CHAPTER 6 - Awakening
26 February 1975 a.m. in Buddha Hall
DURING THREE YEARS OF SEVERE TRAINING UNDER THE GREAT MASTER
GIZAN, KOSHU WAS UNABLE TO GAIN SATORI.
AT THE BEGINNING OF A SPECIAL SEVEN-DAY SESSION OF DISCIPLINE, HE
THOUGHT HIS CHANCE HAD FINALLY COME. HE CLIMBED THE TOWER OF THE
TEMPLE GATE, AND GOING UP TO THE ARHAT IMAGES HE MADE THIS VOW:
"EITHER I REALIZE MY DREAMS UP HERE, OR THEY'LL FIND MY DEAD BODY
AT THE FOOT OF THIS TOWER."
HE WENT WITHOUT FOOD OR SLEEP, GIVING HIMSELF UP TO CONSTANT
ZAZEN, OFTEN CRYING OUT THINGS LIKE: "WHAT WAS MY KARMA THAT IN
SPITE OF ALL THESE EFFORTS I CAN'T GRASP THE WAY?"
AT LAST HE ADMITTED FAILURE, AND, DETERMINED TO END IT ALL, HE WENT
TO THE RAILING AND SLOWLY LIFTED HIS LEG OVER IT. AT THAT VERY
INSTANT HE HAD AN AWAKENING.
OVERJOYED, HE RUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS AND THROUGH THE RAIN TO
GIZAN'S ROOM.
BEFORE HE HAD A CHANCE TO SPEAK, THE MASTER CRIED: "BRAVO! - YOU'VE
FINALLY HAD YOUR DAY."
Man is the only animal who can think of, try to, or actually commit suicide. Suicide is very special. It is human.
Animals live, they die, but they cannot commit suicide. They live, but there are not any problems, life doesn't create any "angst", anguish. Life is not an anxiety for them - they simply live it; and then, as simply as they live, they simply die. Animals don't have any death consciousness. In fact, they are neither aware of life, nor of death, so the question of suicide doesn't arise. They are not conscious at all; they live in the deepest sleep of the unconscious.
Only man can commit suicide. That means that only man can do something about life or death; it means that only man can stand against life. This possibility is there because man is conscious. But remember, the problems of life, the anxiety, the tension, the anguish, or the final decision to commit suicide, do not come out of consciousness - they come out of a fragmentary consciousness.
This has to be understood deeply. A Buddha is also conscious, but he cannot commit suicide, cannot even think about it. Suicide doesn't exist for a Buddha, but he is also conscious. Why? Animals are unconscious totally; Buddha is conscious totally. With total consciousness there is no problem, or, with total unconsciousness there is no problem. In fact, to be total in any way is to be beyond problems.
A man is fragmentarily conscious: a part of him has become conscious. That creates the whole problem. The remaining, the greater part, remains unconscious. Man has become two.
One part is conscious, the remaining whole is unconscious. A discontinuity has
happened in man. He is not one whole. He is not one piece. He is double. The duality has come in. He is just like an iceberg, floating in the ocean: one-tenth is out of the water, nine-tenths is hidden underneath. The same is the proportion of human consciousness and unconsciousness: one-tenth of consciousness has become conscious, nine-tenths of consciousness is still in the 66
unconscious. Just the top layer is conscious, and the whole being remains underneath in deep darkness.
Of course there are going to be problems, because a conflict has arisen in the being. You have become two; and the conscious part is so small that it is almost impotent. It can talk, it is very articulate; it can think; but when the moment comes to do something, it is the unconscious which is needed because the unconscious has the energy to do it. You can decide that you will not be angry again, but this decision comes from the impotent part of the mind, that part which is conscious; which can see that anger is futile, harmful, poisonous; which can see the whole situation, and decide. But the decision has no power behind it, because all power belongs to the whole which is still unconscious. The conscious part decides, "I will not be angry again", and it is not - until the situation arises. When the situation arises, the conscious is pushed aside, and the unconscious surfaces. It is vital, it is forceful, it has energy, and suddenly you are overpowered. The conscious may try a little while, but it is useless -
against the tide it is nothing. When the unconscious becomes a tide and comes to take over a situation, you are possessed, you are no more yourself as you know yourself to be, your ego is thrown off-gear.
All the decisions taken by your conscious are simply insignificant: it is the unconscious which does things. Again, when the situation has gone, the unconscious recedes and the conscious comes back onto the throne. The conscious comes on the throne only when the unconscious is not there.
It is like a servant. When the emperor is not there the servant sits on the throne and orders.
Of course, nobody is there to listen to him, he is alone. When the emperor comes the servant simply has to leave the throne and listen to the emperor. The bigger part of you always remains the emperor, the lesser part remains like a servant.
Then much conflict arises, because the part that decides cannot act, and the part
that acts cannot decide. The part that sees things can think about them, but has no energy; and the part that cannot see, is completely blind, has all the energy.
In animals there are not two parts, only the unconscious exists, and with no thinking, it acts. There is no problem, because there is no inner conflict. In a Buddha, also, the same happens from the other end: the whole has become conscious. This is the meaning of enlightenment, satori, samadhi. You have again become one like an animal - one piece. Now, whatsoever Buddha decides, automatically it happens, because there is nobody against it, nobody unaware of it. There is no other in the house. Buddha lives alone in the house, so Buddha need not struggle. He sees a situation, he decides and acts. In fact, decision and action are not two in a Buddha - decision is the act. He simply sees that anger is useless, and anger disappears. There is no effort to impose on it, force it. A Buddha remains loose and natural.
He can afford to. You cannot afford to be loose and natural, because the moment you are loose and natural the unconscious comes in. You have to go on controlling yourself, and the more you control, the more artificial you become.
A civilized human being is a plastic flower. He has no vitality, no energy - and when there is no energy, there is no delight. One of the greatest English poets, William Blake, has a beautiful line about it, a very deep insight. He says: "Energy is delight." There is no other delight. The very vitality, the very energy of being, is delight, is bliss. Only impotence is misery, weakness is misery. And duality creates impotence.
And whatsoever small energy is left after you are divided in two, that too goes as wastage in the inner conflict. You are continuously fighting inside, continuously suppressing something, continuously trying to force something else. Anger comes, and you would like to be non-angry; greed comes, and you would like to be greed-less; possession comes, and you would like to be non-possessive; violence comes, and you would like to be non-violent; there 67
is cruelty, and you go on imposing compassion; there is much turmoil, and you would like to be serene and silent; something goes on inside, and you go on imposing something else on it, continuous fight dissipates the remaining energy. And this is going to be so, unless you become one again.
There are two ways to become one: either fall back to the animal, or rise up to
the Buddha.
Of course, falling back is easier. Effort will not be needed, you can simply slip back. It is downhill, no effort, and going up is difficult. Hence millions of people choose the downhill way. What is the downhill way as far as consciousness is concerned? Drugs, alcohol, sex, are the downhill way.
In a deep sexual act you again become an animal, you are no more human. The gap is bridged. In a deep sexual orgasm, the duality disappears; the controller is no more there. In a deep sexual act, your whole starts functioning as a whole. Mind is no longer there, ego is no longer there, the controller and the control are no longer there, because the sexual act is non-voluntary. Your will is not needed, your will is not required. You are no more a will, the will is surrendered. Suddenly you are back to the world, the animal world, the natural world; again you have entered into the Garden of Eden, again you are Adam or Eve - no more a civilized human being.
That's why all societies condemn sex. They are afraid of it. It is a back door to the Garden of Eden. All civilizations are afraid of sex. The fear comes, because once you know an uncontrolled existence then you would not like control at all. You can become a rebel, you can throw all the rules and regulations to the winds, you can throw Confucius to the dust.
Again you can become an animal; and civilization is afraid of it. So, sex is allowed, because if it is not allowed then too it will create trouble. It is such a deep-rooted instinct in the very biology, in the very physiology of you, in the very deeper chemistry, that if it is not allowed, it will create perversion, you may go mad. So society allows it in mild, homeopathic doses. That is the meaning of marriage - marriage is a mild, homeopathic dose controlled in a certain way.
You are allowed a little window out of society, but society still manages the outer control.
Marriage is love plus law - that "plus law" is the control around it. If love is allowed without any law, the fear is that man will fall again into an animal world.
And the fear seems to be true; the fear has meaning. Man can fall through love, because man can rise through love. Man can fall through it because the ladder is always the same whether you go up or you go down. Love can rise to such
heights that Jesus can say: "Love is God." And love can fall to such depths that society is constantly on watch, the police are always around, the magistrate is sitting there.
Love is not a freedom. Why, in love, can man fall so deep? Because in love the control is lost, the chasm is bridged, you become one piece again - but you regress to the animal world.
Love can also lead you to the Divine, but then love has to be very, very meditative. Then love has to be "love plus meditation". That is what Tantra is - "Love plus meditation". You move into love, you allow your whole being total freedom, but still, deep at the center, you remain a witness. If the witness is lost, you are going downhill; if the witness remains there, then love, the same ladder, can lead you to the very ultimate heaven.
Alcohol... all societies have been against it, but still, they have to allow it, because they know that without alcohol there would be much chaos. Alcohol has to be allowed in mild doses, legal doses; legally it has to be allowed. Why? Because it soothes people; it is a tranquilizer. And people are in such inner anguish, they need something to soothe them.
Otherwise they would simply go berserk. They would simply go mad. So no society can afford freedom about alcohol, but no society can prohibit it completely. That is not possible.
Either way it will be difficult to manage. Alcohol is a need. It is a need because the tension is so great inside that you would go made because of it.
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And then many types of drugs have cropped up - and it is not for the first time, it has been always so. From the soma of Rig Veda to LSD 25, it has always been so. Again and again drugs pop up. Again they have to be pushed down, crushed; and society tries to forget them.
But again they come back. There seems to be a deep need. The need is: a bridge is needed between the conscious and unconscious. Unless a man becomes sincerely meditative, drugs will be needed. Unless you go upwards, you will have to fall downwards.
You cannot remain static. This is one of the deeper laws of existence: nobody can remain static. Either he has to go up, or he has to fall down; because life knows no rest, it knows only movement. Either you go forward, or you will be thrown backward, but you cannot say that you will stick to your state - you will not go down and you will not go up.
No, that is not possible. If you are not going up, you are already falling down - you may or you may not know it. Only a meditative society can be free of alcohol and drugs, and other chemical ways to bridge the gap.
You can bridge the gap through being more alert, that's why there is so much emphasis on being alert, aware, witnessing, watchful. Why? Because the more you become alert, the more the unconscious becomes conscious. That is the only way. If you remain more alert, if you walk with awareness, if you talk, listen, with awareness, if you eat, take your bath, with awareness, not like a robot, not walking in sleep and doing things, or doing things and thinking about other things - that too is a sort of sleep - no, if consciously, mindfully, you do your thing, chunks of the unconscious are being transformed into consciousness, and by and by, more and more of your iceberg comes out of the water of darkness, out of the ocean.
