The Zen Manifesto 11
This lecture (April 10, 1989) was meant to be the beginning of a
new series, called "The Awakening of the Buddha". It turned out to
be Osho′s last lecture and it was therefore renamed The Zen
Manifesto 11, and published together with the previous 10 lectures
of the Zen Manifesto series.
This lecture ends with the final recommendation: "Remember that you
are a buddha - sammasati."
Part 1:
Beloved Osho,
Tozan had a question about whether inanimate objects expound the
Dharma. Tozan visited Isan, who recommended that he go to see Ungan.
With Ungan, Tozan was first made aware of the Truth, and he composed
the following Gatha to record his experience:
"How wonderful! How wonderful!
The inanimate expounding the Dharma -
What an ineffable Truth!
If you try to hear it with your ears,
You will never understand it.
Only when you hear it through the eye,
Will you really know it."
Ungan asked him, "Are you happy now?"
Tozan answered, "I do not say that I am not happy, but my happiness
is like that of someone who has picked up a bright pearl from a heap
of garbage."
For a while after his enlightenment, Tozan continued to travel
around China. One day he arrived at Leh T′an and met the head monk
Ch′u.
Ch′u greeted Tozan and said: "Wonderful, wonderful - the
inconceivable realms of Tao and Buddha!"
Tozan responded, "I don′t know about these realms. Who is talking of
them?"
Ch′u remained silent and Tozan shouted, "Speak!"
Ch′u then said, "No need to fight about it. That is the way to
miss."
Tozan replied, "If it has not been mentioned, how can there be
fighting and missing?"
Ch′u could make no answer to this.
Tozan then said, "Buddha and Tao - next you will talk of sutras."
Ch′u replied, "What do the sutras say about this?"
Tozan responded, "When all is understood, words are forgotten."
Ch′u said, "This is sickness of the mind."
Tozan said, "Is this sickness slight or severe?"
Ch′u could make no reply to Tozan.
Friends,
Before the sutras there are a few questions from the sannyasins.
The first question:
Gesta Ital, a former German actress, was the first western woman
who was allowed to enter in a Zen monastery in Japan and to work
with an enlightened Master.
She wrote two books about her path and her experience of
enlightenment. When I read these books I had the impression of a
very hard and lonely path. Being with you is much more joyful and
playful. Would you like to say something about this difference?
The traditional Zen is hard. It takes twenty to thirty years of
constant meditation, withdrawing from everywhere all your energy and
devoting it only to meditation. That tradition comes from Gautam
Buddha himself. He had to find his enlightenment after twelve years
of hard work.
I am changing it completely from the traditional Zen, because I
don′t see that the contemporary man can devote twenty or thirty
years to meditation only. If Zen remains that hard, it will
disappear from the world. It has already disappeared from China, it
is disappearing from Japan, and it disappeared from India long ago.
It remained in India for only five hundred years after Gautam
Buddha. In the sixth century it reached China, remained there for
only a few centuries, and moved to Japan. And now it is almost
extinct from both China and Japan.
You will be surprised to know that my books are being taught in the
Zen monasteries. Zen masters have written letters to me: "Perhaps
now Zen will exist in India, in its original place. It is
disappearing from Japan because people are more interested in
technology, in science."
That is the situation in India too. Very few people are interested
in the inner exploration. Here you can find a few people from every
country, but these are so few compared to the five billion human
beings on the earth. Ten thousand is not a great number.
Zen has to be transformed in a way that the contemporary man can be
interested in it. It has to be easy, relaxed, it has not to be hard.
That old traditional type is no longer possible, nor is it needed.
Once it has been explored, once a single man has become enlightened,
the path becomes easy. You don′t have to discover electricity again
and again. Once discovered you start using it - you don′t have to be
great scientists.
The man who discovered electricity worked on it for almost twenty
years. Three hundred disciples started with him and nobody remained
because it took so long; everybody became exhausted. But the
original scientist continued. His explanation to his own disciples
was, "The more we are failing in finding the root of electricity,
the closer we are going to the very root. Every failure is bringing
us closer to the discovery."
And finally, one night in the darkness, suddenly the first electric
bulb started radiating. And you cannot conceive the joy of the man
who had been working for thirty years. His silence... he was in awe.
He could not believe his own eyes that after all this time it had
happened, electricity had been controlled - "Now in our hands, how
to use it?"
His wife called to him, "Come inside the bedroom, it is the middle
of the night. Put the light out!"
She was not aware that it was no ordinary light, and that the
scientist had called her - "Come here and be the first to see
something original. You will be the first person I will introduce to
the secrets of electricity."
