, not to talk to girls."

I said, "Just come in the middle. And rather than throwing small pebbles, if you want to, give a good hit! Why should you write and then throw those letters in the air? There is no need. You just take hold of the girl and get out! I'm the last one to object."

They could not believe me. They thought I was a strange fellow. They reported to the vice-chancellor that I was destroying the whole discipline, although they loved the idea very much. The vice- chancellor said to me, "You are destroying the discipline of the university."

I said, "I don't believe in this discipline. Who made this discipline? Is there any law?"

He said, "There is no law. But putting girls and boys together, they will be more interested in each other than in listening to you."

I said, "You are wrong! Keeping them separate, they are thinking of each other rather than listening to me. And I put them so close together that there is no need to be thinking about the girl. She's smelling of her perspiration, and you are stinking, you have not taken a bath for a few days. And every day like this, how long can you remain interested? I have given them every opportunity. If they want to go out they go out. They don't need my permission. And whenever they want to come in they just come silently, they don't need my permission. I am here to teach, not to make them saints or sinners. They can become whatever they want.

"The best way is to taste both - sometimes saint, sometimes sinner. Why not have the whole wavelength available to you? Once in a while be a saint: fast, say 'Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,' sit in a cross-legged lotus posture. Sometimes, just be a playboy. Having the experience of both you will transcend both. And transcendence is the real thing."

The vice-chancellor hit his own head. He said, "Transcendence? I have never heard that the university has any course for transcendence."

I said, "It may have, it may not have; but I'm going to make my students transcend all dualities of man and woman."

And you can see, here you are listening to me - nobody is interested in who is sitting beside them, whether she is a woman or a man. Maybe a woman with a beard! - all kinds of people are here, and nobody is bothered. If you are here, you are here to listen to something.

But all these saints of the past were continuously worried about the outside world. Most emphatically the man was concerned about the woman - and the woman was concerned about the man. But these are not authentic problems for a meditator. The meditator has to close his eyes and watch his thoughts, not even making the judgment that they are bubbles, or shadows, or illusions, or dreams.

The moment you make such judgments - dreams, shadows, bubbles, illusions - you are saying that you don't understand.

If it is just an illusion, there is no need to say anything; the illusion will disappear. If it is a bubble, how long can it remain? Soon it will pop off. If it is not a real woman, but just imagination, how long will it remain there? Soon the cloud will go away from the moon without scratching the moon. Anything that is illusory you need not be worried about. But all these saints were continuously worried about bubbles and shadows and illusions and dreams.

My understanding and experience of meditation is to let it be whatever it is; you just remain silent, without any concern, without any judgment, without making any appreciation or condemnation. Soon all the dust will settle, and you will be left behind in your immense glory, in your tremendous beauty, in your peaks of consciousness.

Daikaku is talking about the old pattern, old-fashioned meditation. I don't agree with it; it comes from fear.

WHEN THE EYES ARE OPEN AND YOU CAN SEE FOR A DISTANCE, YOUR MIND CAN BE DISTRACTED BY THE PROFUSION OF OBJECTS; I don't see it, because I have been looking all around; the mind is not distracted.

The mind gets distracted because you don't know anything about meditation. Once you know about meditation, your mind becomes a mirror; it reflects but it is not distracted.

YET IF YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES, YOU FALL INTO A STATE OF DARKNESS AND OBLIVION, AND YOUR MIND IS NOT CLEAR.

So what is wrong in it? Falling into darkness - it is a very beautiful, velvety darkness. Falling into oblivion - it is a great experience.

WHEN YOUR EYES ARE HALF-OPEN, YOUR THOUGHTS DON'T RACE; MIND AND BODY ARE ONE THUSNESS.

WHEN YOU EXAMINE CLEARLY, THE AFFLICTIONS OF BIRTH AND DEATH CANNOT BE APPROACHED. THIS IS CALLED FULFILLING BUDDHAHOOD RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THE MEANING OF GREAT CAPACITY AND GREAT FUNCTION.

What he is saying is basically right, but he is mixed up with the old traditional ways of meditation.