When the whole of you is out of darkness, this is samadhi, this enlightenment; this is the state of a Buddha, or an ARHAT: one who has no longer any unconsciousness in him, one who has no longer any dark corners within his being. The whole house is lighted. Now, you have attained to a unity - on a higher plane. So a Buddha is pure like an animal, simple like an animal. The animal has its innocence because of ignorance, and Buddha has his innocence because of his enlightened awareness. The cause has changed.
This is the first thing, before we enter this story.
The second thing: a man comes to a point where he starts feeling that suicide is the only way to get out of this whole mess. This point comes in everybody's life
- when you are totally fed up with the struggle, when you are totally bored with the whole effort of being.
Remember, just like suicide, boredom is also very special, it is also human. No animal is ever bored. Look at a buffalo, chewing grass, the same grass every day, sitting and chewing and chewing, never bored. You may get bored looking at
her: she is not bored. No animal is ever bored, you cannot bore an animal. Too thick, too dense a mind - how can you bore? For boredom a very, very high sensitivity is needed, the higher your sensitivity, the higher will be your boredom, the more will be your boredom. Children are not bored; they still belong more to the animal world than to the human, they are human animals. They still enjoy simple things, they are not bored. Every day they can go hunting for butterflies and they will never be bored - and they are ready to go every day. Have you ever talked to children, told them a story, the same story? They will say: "Tell it again." And you tell it again and they will say:
"Tell it again."
You cannot bore children. You cannot bore animals. Boredom is human, a very great quality, in fact, because it exists only on a higher plane of consciousness. When one is very sensitive one feels boredom - life seems meaningless, there seems to be no purpose in it; one feels as if it is just an accident, whether you are here or not makes no difference. The moment comes when one is so utterly bored that one starts thinking of committing suicide.
What is suicide? It is simply dropping out. It is just saying that enough is enough. I don't want to play the game again. I want to drop out of the whole game. Unless this point is 69
reached, religion is not possible, because only from this point can you either commit suicide, or transform yourself. Here is the crossroad.
So this has been my observation: people who become prematurely religious simply waste their time. To become prematurely religious means to become religious without being really fed up with life, not yet really bored. The game still has some attraction. It may be sex, it may be money, it may be politics, power. But something in life still has an attraction. Then prematurely you have become religious, and this will not help: you will simply waste your time. One has to be utterly bored; life has no more attraction; all the dreams are shattered; all the rainbows have disappeared; there are no more flowers, only thorns; you are saturated with it. Then there is no effort on your part to leave it or renounce it
- remember. If there is any effort to renounce it, it means there was a little attraction left. Otherwise, what is the effort?
When you are fed up with a thing, do you renounce it? No, there is no need to
renounce. It is already renounced.
If you escape to the forest, from whom are you escaping? From some attractions lingering in the world... otherwise why? Where are you escaping to, and why? Even in escape you are showing that you are attached to something. Remember this - this is the rule: from wherever you escape, there is your attraction. If you escape from woman, woman is your attraction. If you escape from politics, politics is your attraction. And the faster you run, the greater is the attraction.
This is premature, you will be called back. You may go to the Himalayas, but you will think that you have been chosen a president of a country. You will dream. Sitting in the Himalayas in this lonely cave, you will find many APSARAS, beautiful women, coming from heaven. They are your mind's children. Nobody is sending beautiful women to you: it is from woman that you have escaped.
Premature. There is no renunciation in a premature mind. Maturity is needed, and maturity means you have lived life, known it to the very depth, and found it lacking. There is nothing in it, the journey is complete; you can live in the market, or you can go to the monastery. It doesn't matter, it is all the same. Life is no longer an attraction: wherever you are it makes no difference. This point is the point of suicide. And this point is the point of SANNYAS.
Suicide or SANNYAS: this is the alternative. And, unless your SANNYAS is an alternative to suicide, it is not very significant.
This is the point where you can feel the difference between a religious mind and a secular mind. A secular mind has no alternative. When he is bored with life, suicide is the only way; there is no alternative to it.
An atheist - what will he do when he is fed up with life? He can commit suicide. That's why in the West more suicide is committed. That's why more men commit suicide than women. The number is almost double because men are more atheistic than women, less religious than women. In the East less and less suicide is committed, in the West more and more. You go westwards, and you move into the hemisphere of suicide.
Great thinkers, philosophers, logicians, commit suicide more than ordinary people, because thinking implies doubt, and a man who doubts, in fact becomes a believer in atheism. You cannot remain in doubt because doubt is empty. You
have to cling to some belief - either in God, or no God; either in the possibility of a future life, or no possibility of a future life; either in a meaning, a transcendental meaning to higher planes, or no higher planes; but you have to decide. You cannot remain in doubt.
I have never seen anybody who lives in doubt. He may call himself a sceptic: no, scepticism is his belief. He may call himself an atheist - I don't believe in God - but he believes in his non-belief. And he believes as arrogantly as any theist; and he is as ready to defend his belief as any theist is ready to argue, to prove. Nobody can live in doubt.
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So there are two types of minds: secular and religious. It will be good to understand the difference. A secular mind believes in whatsoever is apparent, whatsoever he can see, touch.
A religious mind believes not only in the apparent, but in the transcendental. The religious mind is one which says that eyes cannot exhaust reality. Reality is more than eyes can see.
Hands cannot clasp all that is: reality is more. Ears cannot hear all that is: reality is more. A religious mind says that whatsoever you know is only a part - there is a beyond, this life is not all. There is more to life, there are more openings. A secular mind is a closed mind; a religious mind is an open mind - always ready to move, always ready to probe, always ready to enquire, always ready to travel to the unknown. If you have a secular mind, when you get fed up with life, and you have lived all that life can give, and you have found it useless, futile, at the most a toy to be engaged with, occupied with - and how long can you be occupied with a toy? - then a moment comes, a moment of maturity, when the toy has to be thrown away.
Then there is nothing. This life was all, now it has flopped. You can commit suicide. There is nothing else for you.
Only at the moment of suicide does one come to know the beautiful world of religion. And what the meaning of religion is is only realized then. Because this life is finished, but there is more life; this world is finished, but the universe is vast; this dimension has finished, but there are millions of dimensions - layers and layers and layers of being and existence. There is no end to it. This open
mind is the religious mind, and this vastness of possibilities is what is meant by God. God is the infinite possibility for you to grow. When one direction is finished, another direction opens. In fact, whenever a door is closed, another opens immediately.
At this moment of suicide one stands at a crossroad: either destroy yourself, or create yourself in a new way. The old is no longer of any meaning. Either destroy yourself completely - that is suicide - or create yourself in a totally new way so that you enter a new world, and a new life, and a new love.
A secular mind is simply destructive, a religious mind is creative. The religious mind says that when a world has finished it shows simply that the way you lived, the very base of your life, is finished - nothing else. You can live in another way; another style of being is possible.
Create anew. Up to now you have lived as a body, now you can live as a soul. Up to now you have lived in a material way, now you can live in a spiritual way. Up to now you have lived with greed and anger and sex, jealousy and possessiveness, now live in a different way, non-possessive, in compassion. Up to now you lived with greed as your base, now live as a sharing, your whole being sharing with others. Up to now you lived with thinking and thoughts and it failed, now live as meditation, as ecstasy. Up to now you were moving outwards and outwards and outwards. Now turn back.
This is the meaning of conversion: turn back, move towards the source. The outer has finished, the inner is there: now move inwards. A new being arises.
Hindus have called this point the point of being reborn. One birth is given by the parents -
that's the birth in the physical world. Another birth is given by yourself - that's the birth, the real birth, of your being. Hindus call this rebirth, and for the man who has attained to it they have a particular name - they call him DWIJ - twice born. Out of his own womb he now gives a new birth to himself. A new dimension opens: the dimension of meaning, of significance, of eternal significance. But it happens only when you have come to such a bored state of being that you would like to commit suicide.
Now, we will enter this beautiful Zen story.
DURING THREE YEARS OF SEVERE TRAINING UNDER THE GREAT MASTER
GIZAN, KOSHU WAS UNABLE TO GAIN SATORI. 71
Satori is samadhi, the first samadhi, the very entrance into samadhi, another world, totally unknown to you, totally unimagined by you, not even dreamed of by you. That world exists just by the side of this world. In fact you have not to move even a single step: just by the side of this world, just in it, it exists. Only your viewpoint has to change. Suddenly when you have a new viewpoint to look at the same world, another is revealed. The world is your viewpoint, nothing else. This world is ugly because your viewpoint is wrong. If this world is just an anguish, a hell, it is because your viewpoint is wrong. It is not in fact the world which is a hell: it is you who create hell around it, it is your projection.
The world is neutral; it is like a film screen - clean, white, plain, pure. And then it depends what you project on it. You can project hell, you can project heaven - or you may drop all projections. That is what MOKSHA is. Not projecting anything is the ultimate liberation.
DURING THREE YEARS OF SEVERE TRAINING UNDER THE GREAT MASTER
GIZAN, KOSHU WAS UNABLE TO GAIN SATORI.
Something has to be understood here. If you don't make any effort, you will never attain, but you can make too much effort also, and miss. Sometimes you can overdo; and this is a very, very delicate matter - how to balance just in the middle. It is easy not to do anything; it is also easy to overdo a thing. The difficult thing is just to be in the middle, in the right proportion.
For the ego, extremes are easy. Not to do anything is very easy, then to do it too much is also easy. People whose bodies have become too filled with fat come to me and ask me what to do. Should they go on a fast? And I know that either they can eat too much, obsessively, or they can go on a fast. Both are easy. But if you tell them to just cut their intake to half, it is difficult. They can starve themselves that is not very difficult. Easy. They can stuff themselves too much, that too is easy, because in both cases they are doing harm to the body.
The quality of their murderous attitude towards the body remains the same. They can overstuff it: this is a sort of murder, violence. Then they can do another type of violence: they can go on a fast. Both are extremes and both are wrong. The extreme is always wrong. To remain in the middle is always right.
This Koshu must have overdone things. And it happens always that when you come to a master you become infatuated. When you are near a master you are so attracted by his being that you would like to take a jump, you would like to become like him, you would like to do anything, your activity becomes feverish
- you are in too much of a hurry.
Koshu must have done too much, otherwise with a master like Gizan, you can simply sit by his side and satori can happen. Why three years of effort and he was still missing? He had overdone it.
When you overdo a certain thing, anxiety is created; when you overdo a certain thing, inner turmoil is created. You are unbalanced, you cannot be at peace, and satori happens only when you are at home. In fact, satori happens only when you are really relaxed.