Now, you don′t have to work for thirty years to know about
electricity. Nor do you have to work thirty years for the Zen
experience.
The awakening of the buddha is a very easy and relaxed phenomenon.
Now that so many people have awakened, the path has become
clear-cut; it is no longer hard and arduous. You can playfully enter
inside and joyously experience the awakening of awareness. It is not
as far away as it was for Gautam Buddha.
For Gautam Buddha it was an absolute unknown. He was searching for
it like a blind man, knowing nothing about where he was going. But
he was a man of tremendous courage, who for twelve years went on
searching, exploring every method available in his time... all the
teachers who were talking about philosophy and yoga. He went from
one teacher to another, and every teacher finally said to him, "I
can tell you only this much. More than this I don′t know myself."
Finally, he remained alone, and he dropped all yoga disciplines. He
had his own five disciples, who thought that he was a great ascetic.
But when they saw that he had dropped all yoga discipline, and he
was no longer fasting, they dropped him. All those five disciples
left him - "He has fallen from his greatness; he is no longer a
saint; he has become ordinary."
But in that ordinariness, when he had dropped everything - just
being tired and exhausted - that fullmoon night when the five
disciples left him, he slept under the bodhi tree, completely free
from this world and completely free from the very search for that
world. For the first time he was utterly relaxed: no desire to find
anything, no desire to become anything. And in that moment of
non-desiring, he suddenly awakened and became a buddha. Buddhahood
came to him in a relaxed state.
You don′t have to work for twelve years, you can just start from the
relaxed state. It was the last point in Gautam Buddha′s journey. It
can be the first point in your journey.
And the first thing Gautam Buddha did after he became awakened was
to go in search of those five disciples to share what had happened
to him. And when he reached those five disciples... they saw him
coming - it is a very beautiful story.
They decided, "Gautama is coming, but we are not going to pay any
respect to him. He has stopped being a holy man; he has started
living a relaxed and comfortable life."
But as Buddha came closer, all the five disciples stood up. Although
they had decided not to pay him any respect, in spite of their
decision, they could see that Gautama had changed completely - "He
is no more the same person we used to know. He is coming with such a
silence, with such contentment. It seems he has found it." And they
all touched Gautam Buddha′s feet.
And Gautam Buddha′s first statement to them was, "When you had
decided not to pay attention to me, why are you paying such
respect?"
All those five asked to be forgiven. They said, "We were thinking
you were the same old Gautama. We used to know you - for five years
we have been together, but you are not the same person anymore."
Enlightenment is such a transformation that you are a totally
different person. The old person dies away, and a totally new
awareness, a fresh bliss, a flowering, a spring which has never been
there...
It took twelve years for Gautam Buddha. It need not take even twelve
minutes for you. It is simply an art, to relax into yourself. In the
traditional Zen they are still doing whatever Buddha did in his
ignorance, and finally they drop it.
I am telling you, why not drop it right now?
You can relax this very moment!
And in that relaxation you will find the light, the awareness, the
awakening.
What has happened to Gesta Ital, is not necessarily an introduction
to Zen. She has been in the company of old and traditional Zen
masters. I understand Zen to be a very simple, innocent, joyful
method. There is nothing ascetic in it, nothing life-negative - no
need to renounce the world, no need to become a monk, no need to
enter a monastery. You have to enter into yourself. That can be done
anywhere.
We are doing it in the simplest way possible. And only if Zen
becomes as simple as I am trying to make it, can the contemporary
man be interested in it. Otherwise he has so much to do - so many
things to do, so many paths to explore, so many things to distract
him.
Zen has to become such a small playful thing, that while you are
going to sleep - just before that - within five minutes you can
enter into yourself, and you can remain at the very center of your
being the whole night. Your whole night can become a peaceful,
silent awareness. Sleep will be in the body, but underneath it there
will be a current of light from the evening till the morning.
And once you know that even in sleep a certain awareness can be
present inside you, then the whole day, doing all kinds of things,
you can remain alert, conscious. Buddhahood has to be a very normal,
ordinary, simple and human affair.
The second question:
I cannot put it into words how much I am always touched by the
beauty of your expressions - in your words, your gestures and now
especially in your paintings.
What exactly happens when you are sitting in front of an empty
paper?
Is there still an urge for artistic creativity when one is
enlightened?
Could you please tell us about Zen and art and creativity?