Once in a while those old methods work, in a certain situation; but I want a more scientific method that always works. It should not be a question of any accident. By accident I mean, supposing your wife dies...

A man's father died. All the elders of the neighborhood came, "Don't be worried. We are here. If you need any advice or anything, think of us as your fathers - don't be worried, there is no need."

Then his mother died, and the same happened again. All the women came, and they said, "Don't weep, don't cry. We are your mothers. You can always depend on us."

Then his wife died, and nobody came. And he was sitting in front of his house, crying and weeping.

Somebody asked, "What is the matter?"

He said, "The matter is that now nobody is coming and saying to me, 'Don't cry. If your wife has died we are here.' And for this moment I have been waiting! My father died, I did not care. My mother died, I did not care. Now my wife has died and not a single woman has the humanity and compassion to come and say to me, 'Don't be worried, I am here. I will be your wife.'"

The man asked him, "So what are you going to do?"

He said, "I'm going to become a sannyasin. This is all useless. This whole world is illusory, just talk... no reality."

Many people become sannyasins because they have nothing else to do - no employment, no qualification. I have come across many sannyasins who wanted to drop their monkhood but they were afraid that if they drop it, what will happen about their food, clothes and shelter? Because those same people who come to touch their feet will not give them employment. They will ask for certificates, they will ask for qualifications.

For sannyas, nobody asks for any qualification, no certificate is needed. In the past, most of the sannyasins of all religions were just hobos. Finding no place or achievement in life, they found sannyas the easiest way to be respectable.

I want to change the whole definition of sannyas. I want my sannyasins to be in the world, but not of it. I want my sannyasins to be in the world, but not to let the world into them.

It is very simple - just a right meditation and a right grounding in yourself, and the world cannot disturb you. Nobody has time to disturb you. Everybody is so much engaged in his own affairs and worries and sufferings. And if you can be silent in the world, then your silence has some value, some authenticity. In the Himalayas, the silence is not yours; it belongs to the Himalayas. The moment you come into the world, it will be disturbed.

For thirty years a man remained in the Himalayas meditating, and he started thinking that he had become a buddha. Then there was a great fair, a Kumbha Mela, in Allahabad, which is perhaps the greatest gathering of Hindus on the earth. So some people asked the great saint, "Now you have been thirty years in the Himalayan caves, it is time you should come down. And this is the most appropriate time, because millions of people will be at the kumbha mela. They will rejoice, seeing your peace and your silence."

He loved the idea. He came down, but in the crowd nobody knew him. Just as he entered the crowd, a man stepped on his feet. He immediately jumped and took hold of the man's neck and said, "I will kill you!" And then he remembered, "My God! What happened to thirty years in the Himalayas?

What was that silence? He has not done much, he has just stepped on my feet, but he has taken away thirty years of buddhahood."

A real silence, a real buddhahood, has to be discovered in the world - here and now. Otherwise it can be phony - most probably it will be phony. It won't have the fire test. The world is a fire test. If you can become silent here... and I don't see that there is any hindrance. We become silent here every day, and slowly, slowly the silence will flow into your being, into your daily activities.

Your buddhahood should not be an extraordinary or special thing, but just a pure innocence, reflecting the beauty of this whole universe.

A haiku by Issa:

FROM THE WHITE DEWDROPS, LEARN THE WAY.... What is he saying?

Have you seen the dewdrops on the lotus leaves? The lotus is the biggest flower in the world, and it has very big leaves floating on the water. In the night, dewdrops gather on the leaves and in the morning they slowly, slowly fall towards the lake, and they silently merge into the lake without making any fuss.

Issa is saying: FROM THE WHITE DEWDROPS, LEARN THE WAY TO THE PURE LAND. By "pure land" he means the buddha land, the buddha consciousness.

And Masushi, another master:

There is a danger on the borderline between mind and no-mind. There is a danger in going to an unknown territory; but where you are, you are just in hell. You don't recognize the hell because you are born in hell, and everybody else is in hell. Naturally, one takes it that this is what life is meant to be.