Do only that much which helps relaxation, don't overdo it. And one has to feel his own way, because no fixed formula can be given, because it differs and depends. Each person has to find his own balance, and, by-and-by, one becomes aware of what balance is. Balance is a state of mind where you are silent, no exertion, this way or that.
When you are lethargic and don't do much, then your energy becomes a turmoil, because too much energy inside will create restlessness. Children are restless. There is too much energy coming into their being and they don't know what to do, where to throw it. If you are lethargic, you will have too much energy creating turmoil; your own energy will become your enemy. Or, if you become too active, do too much, if you do a certain thing so much that it 72
drains your energy off, and you feel drained, tired, then again you will be restless, because you need a certain level of energy inside. Either too much energy will create restlessness, or, too drained of energy, you will feel restless.
With a master it almost always happens. He has a magnetic center in him, you become infatuated. It is like a love affair - you fall in love and then a fever arises. Love is a sort of fever. The temperature goes high.
This must have happened to Koshu, because after three years nothing happened.
AT THE BEGINNING OF A SPECIAL SEVEN-DAY SESSION OF DISCIPLINE, HE
THOUGHT HIS CHANCE HAD FINALLY COME.
Every year, or every six months, or every three months, they have a special seven-day discipline in Zen monasteries called zazen. In these seven days one has to do nothing but meditate. The whole energy has to be brought to it, for seven days continuously, only stopping for food - that too, very little - and for two to three hours sleep in the night, that's all. For the remaining twenty hours one has to meditate and meditate. One has to sit for even six hours continuously in a meditative posture, and meditate. And when one feels completely tired, or sleepy, and one cannot sit any more, then one has to walk and meditate. And in the whole seven-day session the master is around you with his staff, because when you meditate for three to four hours, even half an hour is enough for one to start feeling sleepy. So he hits you on the head with the staff. Whosoever is feeling sleepy will be hit immediately and brought back. Seven days of very strenuous effort That helps lethargic people.
But this Koshu must have been totally the opposite. A session wouldn't help him; a special effort wouldn't help him: he had been doing that already for three years. In fact, he needed a different type of special meditation - seven days of relaxation.
This has not existed in the Zen discipline. It should, it has to, because there are two types of people: the lethargic and the overactive. For lethargic people it is good that for a few days they should try their utmost; for lethargic people it is good. But they are ninety-nine percent, that is why for the one percent nobody has bothered. For the one percent, who have already been doing too much, this session will not be of any help.
But...
AT THE BEGINNING OF A SPECIAL SEVEN-DAY SESSION OF DISCIPLINE, HE
THOUGHT HIS CHANCE HAD FINALLY COME.
Now he would be doing all that he could do, for almost twenty-four hours he would be meditating. Now the satori could not escape his grasp.
HE CLIMBED THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE GATE, AND GOING UP TO THE
ARHAT IMAGES HE MADE THIS VOW: "EITHER I REALIZE MY DREAMS UP
HERE, OR THEY WILL FIND MY DEAD BODY AT THE FOOT OF THIS TOWER."
Now he wanted to bring his total energy to it, and he was sincere, he was serious. He really wanted to have satori. Even if his life had to be paid for it he was ready.
"EITHER I REALIZE MY DREAMS UP HERE",
he said in the tower, before the Buddha image, 73
"OR THEY WILL FIND MY DEAD BODY AT THE FOOT OF THIS TOWER".
He would commit suicide. This is a point, a very rare point in life - when you are ready to give so much, when you are really sincere. Then suicide, or samadhi - this is the only alternative.
HE WENT WITHOUT FOOD OR SLEEP,
for seven days he didn't take any food, he didn't sleep, GIVING HIMSELF UP TO CONSTANT ZAZEN...
Zazen is just sitting silently in a Buddha posture, not doing anything, simply being aware; no food, no sleep, just sitting for twenty-four hours. He's doing his best, the last that he can do, the utmost.
...OFTEN CRYING THINGS LIKE: "WHAT WAS MY KARMA, THAT, IN SPITE OF
ALL THESE EFFORTS, I CAN'T GRASP THE WAY?"
The moment comes to every seeker, when he feels that he is doing all that he can do, nothing more is possible.
"WHAT WAS MY KARMA THAT IN SPITE OF ALL THESE EFFORTS I CAN'T GRASP
THE WAY?"
But, in fact, he couldn't grasp the way BECAUSE of these efforts - not in spite of them, BECAUSE of them.
First, lethargy is the problem, how to bring you out of your lethargy. And then secondly, the problem is how to help you to remain in the middle. Not to move to the opposite end, the hyperactivity, but to remain balanced. Koshu had overdone it. But that helped in a different way - through it satori was never reached, through it he couldn't realize.
AT LAST HE ADMITTED FAILURE, AND DETERMINED TO END IT ALL...
Now nothing was there, all that he could do he had done; more he could not do, more was not there to be done. So now there was no hope; for what to wait now?
AT LAST HE ADMITTED FAILURE...
This failure is not ordinary failure, it is not a failure amid many failures, it is THE failure.
When you fail in one thing it doesn't make any difference, because there are many others you will succeed in. When you fail in one effort, you know that you can make another effort. But this is THE failure, because he had done whatsoever he could do, more could not be done.
And there was nothing else: with life he was already finished, now he had no more dates with life, that game was completely over. He had done everything that he could think of and do. He accepted the failure - satori had not happened.
... AND, DETERMINED TO END IT ALL...
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So now suicide was the only possibility. Samadhi was not there for him. He could only commit suicide.
... HE WENT TO THE RAILING AND SLOWLY LIFTED HIS LEG OVER IT. AT THAT
VERY INSTANT HE HAD AN AWAKENING.
The satori happened, the vast sky of samadhi opened immediately. This has to be understood, because it may be the same for you. This is not only one case, in many cases it has been so. When you are a failure, a total failure, many things happen within you - the ego evaporates. Even in zazen, sitting silently for seven days, without food, without sleep, the ego was there. In fact, who is asking for samadhi? Who is there who asks that samadhi should happen? This is the last effort of the ego; the ego wants to grasp it, and that is the barrier.
When he accepted failure, the ego dissolved, because the ego exists only with success.
Success is the food, the very stuff that the ego lives on. If you are really a failure, a complete failure, how can the ego remain there? The ego cannot exist in ultimate failure. The ego disappeared; and with the ego, lethargy and hyperactivity, too much activity, both disappeared. Without ego you are in the balance. Suddenly, everything fits and you are in the balance. Without ego there is no extreme, it cannot exist; extreme exists as an ego effort.
Suddenly ego is not there and you are in the middle. And now, the very effort of suicide is very, very balanced.
AT LAST HE ADMITTED FAILURE, AND, DETERMINED TO END IT ALL, HE WENT
TO THE RAILING AND SLOWLY LIFTED HIS LEG OVER IT.
Why slowly? Now, suicide was not really something he was going to do: suicide was something that was happening to him. Finished with the world, there was no hurry also, because he was not going to go anywhere, he was simply dropping out of existence. There was no hurry.
Silently, slowly, he came to the railing. This is really a beautiful moment, very deep.
Already this suicide is different. You can commit suicide in very great hyper- tension - that's how people commit suicide, in hyper-tension. If they are delayed, even for a single moment, they will not commit suicide. It has to be committed when you are completely mad. It has to be done when really you are so tense that you don't know what you are doing. So, if you can delay suicide even for a single moment, it will never happen.
I had a friend. He was in love with a woman and the woman rejected him. So, of course, being a poet, he thought of committing suicide. His family was very disturbed. They all tried to convince him; but the more they tried, the more he became convinced that he was going to commit suicide. This happens. Not knowing what to do, they locked his door. He started beating his head against the door. They became very much afraid. What to do?
Suddenly they remembered me and called me. I went there. He was beating his head against the door; he was really in a fury and completely determined. I went near the door and I said to him: "Why are you making so much show out of it? If you want to commit suicide, do it. But why so much noise? And why are you beating your head? Just by beating your head on the door you will not die. So, listen to me, come with me. We can go to the river; there is a beautiful point where I have always meditated. If ever I am to commit suicide, this is the place. You come with me, this is a good chance."
Because I was not saying anything against suicide, he calmed down. He was not hitting his head. He was really puzzled, because you never expect that your friend will help you to commit suicide. So I told him: "You open the door and don't make a fool of yourself, and 75
don't help crowds to gather here. Why so much showmanship about it? You simply come with me and drop yourself in the river. There is a waterfall in the river and you will simply disappear."
So he opened the door and he looked at me, he was very puzzled. I took his hand, brought him home. He said: "When are we going?" But he was a little afraid; now that I was ready I was dangerous. So I said: "This is a full-moon night and there is no hurry. When one wants to die, one should choose an
auspicious moment. So we will go in the middle of the night, then the full moon will be just there and I can say good-bye and you can jump." He became more and more afraid. I was simply delaying the time.
We went to bed at ten o'clock. I fixed the alarm for twelve, and I told him that sometimes I didn't hear the alarm, so if he heard it first he should wake me. Immediately the alarm started he put it off. I waited for a few minutes, then I said: "Why are you waiting? Wake me." He became suddenly angry and said: "Are you my friend or my enemy? It seems you want to kill me." I said: "I'm not making any judgment on my own. If you want to die, I am a friend, I have to cooperate and help. If you don't want to die, that's your decision, so you tell me. I am neutral. The car is ready, I will drive you to the spot; the night is beautiful and the moon has come up. Now it is up to you." He said: "Take me to my home. I am not going to die. And who are you to force me to die?"
I was not forcing anybody - just a delayed moment and one comes to one's senses. But this is not that type of suicide.
I must tell you, by the way, that there is only one religion in the world which allows suicide - Jainism. It is rare; only Mahavir allows suicide. He says that if you can die very silently, without any emotionality about it, it is beautiful, nothing is wrong with it. But it has to be done over a very long time, otherwise you never know. So you have to stop taking food, that's all. It takes almost three months for a person to die without food. For three months the body goes on and on, using its reservoirs, energy, and food and everything. One goes on becoming more and skinnier, the flesh disappears, then only the skeleton remains. Nearly three months it takes.
So Mahavir says that if you want to die, and if this suicide is going to be a religious dropping out, then don't do it in a hurry. Do it simply, because you have three months to think, and you can go back, nobody is forcing you. And there have been many people who have done it that way in the past: many people have dropped out of existence after not taking food for three months - simply meditating, lying down. Then that suicide is more beautiful than your ordinary life because they are not really killing themselves, they are moving to another realm.
This Koshu moved slowly, there was no hurry. In fact, when life doesn't mean anything to you, death also doesn't mean anything to you. When life is useless,
death is also useless, because death is nothing but the culmination of life. Death means so much to you because life means so much to you. It is always in the same proportion. If life is very, very meaningful to you, you will be afraid of death. When life is meaningless, of course death is also meaningless. There is no hurry.