Zen prevents you from nothing. It opens everything that is
potential in you. If you have a potentiality of being a painter, Zen
will open it - you may not have been aware of it. If there is a
potentiality for poetry, Zen will open that potentiality, and for
the first time you will start thinking in poetry, not in prose.
The same is true about music or dance, or scientific exploration.
Any kind of original experiences, Zen allows you. It is not
preventive of anything. It is affirmative, the most affirmative
experience in life. It simply makes you aware of all that is hidden
in you, of all that you have never looked at. It not only makes you
aware, it helps you to explore that potentiality.
Zen is not a dry, desertlike experience, it is very juicy, a
beautiful garden - a spring in your life where flowers suddenly
start opening up. One never knows what is going to happen to him
when he becomes aware. It is not a decision on your part, it is not
a choice. It is a choiceless, simple experience - you start moving
into a certain direction. Suddenly that direction becomes so full of
life, so attractive that you can devote everything to it.
Zen is a very creative experience; it is not like other religions.
All the religions are non-creative. In fact, the so-called saints
don′t do anything. They are not great poets, they are not great
dancers, they are not great musicians. But the real and authentic
saints, who are very few among the so-called saints...
Just the other day I received the information that this pope in his
four years of office has made more than two thousand people saints.
It is a certificate. He goes on giving certificates to all kinds of
people who can donate money. Now the Catholic church owns the
biggest bank in the world - the Bank of America. The Catholic church
owns the greatest amount of land in the world - more than any other
country.
The method in the past has been war, killing people. Thousands of
people have been killed just to take possession of their properties,
or they have been forced to become Catholics. A single Catholic
emperor, Constantine, killed ten thousand people in a single day. He
just called an assembly of all those who were not Catholics in a
great auditorium in Rome, and ordered the army to shoot everybody:
"We don′t want anybody other than Christians in Rome." He forced the
whole of Italy to become Christian... just at the point of the gun.
The whole history of Christianity is of wars and nothing else -
killing and violence. And the same is true about the other religions
in a lesser measure; they are destructive. They are destructive in
many ways. They destroy people by creating guilt, by making them
sinners, by forcing them to renounce the world and all that is
pleasant, and to go into hardships unnecessarily. But those who go
into hardships are respected and their hardship has nothing to
contribute to the world, only sickness, only guilt. All your saints
are together enforcing guilt in you.
So in this way they destroy humanity, and in other ways they kill
people because they don′t belong to their fold. They force people -
either by the sword, or with bread. In the past they used to come
with a sword, now they come with bread. The poor have been always
vulnerable to being converted, either by force or by bribery. But
this is not religiousness at all, this is pure politics.
Zen is an authentic religious experience. Its authenticity is in its
opening of creativeness in human beings. Zen masters have never
killed anyone. They have not forced anyone to their path; on the
contrary, you have to go to them. And it has been very difficult to
be accepted; the masters have been very choosy. Unless you show an
immense desire and longing, they will not initiate you; the question
of conversion does not arise.
You have to go to the well, the well does not come to you. The well
does not even invite you, it is simply there, available.
The third question:
When energy goes inward, it turns into thoughts, feelings, emotions, and when energy goes outward it turns into relationships with beings and nature. But when energy does not move inward or outward, it is just there pulsating, vibrating. Then it is one with the existence, one with the whole. Is this Zazen?
Exactly. When the energy is just there - not going anywhere, just
pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light there,
blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in - it is
simply here and now.
When I say go inward, I am simply saying don′t go on moving in the
head.
The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All
education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the
energy only in the head - how to make you a great mathematician, how
to make you a great physician. All the education in the world
consists of taking the energy into the head.
Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source -
from where the educational system around the world has been taking
the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts,
images, and creating thinking. It has its uses. It is not that Zen
is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the
energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your
eternity. You may become a very great thinker and philosopher, but
you will never know, as an experience, what life is. You will never
know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole.
When the energy is just at the center, pulsating... When it is not
moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at
the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it...
pulsating at the very source - that is the very meaning of Zazen.
Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. A
tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and
love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can
take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the
source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can
relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. It
does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply
means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the
source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the
head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the
heart.
But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking
you have to relax back into your center - that keeps the Zen man
constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds him; it
is not an act, it is simply radiation.
Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting.
Sitting where? Sitting at the very source. And once in a while, if
you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental
activities without any disturbance, you can manage all heart
activities without any difficulty. And still, whenever you have
time, you need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily
feel, you can just be.
Just being is Zazen.
And if you can just be - only for a few minutes in twenty-four hours
- that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood.
Before the sutras, a little biographical note...