But just go a little deeper and you will land in a totally different space which will give you for the first time the joy, the bliss, the ecstasy. And what a comparison between what you have been doing up to now outside and what was hidden inside you! You were searching for stones and inside there were diamonds. You were fighting for stones and you were carrying a mine of diamonds.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, it is up to everyone's convenience.

If you feel that it is not enough to be meditative in all your activities, then it is perfectly good to have some small time just for meditation. But if you feel that you have the same joy, the same silence when you are doing your work meditatively as when you are sitting especially for meditation, then there is no need.

Ultimately, there should be no need. For the beginners I am saying, at your convenience. But finally, your whole life should be nothing but a meditation. Whatever you do should be a meditation. And there should be no separate, particularly structured timetable. That is for the beginners. And I don't think you are beginners; now it is time enough not to be beginners.

Before we enter into the meditation, a little clearance, a little lightness, a little of Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Giovanni comes home early one day and finds his wife Sofia in bed with Luigi, the carpenter.

Sofia screams; Luigi screams. Then Giovanni runs to the closet, pulls out his pistol, and faces his wife. Then he puts the barrel of the gun to his forehead.

"Oh, no! Oh, no! Poor Giovanni," cries Sofia. "Don't do that!"

Giovanni smirks at her and says, "Don't feel sorry for me, you stronza! You are gonna to be the next!"

Kowalski and Zabriski are having a few beers at the Crunchy Crumpet pub.

"Jesus Christ!" says Kowalski. "The judge really nailed me in court today."

"What happened?" asks Zabriski.

"Well," says Kowalski, "first, he fined me five hundred dollars for attempting to make love to some woman on the bus. And then, when he took a good look at her, he fined me an extra ten dollars for being drunk!"

Big Black Leroy strides into the Hoo Flung Dung Bar and Noodle House in Chinatown.

"Hey, Chink!" shouts Leroy to Five Dragons Wu behind the bar, "give me a drink!"

Wu frowns but serves Leroy a drink.

Five minutes later, Leroy is thirsty again. "Hey, Chink!" he shouts, "give me a drink!"

Five Dragons Wu scowls but serves the drink.

Leroy knocks back the drink and shouts again, "Hey, Chink, how about a drink?"

"Listen, buster," says Wu, finally, "I keep my temper. You come behind the bar and see how you like to be insulted!"

Leroy and Five Dragons Wu change places.

"Okay?" asks Wu. "Now, you nigger, give me a jigger!" "Sorry," replies Leroy, "we don't serve Chinks!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Gather all your life force and go deeper into yourself, making your life-energy just like an arrow.

Deeper and deeper....

The deeper you go, the closer you are to your buddhahood.

At the deepest, you are no more, just the buddha is.

This is the ultimate experience of the meditator.

In this moment, the dewdrop slips into the ocean and becomes the ocean.

In this moment is the whole eternity.

Life and death are just games, waves in the eternal consciousness that you are.

It is not yours individually, it is the vast ocean in which everybody is part.

This life-energy expresses itself in millions of ways:

in the roses, in the birds, in the trees, in the oceans.

It is the same life-energy in different forms.

Once you see the point, all life becomes sacred, divine.

There is no other God than this existence itself.

To make it clear, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax.

The body is there, the mind is there, you are a watcher.

This watching is the most miraculous thing.

This watching takes you to the transcendental, to the beyond, to skies beyond skies, to infinity.

The joy of it, the blissfulness of it, is inexpressible, but it brings a dance to you, and slowly slowly the dance deepens into every fiber of your being, into your twenty-four-hour activities.

Something inside goes on dancing, singing, rejoicing, for no reason at all.

Just to be in such a beautiful existence is enough to be grateful.

I know no other prayer than gratefulness - a deep gratitude to existence.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but bring with you the experience, the space, the taste of silence.

Sit down for a few moments as buddhas, remembering and reminding yourself that this is what you have to carry along in your life, that this experience of being a buddha has to become your heartbeat, your breathing, your joy, your love.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

Can we celebrate the gathering of the buddhas?