He came to the railing,
HE WENT TO THE RAILING AND SLOWLY LIFTED HIS LEG OVER IT.
At that moment... Just visualize the picture - a Buddhist monk standing on a tower slowly lifting his feet, and suddenly there is all that he always wanted to be. The satori has happened, the lightning.
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What happened in that moment? Slowly lifting the leg up to commit suicide, life was completely finished; there was no greed in the mind, not even for satori. There was no ego in the mind, not even for religious achievement. The future had completely dropped, because it exists only with desires. Desire is future, longing is future. Only one longing had remained there inside him - for satori. That longing was creating future and time, that longing was the last barrier. The last barrier had dropped. Now there was no future, no desire. Only this moment existed.
At the moment when Koshu lifted his leg slowly, all time stopped - no past, no future: no past because life had been realized as useless; no future because there was no longing, even for satori.
That leg lifted up, time stopped. That leg lifted up, mind stopped - because there was nothing to achieve, nothing to think. At that moment he crossed out of time. At that moment he transcended time. At that moment his being became vertical, no longer horizontal. No more past, no more future - all the waste disappeared. At that moment of lifting, not only did he lift his leg, his whole being was lifted up. The vertical dimension started. And suddenly, there was satori.
Suddenly,
AT THAT VERY INSTANT, HE HAD AN AWAKENING.
It always happens so: it happened in the same way to Buddha himself. He left the world, the palace, the beautiful wife, the newly born child, the whole empire. The world was no longer meaningful. Then for six years he tried and tried and tried his utmost. He went to every teacher, to every master that he came to know about. And he said: "I am ready to do whatsoever, but I want to know what life is, who I am." And the masters, many masters in those six years, told him to do many things, and he did them. And he did them so perfectly that no master could tell him that it was not happening because he was not doing well. That was impossible - even the master was not as perfect as the disciple. So the masters accepted their failure, and they said that up to this moment, to this extent, they could help; beyond this they themselves didn't know. So he should seek another master. Then all the masters were finished.
Then he started doing things on his own; and he did everything that was prevalent in India for centuries. He tried all methods of hatha yoga, raja yoga. He did everything that was available. He overdid it. He was too anxious to achieve. He was too serious about it. His sincerity became a hyper-tension inside, and he couldn't attain.
Then one day, crossing the Niranjana River near Bodhgaya, he was so weak because of fasting that he couldn't cross it. It was a very small stream but he couldn't swim it, and he had to hang onto a root of a tree to save his life. He was so weak. In that moment he thought:
"What have I done? I have destroyed my body and I have not attained to any soul; this whole effort has been foolish."
At that moment he dropped all efforts. The world was already useless, now the religious world of efforts was also useless. On that day he relaxed under a tree, which became the bodhi tree under which he attained his enlightenment. He relaxed. That relaxation was total.
For the first time, there was nothing to achieve: the achieving mind dropped. He had done everything and nothing more could be done. So what to do? He simply slept.
That night there was no dream, because when there is no desire there is no dream. Dreams are the shadows of desires. Dreams are desires which go on haunting you even in your sleep.
The whole night passed as if it was a single moment. 77
And in the morning, the early morning, when the last star was disappearing, he opened his eyes and looked at the star. He was in the same situation as Koshu was when Koshu lifted his leg and was going to drop himself from the tower. The disappearing last star - and he opened his eyes with no mind inside, with no desire. Time stopped - and suddenly, it was there. His longing was the barrier.
So, one has to long first, and one has to strive, and one has to make all the efforts, and one has to roam, and seek and enquire, and one has to do whatsoever one can do, and then, one has to drop all.
You cannot drop it right now, because you have nothing to drop. First you have to do, then you can drop. You can go to a tower, and you can raise your leg very, very slowly, but nothing will happen. Because it is not a question of the outer posture - for the inner you have not yet done all that has to be done. You can go to a bodhi tree and lie down, completely relaxed, and in the morning, exactly when the last star is disappearing, you can open your eyes. Nothing will happen.
One has to pass through arduous effort to come to a total relaxation. Then suddenly it happens. In fact it has been always there around you; only you were not there. You were not present. You were moving in the mind, in the desires, in the future, in the past, in the memories, in the thoughts. You were too attached to clouds, that's why you couldn't see the sky. It was always there. In fact the clouds were roaming in the sky. Samadhi is all around you; samadhi is the ocean. And you are the fish - but you are not present.
OVERJOYED, HE RUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS AND THROUGH THE RAIN TO
GIZAN'S ROOM.
BEFORE HE HAD A CHANCE TO SPEAK, THE MASTER CRIED: "BRAVO! - YOU
HAVE FINALLY HAD YOUR DAY."
The very quality of the person who has attained to satori changes. He need not
say - at least to the master - he need not say, "I have achieved". Because the very vibration, the very being of one who has achieved, is totally different. Even before he could say anything, the master said: "Bravo! So you have achieved, so it has happened." There was no need to talk about it.
Once it happens, those who know will see it. Even those who don't know will start to feel it.
You cannot come to a man of realization without feeling something of the unknown, without listening to his footsteps in the world of the unknown, in the world of the mysterious.
Mystery surrounds him. In his very shadow a very sacred quality exists. In his very movement there is holiness, because he is whole. Satori makes you whole; samadhi makes you whole.
Now there is no longer a division between conscious and unconscious. Suddenly it is bridged.
The whole has become conscious.
The quality is just like this: you see a house in the night, with no light within. Then somebody lights a lamp inside. The whole quality of the house changes; even passers-by on the road will suddenly see that the light is burning in the house. The quality has changed.
From the windows, from the doors, from the cracks, the light is shining to the outside. The house is no longer dark.
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CHAPTER 7 - Not a Dead One
27 February 1975 a.m. in Buddha Hall
AN EX-EMPEROR ASKED THE MASTER GUDO: "WHAT HAPPENS TO A
MAN OF
ENLIGHTENMENT AFTER DEATH?"
GUDO REPLIED: "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?"
THE EX-EMPEROR SAID: "WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER." GUDO SAID: "YES, SIR, BUT NOT A DEAD ONE!"
Man is ignorant of the real. And it is difficult to know the real because, to know the real, first you have to be the real. Only the same can know the same.
Man is false. As man exists, he is a deep hypocrite. He is not real himself. His original face is completely lost. He has many faces, he uses many faces, but he himself is not aware of the original face: his own.
Man is an imitator. He goes on imitating others, and, by and by, he completely forgets that he has his own unique being.
The real can be known only when you are real. It is a tremendous effort; arduous is the path. So man tries a trick. He starts thinking about the real - philosophizing, theorizing, creating mental systems about the real. That is all that philosophy is: a trick of the mind to deceive oneself about one's ignorance, about one's not knowing the real. That's why philosophies abound and the whole world lives in concepts and theories. Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists - there are millions of concepts.
And they are cheap, you need not change yourself; you need only an ordinary intelligent mind, a mediocre mind. No higher IQ is needed, so there is not any difficulty. You can adopt concepts and you can hide your ignorance from yourself. Philosophy is just a hiding method: one starts feeling that one knows, without knowing at all; one starts feeling that one has arrived, without even having taken the first step.
Philosophy is the greatest disease, and once you are caught in it, it is very difficult to come out of it because it is so deeply fulfilling to the ego. One feels hurt when one comes to know one's ignorance. And ignorance is total and absolute; you don't know anything at all. You are simply in dark ignorance, and this hurts. One would like to know something, at least something, and
philosophy gives you a consolation: there are theories, and if you have an ordinary intelligence, that will do - you can learn the theories, you can have your own system, a philosophy, and then you are at ease. Then not only do you know, but you can teach others, you can advise others, you can go on showing your knowledge to others - and everything is settled, ignorance is forgotten.
Philosophy means a logical construction about reality: it is about and about and about, it is never the real. Round and round it goes, just beating around the bush, but it never hits the center of the real. It cannot do that which is not possible for philosophy. Why is it not possible? Because philosophy is based on logic, and reality is beyond logic.
You have to understand it a little more.
Logic is a search for consistency, and reality is not consistent. Or, it is so deeply consistent that even the opposite is not inconsistent with it. Reality is paradoxical: all the opposites meet and mingle and merge into it. It is so vast. Logic is narrow; logic is like a road, narrow, goal-oriented. Reality is like a vast space, no goal, not going anywhere; it is already there, moving in all dimensions together. Logic is one-dimensional, reality is multidimensional. Logic says 79
A is A and can never be B - this is the consistency of logic - and in reality, A is A, but always moves and becomes B also.
Logic says life is life and can never be death. How can life be death? But in reality, life is moving every moment into death. Life is death.
Logic says love is love and can never be hate; but love is moving every moment into hate, and hate is moving every moment into love. You love the same person and you hate the same person - the deeper the love, the deeper the hate. Hate and love are two aspects of the same coin. Can you hate a person without loving him? How can you hate a person without loving him? First you have to love, only then can you hate. Hate needs love as a first step. How can you become inimical to a person with whom you have never been friendly?
Friends and foes are separate only in logic; in reality they are together. If you search your hate deeply, you will find love hidden.
The moment you are born, death is also born with you. Birth is the beginning of death, and death is the culmination of birth. Says Heraclitus: "God is life and
death, summer and winter, hunger and satiety, good and bad." Always both. And God is reality.
If you look at reality, you will see all opposites meeting. Reality is contradictory; logic is non-contradictory. Logic is clean, plain, simple; reality is very complex. Reality is not like a logical syllogism or a mathematical problem - it has many dimensions. And it is interrelated, all contradictions are together: the day turns into night, the night again turns into day. The morning is nothing but the indication that the evening is coming. Youth becomes old age.
Beauty turns and becomes ugly. Everything changes, and becomes the opposite.
This has to be understood deeply, because this is the basic difference between philosophy and religion. Philosophy is logical; religion is not. Philosophy is logical; religion is real. To understand philosophy is not difficult; to understand religion is almost impossible. Logic speaks a plain language; religion cannot speak, because religion has to speak the language of the reality.
Logic is a fragment chosen from reality by the mind, it is not total. Religion accepts the whole and wants to know it as it is. Logic is a mental construction. Philosophy, logic, science, all are mental constructions: they are all based on logic.
Religion is a de-structuring of the whole mind. Philosophy is a structure of the mind about the reality, a creation of a system. The mind remains there and helps you to choose, to project, to find. In religion you have to de-structure the mind. The reality remains as it is, you don't do anything to the reality - you simply drop the mind, and then you look. If the mind is there, it won't allow you to look at the whole. The mind is obsessed with consistency, it cannot allow the contradictory.