Tozan Ryokai, a disciple of Ungan, was born in China in 807, and
died in 869. He originally was a member of the Vinaya sect, but
later became interested in Zen and set out on a journey to find a
Master.
The Vinaya sect is the Buddhist name of the people who are
interested in the scriptures, in the words of the masters in a
philosophical and scholarly way. They are mentally active, but they
are not moving into the experience themselves. They gather as much
knowledge as possible, they become very wise. They know all the
answers that are in the sutras, but they don′t have a single
experience of their own.
Tozan was first a scholar, studying all the literature - and
Buddhism has the greatest literature in the world. Compared to any
other religion it has more scriptures.
Just as Gautam Buddha died, his disciples became separated into
thirty-two branches. Immediately there were thirty-two branches of
scholarship, of different scriptures and sutras, pretending to be
authentic, pretending to be the only true ones. The problem was that
for forty-two years Gautam Buddha was teaching, morning and evening
- a few people heard a few things, a few people heard a few other
things.
In forty-two years he was constantly moving from one place to
another place. Obviously there were different people who had heard
different things from him, and they compiled sutras. Immediately
thirty-two branches started. Gautam Buddha had not written a single
word, but every branch pretended to be the authentic one - "this is
what Buddha said..."
It is very difficult now to find out what actually was said by
Gautam Buddha, and what was added by the disciples. So there is a
great scholarship in the Buddhist world where people search into
scriptures trying to find what is authentic and what is not.
Just recently, the same kind of scholarship has started in Europe.
The professors and the very scholarly Christians have formed a
special committee, the Biblical Scholars. And they are now searching
for what exactly was said by Jesus, and what has been added by
others - what is fiction, what is myth, what is truth.
Just a few days ago, Pope the Polack declared to all the Catholics
of the world: "Don′t listen to the Biblical Scholars" - because the
Biblical Scholars are taking out many things which have been added
to the Bible which are not true. Events, miracles, the virgin birth,
the resurrection... the Biblical Scholars are taking all those
things out. It is agreed that they are the most scholarly group in
Europe concerning the Bible.
They meet every few months, and they discuss papers. And if you
listen to them, almost ninety percent of the Bible disappears. And
they are absolutely right, because for the first time they are
searching at the roots from where this saying, this statement, this
gospel, has come. A few are found to be in the ancient scriptures of
the pagans, and those scriptures have been destroyed so that nobody
can prove that Jesus ever said these things.
Even the idea of the virgin birth is more ancient than Jesus. It was
a pagan god, a Roman god who was thought to be born from a virgin,
and to the same god, the crucifixion happened. And to the same god
is connected the idea of the resurrection. All that has been taken
and compiled into the Bible. The pagans have been destroyed, their
temples have been burned, their scriptures have been destroyed. Now
these Biblical Scholars are trying to find ways and methods to
uncover the facts from contemporary literature about when Jesus was
alive.
One of the gospels was written in India - the fifth gospel of
Thomas. It has not been included in the Bible, for the simple reason
that it was not available to Constantine, who was compiling, and who
was deciding what was to be included and what was not to be
included. It was because of him that all these ideas and mythologies
and fictions have been added to the life of Jesus.
The same is true about Buddhist literature: much is borrowed from
Hindu literature; much is borrowed from Jaina literature, because
these were contemporaries. And a few contemporaries of Buddha have
left no literature behind, but they were also teaching in the places
where Buddha was teaching, so many of their teachings have been
compiled and mixed with Gautam Buddha′s.
A very scholarly tradition exists in Zen to find out the original
teachings of Buddha. But even if you can find what is the original
statement and what is not, that does not mean you can become
enlightened. You may know exactly what Buddha said, but that will
not make any difference to your consciousness.
Tozan was first a scholar, and found that however you go on trying
to know and find the original sources, you still remain ignorant.
You become a great knower, but deep down you know nothing about
yourself. And the question is not to know what Buddha said, the
question is to know your own inner buddha, your own inner
consciousness.
After being in the scholarly Vinaya sect, he became interested in
Zen.
Part 2:
And a master need not be a scholar - it is not a necessity. He may be a scholar - that is accidental. What is necessary and existential is his own knowing, his own experience.
So he went in search of a man who himself knows what is the truth, and who can tell him the way to it.
The sutra:
Beloved Osho,
Tozan had a question about whether inanimate objects expound the
Dharma. Tozan visited Isan, who recommended that he go to see Ungan.
His inquiry was whether inanimate objects in the world expound
the dharma, the ultimate truth - whether you can find in the
objective world the ultimate truth.
That′s what science is trying to do - trying to find the ultimate
truth in objects. You cannot find it in objects. But this is part of
the Zen tradition, that also...
Isan was himself a master, but he recommended Tozan to go to see
Ungan, seeing that Tozan was a scholar. Isan was not a scholar - he
was a master, he knew his own buddhahood. But seeing that this man
Tozan was bound to ask philosophical questions, he sent him to
Ungan, who was a master and a scholar.
With Ungan, Tozan was first made aware of the Truth, and he composed the following Gatha to record his experience:
"How wonderful! How wonderful!
The inanimate expounding the Dharma -
What an ineffable Truth!
Ungan told him to be in silence. And as you become silent,
everything around you starts expounding the truth: the trees and the
mountains... all the objects become suddenly aflame, afire with
truth. If you are sitting silently in your own source of being, then
everything in the world indicates towards the ultimate.
When he found his source he wrote this gatha:
"How wonderful! How wonderful!
The inanimate expounding the Dharma -
What an ineffable Truth!
If you try to hear it with your ears,
You will never understand it.
Only when you hear it through the eye,
Will you really know it."
He is talking about the third eye. As you go inwards... your
energy is in the head. First it has to pass the third eye. Going
deeper it will pass through the heart, the fourth center - and the
whole energy is at the first center. From there it can rise back to
the seventh center in the head.
But if you remain hung up in the seventh center only, you will never
know as an experience what is truth. You have to come down to the
depths, to the valleys of your being. You have to reach to the very
roots from where you are joined with the whole.
Ungan asked him, "Are you happy
now?"
Tozan answered, "I do not say that I am not happy, but my happiness
is like that of someone who has picked up a bright pearl from a heap
of garbage."
For a while after his enlightenment, Tozan continued to travel
around China.
He is saying that unless you see it yourself, there is no other
way to know it. You cannot hear it from somebody else. No buddha can
preach it to you, no master can teach it to you. They all can only
make gestures. They all can only indicate their finger towards the
moon, but the finger is not the moon. You have to drop looking at
the finger, and to start looking at the moon. When you look at the
moon yourself, you know the beauty of it. You cannot know that
beauty by looking at the finger pointing to the moon.
All knowledge is pointing to the moon. All sutras, all scriptures
are pointing to the moon - just fingers. And people are clinging to
the fingers, they have completely forgotten that the fingers are not
the point. The moon is far away, the finger is only pointing towards
it. Don′t cling to the finger; forget the finger. Forget all
knowledge, all scriptures, and look at your truth yourself.
It is not a question of your ears, it is a question of your very
eye, your inner eye. Unless you look inside... you cannot know it by
hearing, or by reading. Becoming knowledgeable is not becoming a
buddha, but becoming an innocent child, reaching to the sources
playfully without any seriousness, joyously and cheerfully,
dancing... Take your energy to the very source and remain there just
for a few moments, and you will be filled with a new experience
which goes on growing every day.
Soon you find you are filled with light - not only filled, but the
light starts radiating around your body. That′s what has been called
the aura, and what Wilhelm Reich was trying scientifically to prove.
But he was forced into an insane asylum because people could not
understand what he was talking about - "What radiation is he talking
about?"
But now, Kirlian photography is able to take the photograph of your
life aura around your body. The healthier you are, the bigger is the
aura. In your happiness it dances around you; in your misery it
shrinks. When a miserable person was used as an object by Kirlian,
he could not find any aura in the photograph - the aura had shrunk
inside. But when he photographed children dancing and enjoying,
joyfully plucking the wildflowers or collecting stones on the
seabeach, he found such a tremendous aura around them.
The same aura has been found around the buddhas. And it is almost
miraculous that although no photography was available in the times
of Buddha or Krishna, the paintings, the statues all have the aura -
a round aura around the head.
Once you have seen your own life source, you start seeing the same
light radiating from every object in the world, every person in the
world. You can see from the aura whether the person is miserable or
is happy.
His master, Ungan, asked him,
Are you happy now?
Tozan was a scholar, and he knew the way a buddha speaks. And now
he himself has experienced it - you can see it in his answer. He
says, "I do not say that I am not happy, but to say I am happy will
make it a very ordinary statement. To say that I am happy is not
something great, and what I have found is so great that it cannot be
described by the word ′happiness′, it is far more. So I will not say
I am not happy. You have to understand, it is something more than
happiness. Words cannot describe it. Only this much I can say: I
have found a bright pearl in the heap of garbage."