So, whenever you come near a person who is enlightened, your mind will be in difficulty, you will feel many contradictions in him. Your mind will say, "This man says this, and then he contradicts. And sometimes he says this, and then again something else - he is inconsistent." A religious man is, by the very nature of the case, contradictory; he has to be, because he is not in search of consistency, he is in search of the truth. He is in search of the real, and he is ready to drop everything for the real, whatsoever the real is. He has no pre- formulated structure for the real - he has no idea how the real should be. If it is
inconsistent, it is inconsistent. Okay. He has nothing to impose on it. A religious mind simply allows the real to reveal itself. He has no idea how it should be.
A religious man is passive; a logical, philosophical, scientific man is aggressive. He gets some idea and, through that idea, he structures reality. Around the idea he tries to discover the real. The idea won't allow you to discover the real - the very idea is the hindrance.
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So one path is logic, another path is poetry. Poetry is against logic. Logic is rational, poetry is irrational. Logic is logical, poetry is imagination. And this distinction has to be remembered because religion is neither - neither logic, nor poetry.
Logic is of the mind and imagination is also of the mind. A poet imagines reality. Of course, his reality is more colourful than a logician's reality, because he imagines, and he is not afraid. He is completely free in his imagination; he has not to follow any idea. He simply dreams about reality: but it is again "about". He dreams about reality, he makes a beautiful whole out of his dreaming. He is colourful, because deep down is fantasy. Logic is plain, colourless, almost grey; there is no poetry in it because there is no imagination in it. Poetry is almost contradictory, because it is imagination. It doesn't bother. You never ask the poet to be consistent. If a poet writes one poem today, another tomorrow, and contradicts himself, nobody bothers. People say this is poetry.
If a painter paints a certain thing today and just the opposite tomorrow, you don't ask for any consistency, you don't say: "What are you doing? Yesterday you painted the moon yellow and today you are painting the moon red. What are you doing? You are contradicting." No!
Nobody asks - it is poetry, painting is poetry, sculpture is poetry, and you allow the poet all freedom. But poetry is imagination.
Mind has two centers: one is thinking, another is imagination. But both centers are of the mind - and religion is beyond, beyond both centers, it is not of the mind at all. It is neither science nor poetry - or it is both. That's why religion is a deeper mysticism than any poetry. It simply drops the mind, with all its centers, and then looks. It is just as if you put aside your glasses, and look. The mind can be put aside because it is a mechanism; you are not the mind.
The mind is just like a window. You are standing there and looking through the window, then the frame of the window becomes the frame of reality. You look from the window, the moon has arisen, and the sky is beautiful, but your sky will be framed by the window. And if the window has certain colours of glass, then your sky will be coloured by the window.
Religion is simply coming out of the house completely; looking at reality, not through any window, not through any door, not through any glasses, not through any concepts, but simply looking at it as it is, putting aside the mind. It is difficult because you are so identified with the mind that you have completely forgotten that you can put it aside. But this is the whole methodology of religion: all of yoga, Tantra, and all the techniques of meditation are nothing but how to put the mind aside, how to break the identity with the mind, and then look. Then whatsoever is reality is revealed: that which is is revealed. Remember this.
Sometimes religion will speak the language of logic, then it becomes theology. Sometimes religion will speak the language of poetry, then it becomes objective art, like the Taj Mahal. If you go and watch the Taj Mahal for the first time, you will understand what objective art is.
Looking at a piece of objective art, like the Taj Mahal, if you simply sit and watch and look, suddenly a silence surrounds you, a peace descends upon you. The very structure of the Taj Mahal is related to your innermost being; just looking at the shape of it, something changes within you.
There are two types of art. One art is subjective - for example, Picasso. If you look at a Picasso painting you can understand what type of mind Picasso must have had, because he pictures, paints his own mind, and he must have been living in nightmares, because all his painting is nightmarish. You cannot look at it for long without feeling ill and nauseous. It is his inner madness that he has painted in colour, and it is infectious. This is subjective art: whatsoever you do, you bring in your own mind.
Objective art is not bringing your own mind in, but following some objective rules to change the person who will look at it, meditate on it.
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All of Eastern art has tried to be objective. The artist is not involved in it, the painter is forgotten, the sculptor is forgotten, the architect is forgotten, they are
not involved in it. They are simply following certain objective rules to create a piece of art, and for centuries, whenever somebody looks at it, something of meditation will happen in them. On a full-moon night, sitting near the Taj Mahal, not talking, just meditating on it, time disappears, a no-time moment happens. And suddenly the Taj Mahal is not there outside, something is changing within you.
Sometimes religion talks in terms of objective art, to bring the reality into this world of the mind. Sometimes it talks in terms of logic, then it becomes theology, then it argues. But these are both compromises with the world, compromises with the ordinary, mediocre mind, bringing religion to the ordinary mind. When religion speaks in its purity it is paradoxical, like the "Tao te Ching" of Lao Tzu, or the fragments of Heraclitus, or these Zen stories. In its purity religion transcends logic, imagination, both. It is the very beyond.
Now, a few things about the "very beyond", then we can enter into this story.
It is small, like a seed. But if you allow it the soil of your heart, it can grow into a vast tree.
It is small, if you look at the form; but if you look at the formless hidden in it, it has no limits, it is infinite.
Something to be aware about the very beyond - first, the very beyond, the transcendental, needs a transformation in you, otherwise you will not be able to understand it. It needs a clarity of perception in you. It is not a question of intellect alone; even a genius may not be able to understand it, and sometimes even an ordinary villager may be able to understand it.
Sometimes even an Einstein may miss it, because it is not a question of cleverness, intelligence - it is a question of clarity, not cleverness. Clarity is different. Cleverness is a way of being cunning with reality; it is cunningness. Clarity is completely different; it is not cunningness, it is innocence, child-like. You don't have a mind, the window is completely open. You don't have any ideas, because a mind filled with ideas loses its clarity; it is just like a sky filled with clouds. A mind filled with thoughts is not transparent, it is a junkyard. And through that junkyard, you cannot come to realize what reality is. One has to clean oneself. A deep cleansing is needed. One has to pass through many meditations so that, by and by, your mind becomes clear, like a clear sky with no
clouds. So it is not a question of intellectual understanding, it is a question of a different type of being, a being who is clear, like a clear sky.
The second thing to remember is that a religious mind never goes beyond the moment, because the moment you go beyond the moment you have started working through the mind.
The future is not here, so how can you look at it? You can only think about it. You can only think about the future, you cannot see it. Only the present moment can be seen, it is already here. So the religious mind lives in the moment; you cannot force the religious mind to go beyond the moment, because the moment the religious mind thinks about the future, it is no longer religious. Immediately the quality of the mind has changed. The religious mind exists here and now, and that is the only way to exist. If you think about the future, the moment that is not here, you are already in the trap of the mind and you have allowed thoughts to form. In the present there is no thought. Have you ever observed this? Right now, how can thought exist? No thought ever exists in the present; it always exists in the future or in the past. Either you think of the past - then there is imagination; or you think of the future - then there is logic. How can you think of the present? You can only be. And the moment is so subtle, so small, so atomic, that there is no space for any thought to exist in it. Thought needs space, needs room, and in the present there is no room for thought. Only being can be there. So whenever you are in the present, thinking stops, or, if you stop thinking you will be in the present. A religious mind is not concerned about the future, is not concerned about what 82
happened in the past. It lives in the moment and it moves from moment to moment. When this moment disappears, another moment comes: the religious man has moved into it. He is river like.
The very, very deep thing to be remembered is that a religious mind, a religious man, a religious being, is always a process, he is always moving.
Of course, the movement is unmotivated. It is moving not for any goal, it simply moves -
because movement is the nature of reality. Movement is the nature of reality, it moves with reality, just as somebody floats with the river. He moves with the river of time. Each moment he lives, and moves. He is not doing anything, he
simply lives the moment. When the moment has gone, another comes: he lives that moment. A religious man has a beginning, but no end; awakening has a beginning, but no end - it goes on and on and on.
Just the opposite is the case with ignorance - ignorance has no beginning, but an end. Can you say when your ignorance started? It has no beginning. When did Buddha's ignorance start? It had no beginning, but it had an end. It ended on a certain full-moon night, twenty-five centuries ago. Ignorance has an end, but no beginning; enlightenment has a beginning, but no end. And that's how the circle becomes complete. When an ignorant man becomes enlightened, the circle is complete.
Ignorance has no beginning, but has the end; enlightenment has the beginning, but has no end. Now the circle is complete. Now here is the perfect being whose circle is complete.
But this perfection doesn't mean any "staticness", because enlightenment has no end; it goes on and on and on, for eternities, forever.
Now, try to understand this beautiful seed like story.
AN EX-EMPEROR ASKED THE MASTER GUDO: "WHAT HAPPENS TO A MAN OF
ENLIGHTENMENT AFTER DEATH?"
If he had asked philosophers they would have supplied many answers. The scriptures are full of answers.
What happens to an enlightened man after death? Buddha was asked the same question again and again, and he would simply laugh sometimes. Once it happened that it was evening and a small earthen lamp was burning near Buddha. Somebody asked the question: "What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?" Buddha put the flame out, and asked: "What happens now to the flame which is no more? Where has it gone? Where is it now? Just a moment before it was here, now where has it gone?" The same thing happens to the man of enlightenment.
This is not an answer. The man must have gone unsatisfied, feeling that Buddha was avoiding the question.
Those who have known have always avoided, but those who don't know, they have many answers. Scholars, pundits, you ask them and they will supply man answers. You can choose any of your likings.
GUDO REPLIED: "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?"
You are asking something of the future, and I am here and now. For me there is no future.
Only this moment exists, there is no other moment. You are talking about death, death of an enlightened person, somewhere in the future, or somewhere in the past. What happened to Buddha?
That's why Gudo said:
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"HOW SHOULD I KNOW?"
He means: I am here and now; no past is meaningful for me, no future. He is saying: Look at me right now. The enlightened being is before you. He is saying: Look at me. Why are you concerned?
It happened once that a man came to meet Gudo - he was a very famous master - and the man was very old, near about ninety. He belonged to a particular Buddhist sect. And he said:
"I have come from very far, and my life is almost coming to an end, and I have always been waiting for a chance to meet you" - because Gudo was known all over the country as the master of the emperor - "before I die I have come to you because I have to ask you one question. For almost fifty years I have been studying the scriptures, and I have come to know everything. Only one thing disturbs me. In my scriptures it is written that even trees and rocks will become enlightened. That I could never understand. Trees and rocks?" Gudo said: "Tell me one thing. Have you ever thought about yourself? Can you become enlightened, or not?"
The man said: "It is strange, but I must confess that I never thought about it." Trees and rocks and how they can become enlightened - he had been thinking
about this for fifty years! And he had come from far away to ask this question of Gudo, and he had never thought about himself.
People talk about death, not knowing that right now they are alive. Life is here, first know it. Live it totally! Why do you talk about death?
People talk about what will happen after death. It would be better to think about what is happening to you right now, after birth. And when death comes, we will meet it. First meet life that is here now; and if you can meet life, you will become capable of meeting death also.
One who can live rightly will die rightly. One who has lived a total, rich life of moment-tomoment moving, living, awareness, consciousness, will of course, when death comes, do the same with death. He will live it, because he knows the quality of how to live in the present.
When death becomes the present, he will live it. But people are more concerned about death, less concerned about life. But if you cannot know life, how do you suppose that you will be able to know death? Death is not separate from life; it is the very culmination of it. If you miss life, you will not be able to see death. Death will come, but you will be unconscious.
That is what is happening. People die in a deep unconsciousness, a coma. They live their whole life in unconsciousness, and when you treated life with unconsciousness, how do you suppose that you will be able to be conscious before death? Death will happen in a single moment, and life is a seventy or eighty year process. If you could not even become aware in eighty years, if eighty years were not enough for you to become conscious, how will you be able to in one second? Only a person who has lived moment to moment will be able to see death, because when he has lived life moment to moment, death cannot escape him. He has the clarity, such intense clarity, that even in a single moment, when death comes and moves, he will be able to see it. One, who has been able to see life, will automatically be able to see death - and then one knows one is neither life nor death. One is just the witness.
When a person asks what happens to a man of enlightenment after death he himself is not enlightened. He is asking from his deep ignorance, so it is difficult to answer. It is just like a blind man asking what happens when the sun rises in the morning. How to explain that to him? How to make the communication? It is
impossible.
It once happened that a man was blind, not only blind, he was a great philosopher. The whole village was disturbed by him, because he proved logically that there is no light. He said: "I have hands. I can touch and feel. So show me where light is. If something exists, it can be touched; if something exists, it can be tasted; if something exists, and you hit something against it, I can hear the sound."
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And the villagers were very disturbed, because they couldn't gather any proof. He had four senses and he said: "I have four senses. You bring light before me and I will see through my four senses whether it is there or not." And they said: "Because you are blind, you cannot see." He laughed and said: "It seems that you are dreaming. What are eyes? And how can you prove that you have eyes and I don't have? You tell about your light, what it is. Explain it to me." They couldn't do that. It was impossible. But they felt very depressed, because this man was blind and they had eyes, and they knew what light was. But how to explain to a blind man?
Then Buddha came to the town. They all took this mad philosopher, the mad blind man, to Buddha and they asked Buddha: "You try to explain to him, we have failed. And this man is something: he has proved that light is not there because it cannot be touched, cannot be smelled, cannot be tasted, cannot be heard. So how can it exist? Now you have come, you can explain to him." Buddha said: "You are fools! Light cannot be explained to a blind man. The very effort is absurd. But I know a man who is a great physician. You take this man to him, and he will treat his eyes."
The man was taken to the physician, his eyes were treated. He was not really blind. Within six months he started seeing. Then he came to Buddha, who was now in another town. He fell at his feet and he said: "Yes, now I know. Light is. Now I know why those poor villagers could not prove it, and now I also know that you did well to send me to a physician. I needed treatment - not philosophy, not theories about light."
When an ignorant person asks, "what happens to an enlightened person after death?", leave it. Even, "what happens to an enlightened man while he is alive?"
cannot be explained.
CANNOT be explained. What has happened to me? How can I explain it? No possibility. It is impossible - unless you start seeing, unless your eyes open. Unless you are changed, nothing can be explained. The communication is not possible, because enlightenment is a totally different quality of being, and you are completely blind to it. You can believe that I am enlightened, but you cannot see it. That belief will help, because that belief will allow you to remain open. That trust will help, because you can deny, you can say: "No, I cannot believe.
How can I believe? How can I trust when I don't know?" That will close you: then there is no possibility. That's why religion insists on trust, SHRADDHA. The blind man can only believe and trust when people say that light exists. And if he trusts, then there is a possibility. If he does not trust, then he will not even allow a treatment. He will say: "What are you doing?
There is no light, and there are no such things as eyes. I don't believe you, so please don't waste your time, and don't waste my time."
It is impossible to communicate from one plane to another plane; it won't function at all.
You have to rise up to another plane of being; only then, suddenly, can you see. And when you see and experience, then the trust is fulfilled. But before you see, one has to have faith, to have trust, just to allow the transformation.
GUDO REPLIED: "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?"
Death has not come yet. When it comes, it comes. Then I will know and I will inform you, but right now I don't know.
An enlightened person will not give you theories. He would like to give you insight, not theories. Insight is a deep phenomenon within you; theory is just borrowed. He could have replied, because there are theories about what happens to the enlightened man. Some say he reaches to a plane called MOKSHA, where he lives for ever and ever. Some are more colourful, they say he goes to the kingdom of God and lives with God for ever and ever, just like Jesus sitting by the throne of God, on the right hand, with angels dancing and singing and 85
celebrations going on and on. There are millions of theories. But they are all
created by the theologians to console people. You ask - so somebody has to give you the answer.
But not enlightened people: they have remained silent about it. They are not concerned at all. Jesus says: Consider the lilies of the field. They exist only here and now. They don't bother about the tomorrow; the tomorrow will take care of itself.
Somebody brought the New Testament to a Zen master, and he read a few sentences from it - particularly this sentence: "Consider the lilies in the field. They toil not, they don't think of the tomorrow, and they are so beautiful in the here and now that even Solomon, the great emperor, in his peak glory, was not arrayed in such beauty." When he read this the Zen master said: "Stop! Whosoever said this is a Buddha." He didn't know about Jesus, he didn't know about Christianity. Christianity had reached Japan just a few days before. The master said:
"Stop! No need to say anything more. Whosoever said this is a Buddha."
All enlightened persons have insisted on remaining in the moment. That's why Gudo said:
"How should I know?"
THE EX-EMPEROR SAID: "WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER."
From a master we expect answers, but in fact, a master never gives you an answer, he simply destroys your question. There is a vast difference between these things. From a master we expect answers to our questions, but if the questions are foolish, the answers cannot be better. How can you answer a foolish question in a wise way? The very question is foolish.
Somebody comes and asks: "What is the taste of the colour green?" It is absurd, because there is no relationship. But the question looks perfect, linguistically it is perfect. You can ask:
"What is the taste of the colour green?" There is no error in the language, in the formulation.
The same is the case, for many reasons, when somebody asks: "What happens to
an enlightened person when he is dead?" First, he is never dead. An enlightened person is one who has come to know the eternal life. He is never dead. Second, an enlightened person is no longer a person. His ego is dissolved, that's why he is enlightened. So, in the first place, he is never dead; in the second place, he is already dead, because he is no more.
Buddha moved about for forty years after his enlightenment, but in those forty years, while he was wandering from village to village, talking to people continuously, giving them whatsoever he has attained, it is said that he never uttered a single word and he never took a single step. What does this mean? It is rightly said that he never uttered a single word, because he was no more. How can you utter a word when you are not? It was as if existence itself, not Buddha, uttered those words, because now Buddha was no longer a person, just the name remained, utilitarian, functional. Otherwise there was no need for it. He never took a single step, but he was wandering and wandering. The whole province of Bihar is called
"Bihar" because of his wanderings. Bihar means the wandering, and because he was wandering there, the whole province is known as Bihar. But it is said that he never took a single step - and it is right, absolutely right - he never took a single step.
I tell you: In continuously talk to you but I have not uttered a single word. When the ego is not there, who can utter? Then what is happening when I am talking to you? It is just like a breeze passing through the trees; it is just like a spring moving towards the river, it is just like a flower opening. But I am not there. And the flower cannot claim that it opened itself. The breeze cannot say; "I pass through these trees", because the breeze has no ego to say it. The river cannot say, "I am moving towards the ocean". The river moves, but there is nobody who is moving. I talk to you, but I have not uttered a single word.
But how to communicate these things? An enlightened person is already dead; the past has disappeared, the center is no longer there. Now he is nowhere - he exists everywhere. Now he 86
is one with the whole, the wave has lost itself into the ocean. So, when you see Buddha standing there, that body is just a contact point, that's all. Nothing else. It is just like an electricity plug. If you plug in there the energy moves; otherwise the energy is everywhere.
So, when Buddha is standing there, he is just a contact point for the cosmos. He is no longer there; he is just a passage, just an anchor into this world. And when the anchor is lost, that's when Buddha's body will drop.
You ask: "What happens?" When a wave is no more, what happens? It becomes the ocean.
When a Buddha is no more, the body disappears like the wave has disappeared, Buddha is already dead, that's why he is a Buddha; and secondly, he can never die, because once the ego is lost, the eternal life is attained. Now Buddha is not anywhere: he is everywhere. When you don't have a center, the whole existence becomes your center.
The question is foolish. It looks logical, meaningful, but it is foolish. That's why Gudo replied: "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?" Many things are implied. Gudo is saying: I am not.
Who should know? When the wave disappears in the ocean, how should I know? THE EX-EMPEROR SAID: "WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER."
We expect answers from a master, but answers are given by teachers, not by masters.
Masters simply destroy your mind; even if it appears that they are answering you, they never answer. They are elusive. You ask something, they talk about something else. You ask about A, they talk about B. But they are very persuasive, seductive. They talk about B and they convince you that, yes, your question is answered. But your questions are foolish, they cannot be answered, they are irrelevant. So a master never answers the questions. He gives you the feeling that he is answering you, but he is simply trying to pull the earth from beneath your feet. The whole effort is for your mind to fall, to collapse. If you can be near a master for a little while, you will collapse. He is a chaos; you will be pulled down completely. Neither questions nor answers will be there. Only then, when silence exists in you, has a master succeeded with you.
Answers will fill your mind again, so how can a master give you answers? They will be theories; they won't allow you to enter into reality. A master really cuts away your questions until, by and by, you stop asking, and when the moment of no asking comes, only then is the answer given. But that answer is not verbal;
that answer is from his very being. Then the master pours himself into you. He is the vehicle, and the whole pours through him into you.
"WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER."
We think that a master must be very knowledgeable, that he must know everything. In fact a master knows nothing: he has attained to perfect ignorance, because only ignorance can be innocent, knowledge never. Knowledge is always cunning, it can never be innocent. Perfect ignorance. He does not know anything. Knowledge has dropped. He is, but he is not a knower, and whatsoever he says is out of his innocence, not out of his knowledge. He can say millions of things, because innocence is so potent. He can go on and on for years - for forty years Buddha talked. Now scholars say that it seems impossible for one man to talk for forty years - and about so many things. It seems a difficult thing for them because they don't know that innocence is inexhaustible. Knowledge will be exhausted. If I know something, it is limited, then I cannot go on and on and on. And I tell you that if you are ready, I can go on and on for eternity, because it is not out of knowing, but out of perfect ignorance.