What he is calling the "heap of garbage," is his scholarship. He has
accumulated so much knowledge unnecessarily, and all that knowledge
was only heaping up and hiding the original being - your very roots
into existence.
It is not ordinary happiness, in fact there is no word that can
describe it. ′Blissfulness′ comes closer, even closer comes
′benediction′, still closer comes ′ecstasy′. But beyond that, no
word is there; the experience is far deeper than ecstasy itself.
For a while after his enlightenment,
Tozan continued to travel around China. One day he arrived at Leh
T′an and met the head monk Ch′u.
Ch′u greeted Tozan and said: "Wonderful, wonderful - the
inconceivable realms of Tao and Buddha!"
Ch′u greeted Tozan, and in his greeting he said,
Wonderful, wonderful - the inconceivable realms of Tao and Buddha!
I can see in you the very meeting of Buddha and Tao."
It is the same experience.
Tozan responded, "I don′t know about these realms. Who is talking of them?"
He is indicating to Ch′u that it is beyond words - "Look inside yourself. Who is saying these words? From where are these words coming? That source is beyond the words."
Ch′u remained silent and Tozan
shouted, "Speak!"
Ch′u then said, "No need to fight about it. That is the way to
miss."
Tozan replied, "If it has not been mentioned, how can there be
fighting and missing?"
Ch′u could make no answer to this.
Tozan then said, "Buddha and Tao - next you will talk of sutras."
"First you mention Buddha and Tao, and then you will start
talking about sutras. Once you begin to talk, there is no end to
talking, and the thing you are trying to talk about is beyond
words."
Ch′u replied, "What do the sutras
say about this?"
Tozan responded, "When all is understood, words are forgotten."
Ch′u said, "This is sickness of the mind."
Tozan said, "Is this sickness slight or severe?"
Ch′u could make no reply to Tozan.
That was the reason Isan sent him to Ungan. He was a man of great
scholarship, and once he has found his own buddha, he will become a
very great master. Ordinary teachers will not even be able to
understand him. Ch′u was an ordinary teacher of Tao and Buddhism
both. And you can see that Tozan denied even Buddha and Tao. Those
words only indicate, they don′t describe. And he said to Ch′u, "If
you go on, soon you will start talking about sutras."
You can see his philosophical approach. Now that he has found the
truth, it is very difficult for anybody who is just a scholar even
to talk with him. He will be able to defeat any scholarly person
very easily.
Seeing that Tozan is saying that even Buddha and Tao are not exactly
the experience, Ch′u, as a teacher, said, "What do the sutras say
about this?" He is still talking about sutras - "What do the sutras
say about this unknowable, this inexpressible? You are indicating
that it is beyond Buddha and beyond Tao."
Tozan said:
When all is understood, words are forgotten.
Once you have known it, once you have tasted it, you become silent." Of course a teacher will not agree on this point.
Ch′u, in anger, said, "This is sickness of the mind."
Tozan said, "Is this sickness slight or severe?"
What kind of sickness? It is not sickness, but a teacher is
confined to the mind. You say anything beyond the mind and you are
simply talking nonsense. You are sick, you are mad, you are insane.
A teacher is confined to the mind, a master is beyond the mind.
Ch′u could make no reply to Tozan′s inquiry whether this sickness
was slight or severe.
One day the monk Akinobo, went to visit a poet friend of his. Chatting, he mentioned that he had made a collection of poems - one for each day of the year.
He read him one:
Of the new year;
What better day
To leave the world?
That very day was the fourth day of the first month of the year 1718. No sooner had he finished reciting the verse than Akinobo nodded his head and died.
Zen masters know how to live and also know how to die. They take neither life seriously nor death seriously. Seriousness is a sick way of looking at existence. A man of perfection will love to live, and will love to die. His life will be a dance, and his death will be a song. There will be no distinction between life and death.
Maneesha′s question:
Beloved Osho,
The philosopher Karl Jaspers writes in volume three of his book,
′Philosophy′: "To ask real questions about reality, man must have
thought, investigated, and oriented himself by distinctions. Real is
what can be measured, what our senses can perceive in space and time
according to rules, what can be controlled or calculated, at least,
by appropriate measures." Would you like to comment?
Maneesha, Karl Jaspers is a great philosopher, but he is not a
master. What he is saying is the definition of matter. Exactly the
word ′matter′ comes from the Sanskrit word matra. Matra means that
which can be measured. Matter means that which can be measured. And
that which cannot be measured is your reality.