Perfect ignorance is not your ignorance: your ignorance is not perfect. You know
- in fact you know too much. You cannot find an ignorant person who doesn't know. He may know 87
less, more, but he knows; he may know wrongly or rightly, but he knows. Even an idiot knows, and insists that he knows rightly. Only an enlightened man denies that he knows. Said Socrates: "When I was young, I knew many things, in fact I knew all. Then I became a little more mature and I started feeling that I didn't know much, in fact, very little. And when I became very, very old then I understood the whole thing. Now I know only one thing: that I don't know."
While he was young he knew many things.… Youth is arrogant. Only immature persons are knowledgeable; maturity is like ignorance, it doesn't know. Or it knows only that it doesn't know.
GUDO REPLIED: "HOW SHOULD I KNOW?"
THE EX-EMPEROR SAID: "WHY? - BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER."
Answers are expected. He must know. If he doesn't know, then who else will know?
And beautiful is Gudo - Said he:
"YES, SIR, BUT NOT A DEAD ONE!"
I am a master, but not a dead one. Wait. When I am dead, then I will say what happens when an enlightened person dies. I am yet alive and you ask me about death. It has not happened, so how should I know? When it happens, I will report to you.
It never happens to an enlightened man. Gudo is really clever. It never happens to an enlightened man. Only ignorant people die. Only the egos die. When there is no center inside you, who can die? How is death possible? Death is possible to the ego, to the self. How can death happen to the no-self? All the enlightened people through the ages have been saying only one thing: Die to the ego so that you can attain to the eternal. Let the ego die, then there will be no death for you, you become deathless.
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CHAPTER 8 - A Field Dyed Deep Violet 28 February 1975 a.m. in Buddha Hall
NINAGAWA-SHINZAEMON, A LINKED-VERSE POET, AND DEVOTEE OF ZEN, DESIRED TO BECOME A DISCIPLE OF THE REMARKABLE MASTER, IKKYU, WHO
WAS ABBOT OF THE DAITOKUJI IN MURASAKINO - A VIOLET FIELD.
HE CALLED UPON IKKYU, AND THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE TOOK PLACE AT
THE TEMPLE ENTRANCE. IKKYU: "WHO ARE YOU?"
NINAGAWA: "A DEVOTEE OF BUDDHISM." IKKYU: "YOU ARE FROM?"
NINAGAWA: "YOUR REGION."
IKKYU: "AH. AND WHAT'S HAPPENING THERE THESE DAYS?" NINAGAWA: "THE CROWS CAW, THE SPARROWS TWITTER." IKKYU: "AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE NOW?" NINAGAWA: "IN A FIELD DYED DEEP VIOLET."
IKKYU: "WHY?" NINAGAWA:
"MISCANTHUS, MORNING GLORIES, SAFFLOWERS,
CHRYSANTHEMUMS, ASTERS." IKKYU: "AND AFTER THEY'RE GONE?"
NINAGAWA: "IT IS MIYAGINO - THE FIELD OF AUTUMN FLOWERING."
IKKYU: "WHAT HAPPENS IN THAT FIELD?"
NINAGAWA: "THE STREAM FLOWS THROUGH, THE WIND SWEEPS OVER."
AMAZED AT NINAGAWA'S ZEN-LIKE SPEECH, IKKYU LED HIM TO HIS ROOM
AND SERVED HIM TEA. THEN HE SPOKE THIS IMPROMPTU VERSE: "I WANT TO
SERVE YOU DELICACIES. ALAS! THE ZEN SECT CAN OFFER NOTHING."
AT WHICH THE VISITOR REPLIED: "THE MIND WHICH TREATS ME TO NOTHING
IS THE ORIGINAL VOID - A DELICACY OF DELICACIES."
DEEPLY MOVED, THE MASTER SAID: "MY SON, YOU HAVE LEARNED MUCH."
Poetry is closer than theology to religion, imagination nearer than reason. And, of course, religion transcends both - it is neither.
But through logic, to drop into the abyss of religion is a little bit difficult, because logic has a rigidity about it. It is not flexible; it is closed, not open; it has no windows, no doors, to go out of itself. It is like a grave. One can die within it, but one cannot move into a living process, one cannot become more alive through it. Logic is a straitjacket, a prison.
Poetry is closer to religion, because it is more flexible, liquid, more flowing. It is not religion, but you can drop out of it more easily than from logic. It has openings - doors and windows - and fresh winds can always reach into the deepest core of the heart of a poet.
Poetry is not rigid; you can drop out of it, if you like; it will not cling to you. And, because it is imaginative, it can stumble, even unknowingly, upon the unknown. It goes on groping in the dark - it IS a groping in the dark - and it goes on groping, it goes on searching. It is always ready to move into any new dimension.
Logic is resistant: you cannot find more orthodox people than logicians. They will never listen to a new dimension opening; they will not even look at it. They will simply say it is not 89
possible. All that is possible, they think, is already known; all that can happen has already happened. They are always suspicious of the unknown.
The heart of the poet is always in love with the unknown. He goes on groping in the dark for something new, something original, something un-tasted before, something unlived, un-experienced. A poet gropes. And sometimes he can stumble upon the unknown; he can fall into the abyss of religion.
Poetry is metaphoric, metaphorical, it lives through metaphors. The same is the language of religion. Of course, when a metaphor is used in a poetic way, it means one thing; and when it is used in a religious way, it means something else. But both use metaphors. There is a meeting ground. Their meanings may differ, but their methods are of the same family. They look like twins. Vast is the difference within, but at least in form, at the surface, they are more alike than logic and religion. Because of this likeness religion has always spoken in the way of the poet: Upanishads, Vedas, Kabir, Meera, Zen poets.…
Zen poets have written beautiful haikus, so condensed that a vast poetic world becomes like a seed in the haiku. Sometimes they are very simple; you cannot even catch the significance immediately. But if you ponder over them, meditate upon them, then, by and by; the small haiku becomes a door. A few days before I was reading Basho's famous haiku. It is very small, but if you meditate upon it, suddenly a door opens. The haiku is:
"Old pond Frog jumps in Water-sound."
Just visualize it - an old pond, very ancient, a frog jumps in, the water-sound. Finished.
Nothing more to say. A whole situation condensed. If you meditate on it, suddenly you will feel a silence surrounding you. Something will change within you. It is objective art.
Zen poets, Sufi mystics, Hindu saints, have all spoken in the language of poetry, and even if sometimes Buddha and Mahavira and Jesus don't speak in the language of poetry, the poetry is still there, whether they speak in it or not. If you listen to them, you will feel a certain poetic quality underneath their words. Their prose is only on the surface. The form is of prose, but the spirit is of poetry. In fact, one who is enlightened cannot do otherwise. If he must speak in
prose, he can; but he cannot avoid poetry. The poetry will be there just beneath the surface - if you have a little insight, you will see it; it is vibrant and alive there. Religion and poetry have the same language: their words differ, but somewhere they have a meeting point. And that meeting point is the subject of this story.
A poet comes to meet a Zen master. He must have been a very great poet, because only the highest and greatest poets can have a meeting ground with the mystic. Each and every poet will not have that, because where the poetry becomes ultimate, there is the first step of mysticism. Where the poetry ends, culminates, reaches its peak, its GOURISHANKAR, becomes the Everest, there is the first step of the temple of the mystic. The highest poetry is the lowest mysticism - there is the meeting point. So only very great poets can attain to the height where a Zen master will have to say:
"MY SON, YOU HAVE LEARNED MUCH."
Now we should enter into this story. 90
NINAGAWA-SHINZAEMON, A LINKED-VERSE POET, AND DEVOTEE OF ZEN, DESIRED TO BECOME A DISCIPLE OF THE REMARKABLE MASTER, IKKYU, WHO
WAS ABBOT OF THE DAITOKUJI IN MURASAKINO - A VIOLET FIELD.
This has always been my feeling: that the greatest of the poets cannot avoid religion; they have to come into it, because poetry leads to a certain point, and beyond that is religion. If you persist in being a poet, you will become religious. You can remain a poet only if you have not travelled the whole extent of it. So only small poets can remain poets: great poets are bound to move into religion. You cannot escape it, because a certain point comes where the poetry ends and religion begins. If you follow up to that extent, where will you go? At that moment poetry converts itself into religion. One has to follow.
The same thing happens to a logician, to a scientist, but in a different way. With a scientist also, if he persists, goes on and on and on, there comes a moment where he feels there is a cul-de-sac, the road moves nowhere. Now there comes an abyss, there are no more roads ahead.
It is different with a poet: there is a road ahead, but now it is no longer of poetry. His road automatically converts into the road of religion. But for a scientist, a logician, or a philosopher, it happens in a different way. He comes to a cul-de- sac, the road simply ends. It goes no further; there is no road, just a precipice, an abyss.
This happened to Albert Einstein in his last days. It can happen only to the greatest. The lesser minds on the same road never reach to the cul-de-sac point. They die somewhere on the road believing that the road was leading somewhere, because there was still road ahead of them. The conversion happens only to the greatest. In the last days of Albert Einstein's life, he started feeling that his whole life had been a wastage. Somebody asked him, "If you are born again, what would you like to be?" He said: "Never again a scientist. I would rather be a plumber, but never again a scientist. Finished!" In the last days, he started thinking about God, or the ultimate meaning of life, the mystery of mysteries, and he said: "The more I penetrated into the mystery of existence, the more and more I felt that the mystery is eternal, unending, infinite. The more I came to know, the less I became certain about my knowledge."
The mystery is vast, it cannot be exhausted. This is what a concept of God is: the mysterious, the vast, that which cannot be exhausted. You can know, and know, and know, and still it remains unknown. You move into it, and go in, and in, and in, and still you are moving on the periphery. You go on dropping into it, but there is no bottom to it. You can never exactly reach to the center of the mystery. The moment never comes when you can say:
"I have known all." Nobody has said that, except fools. A wise man starts feeling more and more ignorant, only fools gather a few things from here and there, and start thinking that they know. Only fools are knowers, claimers of knowledge.
Even in a scientific search the moment comes when the road leads nowhere. Then, suddenly, there is a jump. A poet can move into religion without any jump, he can simply slip, the roads are linked together. But a scientist has to take a jump: a total about-turn, three hundred and sixty degrees. He has to go completely upside down, inside out, outside in. But a poet can simply slip, like a snake slipping out of his old skin. That's why I say that poetry is closer to religion.
This man, Ninagawa, must have been a very, very great poet; hence he became
interested in Zen, meditation.