Karl Jaspers is confusing reality with matter. Matter is real, but
reality is far more than matter; it also includes consciousness,
which is not measurable. You cannot measure it by any means. How
many feet of consciousness do you have, or how many miles, or how
many kilos...?
Matter is that which can be measured, and consciousness is that
which cannot be measured. And Jaspers is confining himself to matter
as the only reality. He is absolutely wrong. About matter he is
right, but about reality he is wrong, because reality is much more
than matter.
Even Karl Jaspers cannot say how many kilos of consciousness he has.
There is no way of measuring consciousness. And certainly, even Karl
Jaspers cannot deny that he has consciousness. Who is denying?
I am reminded of a small story about Mulla Nasruddin
He was talking about his generosity to friends in a restaurant. The
friends said, "You are simply talking about generosity, but we have
never seen any generous act on your part. You have not even invited
us for a cup of tea."
Mulla said, "Come on! You are all invited - the whole crowd in the
restaurant. Come to my home for dinner."
They could not believe it! They knew that this was a very miserly
man. He had been caught just because he was boasting about his
generosity.
As they were approaching his home, Nasruddin became aware about his
wife, and that he had brought a trouble to himself unnecessarily.
Now how was he going to convince his wife? In the first place, he
had gone in the morning to fetch some vegetables, and he had not
returned till evening, and now he was coming with a crowd of people.
So he told the crowd, "You understand the problem between a husband
and wife. You just remain outside for a few minutes. First let me go
in to convince my wife that I have invited a few friends."
So he went in, closed the door, and told his wife that by mistake he
had invited a crowd - "Now you have to be a help to me."
The wife said, "What can I do? There is nothing in the house - you
have been away the whole day... not even vegetables."
Mulla Nasruddin said, "That is not the point. You simply go to the
door and ask the people why they are crowding there. Obviously they
will say that I have invited them for dinner. You simply deny it.
Simply say, ′Mulla Nasruddin has not been home since morning.′ You
just go and tell them, ′Go away. He is not here.′"
The wife was puzzled, but something had to be done. She opened the
door, and Mulla Nasruddin was watching what was happening from the
second-story window. The wife said, "He is not in the house. For
whom are you waiting?"
They said, "He came with us, and he went on in front of us. We are
all witnesses. He has invited us for the dinner - perhaps you don′t
know, but he has gone inside the house."
The wife said, "He is not inside the house."
They said, "This is strange. We came with him. He has told us to
wait here. You just go in and find out. He must be inside watching,
or looking for you."
The wife would not let them in. The crowd tried to go in. The crowd
said, "We are all friends of your husband. Let us look inside!"
Mulla, seeing the situation, shouted from the upper story, "This is
absolute nonsense! When she is saying he is not in, he is not in!
Don′t you feel ashamed challenging a poor woman? He may have come
with you, but he may have gone out again from the back door."
And he himself was talking....
Just ask Karl Jaspers, "Is your consciousness miserable?" If he
denies that he has consciousness, then who is denying? Either he has
to deny it or he has to accept it, but in every case even his denial
will be a proof of consciousness.
This is a strange thing about not only Karl Jaspers, but about all
the philosophers of the world. They go on saying that only matter
exists, because matter can be experienced by eyes, by ears, by
hands, by all your senses. It can be measured, hence, it is the only
reality. But the truth is that even those who deny the existence of
the immeasurable are accepting even in their denial, consciousness.
Otherwise, who is denying?
It is very amazing that a great intellectual like Karl Jaspers, a
very respectable philosopher of this century, talks like a stupid
man. But all philosophers talk like stupid men. His saying that only
that which can be measured is real, is absolutely wrong. That which
can be measured is matter, and that which cannot be measured is also
real, but it is consciousness.
Our search is for the immeasurable. The measurable can be left to
the scientists. The mystics are concerned with the immeasurable.
End of Lecture: Gibberish Meditation
Now, it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
(Sardar Gurudayal Singh′s laughter)
"I had a parrot once," declares Codfish, drinking his rum. "He was the most incredible bird! He could imitate anything - Charlie Chaplin, Jack the Ripper, Marilyn Monroe, Pope the Polack... even Nancy Reagan!"
"Wow!" says Igor, the barman. "Where is he? What happened to him?"
"Ah!" cries the old pirate. "Times got hard, and I got hungry - I ate him!"
"You ate your parrot?" cries Igor in disgust. "What did he taste like"
"He tasted just like turkey," replies Codfish. "That parrot could imitate anything!"
"Ah!" groans Paddy, clambering into the back and lying down on the seat. "Can you take me to number five, Fergus Street?"
The cabdriver looks around at Paddy and replies, "Hey, mister, this is number five, Fergus Street!"
"Ah!" groans Paddy. "Alright! But next time, don′t drive so fast!"
Over a table set with coffee and cream cakes, Doctor Kong suddenly jumps up, grabs Sigfried by the neck, and shakes him.
"We must go this time!" shouts Karl. "We have tried six times already! We must go to the pyramids in Egypt to see the mummies!"
"MUMMIES?" screeches Sigfried, collapsing into the cream cakes in a dead faint.
Doctor Kong pours coffee on Doctor Mind′s head until he recovers.
"Come on, Mind," cries Doctor Kong, slapping him across the face. "We can do it! We have to explore this mystery of death!"
"DEATH?" screeches Mind, and he faints again into the plate of cream cakes.
Half an hour later, at the Vienna airport, Doctor Krazy Karl Kong is dragging Doctor Sigfried Mind by the collar onto the plane bound for Cairo.
"Come on, Mind!" cries Krazy Kong, huffing and puffing. "We have made it this far, we have got to see those mummies!"
"MUMMIES?" screeches Sigfried, falling in a faint on top of Nellie Knickers, the stewardess.
Kong and Nellie drag Mind to his seat, and strap him down. The plane takes off, and three hours later, arrives in the Land of the Pyramids. Kong carries the babbling Doctor Mind to the herd of rented camels, which are waiting to take them to the pharaohs′ tombs.
Doctor Kong shouts out to their guide, Abdul Babul, "Take us to the mummies!"
"MUMMIES?" screeches Mind, fainting and falling straight off his camel, nose first, into a sand dune.
Two days later, the famous psychoanalysts and their camels arrive at the huge pyramids. Doctor Kong jumps down, lights a torch, grabs Doctor Mind by the collar, and starts dragging him into the dark, mysterious crypts.
Suddenly, in the darkness, Doctor Kong trips over something.
"What is that?" screeches Mind.
"Ah! It is alright - it is only a dead cat!" exclaims Doctor Kong.
"DEATH!" screeches Mind. And he falls over in a cold faint.
"Pull yourself together, Doctor!" shouts Kong. "We are almost there!"
And Kong grabs Sigfried by the shoe, and drags him feet first towards a huge golden coffin. "Stand up!" cries Doctor Kong, propping Mind up against the wall, and handing him the burning torch.
Then Krazy Karl Kong bends over and lifts back the heavy, creaking coffin lid. The lid falls to the ground with a loud crash, and when the dust clears, Doctor Kong is left standing with his mouth wide open, gazing at the spooky sight before his eyes.
He turns and grabs the frozen Doctor Mind by the collar and pulls his face down into the coffin.
"There!" shouts Kong, in triumph. "This is a MUMMY!"
"MUMMY?" screeches Sigfried. But he just stares in disbelief, with his eyes popping out.
"MUMMY?" he screeches again. "Hey, this looks more like daddy!"
It is time:
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)(Gibberish)
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)Be silent... Close your eyes... and feel yourself completely
frozen.
This is the right moment to enter inwards.
Gather all your energy, your total consciousness, and rush towards
the inner center with deep intensity and urgency.
The center is just two inches below the navel, inside the body.
Faster... and faster... Deeper... and deeper...
As you come closer to the center of being, a great silence descends
over you, and inside a peace, a blissfulness, a light that fills
your whole interior. This is your original being. This is your
buddha.
At this moment, witness that you are not the body, not the mind, not
the heart, but just the pure witnessing self, the pure
consciousness. This is your buddhahood, your hidden nature, your
meeting with the universe. These are your roots.
Relax...
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)Relax... and just be a silent witness.
You start melting like ice in the ocean. Gautama the Buddha
Auditorium becomes an oceanic field of consciousness. You are no
longer separate - this is your oneness with existence.
To be one with existence is to be a buddha, it is your very nature.
It is not a question of searching and finding, you are it, right
now.
Gather all the flowers, the fragrance, the flame and the fire, the
immeasurable, and bring it with you as you come back.
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)Come back peacefully, silently, as a buddha.
Just for a few seconds close your eyes and remember the path and the
source you have found, and the buddha nature that you have
experienced.
This moment you are the most blessed people on the earth.
Remembering yourself as a buddha is the most precious experience,
because it is your eternity, it is your immortality.
It is not you, it is your very existence. You are one with the stars
and the trees and the sky and the ocean. You are no longer separate.
The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha - sammasati.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
(Thus spake Osho the 11th part of The Zen Manifesto (chapter 11)