If poetry does not lead you to meditation, it is not poetry. At the most, it may be a clever composition of words, but there will be no poetry in it. You may be a good linguist, a good composer, a good grammarian, one who knows all the rules about how to write poetry, but you are not a poet - because poetry in its deepest core is meditative.
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A poet is not a composer: a poet is a visionary. He doesn't compose, the poetry happens to him in certain moments - those moments are of meditation. In fact, when the poet is not, then the poetry happens. When the poet is completely absent, suddenly he is filled with something unknown, unasked for; suddenly something of the unknown has entered into him, a fresh breeze has come into his house. Now he has to translate this fresh breeze into language - he is not a composer, he is a translator. A poet is a translator: something happens inside his being and he translates it into language, into words. Something wordless stirs within. It is more like a feeling, and less like a thought. It is less in the head, and more in the heart.
A poet is very courageous. To live with the heart takes the deepest courage. The word
"courage" is very interesting. It comes from a Latin root "cor", which means the heart. The word courage comes from the root "cor". Cor means the heart - so to be courageous means to live with the heart. And weaklings, only weaklings, live with the head; afraid, they created a security of logic around them; fearful, they close every window and door with theology, concepts, words, theories - and inside them they hide.
The way of the heart is the way of courage. It is live in insecurity, it is to live in love, and trust; it is to move in the unknown; it is leaving the past and allowing the future to be.
Courage is to move on dangerous paths: life is dangerous and only cowards can avoid the danger. But then, they are already dead. A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown. There is danger there, but he will take the risk. The heart is always ready to take the risk, the heart is a gambler, the head is a businessman. The head always calculates - it is cunning.
The heart is non-calculating.
This English word "courage" is beautiful, very interesting. To live through the heart is the meaning: a poet lives through the heart. And, by and by, in the heart he starts listening to the sounds of the unknown. The head cannot listen; it is very far away from the unknown. The head is filled with the known.
What is your mind? It is all that you have known. It is the past, the dead, that which has gone. Mind is nothing but the accumulated past, the memory. Heart is the future, heart is always the hope, heart is always somewhere in the future. Head thinks about the past; heart dreams about the future.
And I tell you that the present is nearer to the future than to the past. That's why I say that the poet is nearer to religion. Philosophy, logic metaphysics, theology, science, all belong to the past, the known; poetry, music, dance, art - all the arts - belong to the future.
Religion belongs to the present, and I tell you that the future is nearer to the present than to the past, because the past is already gone. The future is to come. The future is yet to be. The future has yet the possibility. It will come; it is already coming. Every moment it is becoming the present and the present is becoming the past. The past has no possibility, it has been used.
You have already moved away from it - it is exhausted, it is a dead thing, it is like a grave.
The future is like a seed; it is coming, ever coming, always reaching and meeting with the present. You are always moving. The present is nothing but a movement into the future; it is already the step that you have taken; it is going into the future. Poetry is concerned with possibility, hope, dreams; it is nearer.
This man, Ninagawa, must have been a great poet. Why do I say he must have been a great poet? - I have not read his poetry; I don't know what he wrote. But I say he must have been a great poet, because he became interested in Zen. And not only that - he DESIRED TO BECOME A DISCIPLE OF THE REMARKABLE MASTER, IKKYU.
To be interested in Zen is not enough unless you become a disciple. To be interested in religion is not enough - it is good, but it doesn't go very far. Interest remains a curiosity; 92
interest remains mental, unless you take a jump into commitment, unless you become a disciple.
To become a disciple is a great decision. It is no ordinary decision; it is a very difficult, almost impossible decision. I always say that to become a disciple is the most impossible revolution. Because how can one trust another? How can one leave his life in the hands of another? It is the most impossible revolution, but it happens, and when it happens, it is beautiful, there is nothing like it. But only those who are very courageous, almost daredevils, only they can take the step. It is not for cowards. It is not for head-oriented people. It is for those who live in the heart, for those who have courage, for those who can risk. This is the greatest gamble ever because you risk your total life, you give yourself to somebody. You don't know who he is, you cannot know. You may feel certain things, but you can never be certain about the master. Always a doubt remains. In spite of the doubt, one has to take the jump. The doubt cannot be satisfied. No. You can hide it, but you cannot convince the doubting part - how can you convince it? You have to be with the master, only then will the doubt disappear. Before it is not possible. Only experience will help it to disappear. So how can you convince it?
The mind always hesitates. People come to me and they say that they are hesitating, they are fifty-fifty, what to do? Should they wait? If they wait, they can wait forever, because if they think that they will take the jump only when the mind is a hundred percent certain, convinced, then they will never take it. Because the mind can never be a hundred percent for something - that is the nature of the mind. It is always divided, fragmented; it can never to total. That is the difference between heart and mind. Heart is always total, mind is always divided. Mind is the division of your being: heart is the undivided being.
Discipleship is of the heart. The mind goes on rambling and talking and doubting and being suspicious. In spite of that, in spite of the chattering mind, one takes the jump. I say "in spite of that". That is the only way - you simply don't listen to the mind. You simply move beneath the mind, reach the heart, and ask the heart. Discipleship is like love, it is not like a business partnership. It is not a bargain. You simply give, without knowing whether something is going to happen or not. Whether you will receive anything back, you don't know. You simply give. That's why it is courage.
He was not only interested in Zen, he was a devotee. He loved it. Interest,
curiosity, enquiry, is of the mind, devotion is of the heart.
...DESIRED TO BECOME A DISCIPLE.
What is becoming a disciple? What does it mean? It means: I have tried, and failed; I have searched and couldn't find; I have done all that I could do, and I have remained the same. No transformation has happened to me. So I surrender. Now, the master will be the deciding factor, not me. I will simply follow him like a shadow. Whatsoever he says I will do. I will not ask for proofs. I will not ask that he should first convince me. I will not argue, I will simply follow - in deep trust.
The mind may still go on about: "What are you doing? This is not good. This will not lead anywhere; this is foolish, this is mad." The mind will go on saying this, but, once you have taken the decision to be a disciple, you don't listen to the mind, you listen to the master. Up to now you have listened to your own mind, the ego, from now onwards, you will listen to the master, now the master will be your mind. This is the meaning of discipleship: you will put yourself aside and allow the master to penetrate into the deepest core of your being. You are no more. Now only the master is. To be a disciple means to be a shadow, to put your ego completely aside.
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HE CALLED UPON IKKYU, AND THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE TOOK PLACE AT
THE TEMPLE ENTRANCE.
Zen stories are very, very meaningful: no word is there unnecessarily, not even a single word.
...THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE TOOK PLACE AT THE TEMPLE ENTRANCE.
First, the word "dialogue". Dialogue is not just talking, it is not discussing, it is not arguing, it is not a debate. A dialogue has a different quality. A dialogue is the meeting of two beings, meeting in love, trying to understand each other. Not trying to argue, not trying to discuss - just a very sympathetic attitude. Dialogue is participating in the being of the other: two friends or two lovers talking with
no antagonism inside, with no effort to prove you right, and the other wrong.
That happens while you are talking with people - you go on and on in subtle ways, trying to prove that you are right. And the other goes on trying to prove that he is right. Then dialogue is not possible. Dialogue means trying to understand the other with an open mind.
Dialogue is a rare phenomenon and it is beautiful, because both are enriched through a dialogue. In fact, while you talk, either it can be a discussion - both opposite to each other, a verbal fight, trying to prove that I am right and you are wrong - or a dialogue, which is different. Dialogue is not posing against each other, but taking each other's hand, moving together towards the truth, helping each other to find the way. It is togetherness, it is cooperation, it is a harmonious effort to find the truth. It is not in any way a fight, not at all. It is a friendship, moving together to find the truth, helping each other to find the truth. Nobody has the truth already, but when two persons start finding out, enquiring about the truth together, that is dialogue - and both are enriched. And when truth is found, it is neither of me, nor of you. When truth is found, it is greater than who participated in the enquiry, it is higher than both, it surrounds both - and both are enriched.
Dialogue is the beginning between a master and a disciple; and it must happen at the entrance, otherwise going into the temple is not possible. Hence the words "at the entrance" -
it must happen at the gate. The first thing is the dialogue: if it doesn't happen, then there is no possibility of any disciple hood. Then Ikkyu would have said good-bye, at the very entrance, because there would be no need to invite the person into the temple, there would be no meaning in it. So sitting at the entrance, just sitting on the steps, this dialogue happened.
Ikkyu tried to feel the man. He had to feel the man, the potentiality, the possibility, the attitude. How deep was the enquiry? How deep was the urge to enquire? Was it just a curiosity? Was he just a philosopher, or really a devotee? Ikkyu was just trying to feel his being, and Ninagawa allowed it, he participated in it. He didn't become scared, he didn't try to defend, he didn't try to pretend to be something which he was not. He opened his heart to this man completely. He allowed this man to enter in him, to feel, because that's how a master has to decide whether you have come here accidentally, or you have really come.
The coming can be accidental - somebody told you and you were passing by the road so you said: "Okay, there is time enough to go to the movie. Let us go and see who this master is."
If it is accidental then it is better to end the relationship at the entrance, because it will lead nowhere. If the mind is argumentative, if the mind is too filled with its own ideas, then you can become a student, but not a disciple. And a master is not a teacher, he is not in search of 94
students, he is not running a school. He is creating a temple of the heart, he is making a shrine; he is bringing a holy, sacred phenomenon to the earth.
Ikkyu had to feel, and he felt him very deeply, and the man proved his mettle, he was authentic. He didn't react, he responded to the master, and whatsoever the master asked, he gave a total response to it. Those responses are beautiful, move slowly.
HE CALLED UPON IKKYU, AND THE FOLLOWING DIALOGUE TOOK PLACE AT
THE TEMPLE ENTRANCE. IKKYU: "WHO ARE YOU?"
That is going to be the whole search. "Who am I?" is all that religion is about. If you already know who you are, then there is no need to bother or, if in your ignorance you have become identified with the name and the form, too identified, too filled with your name and form, then, too, you are not yet mature enough for a master like Ikkyu to accept you. You have to go to a lesser master, in fact, to a teacher who will teach you that you are not the name, and you are not the form, and you are not the body, and this and that, and create a philosophical soil into which a master can throw the seed. You need to go to some teacher. So the first thing Ikkyu asked was: "Who are you?"
Ninagawa said:
"A DEVOTEE OF BUDDHISM."
A very, very humble attitude - non-claiming. He didn't say his name, that "I am Ninagawa -
you don't know? Have you not heard about the greatest poet in the country?
Don't you read newspapers? What nonsense are you asking: Who are you? Everybody knows in the country, even the emperor."
Poets are very, very egoistical people. Poets, writers, novelists - all have very crystallized egos. You cannot find more egoistical people than literary people. It is very difficult to have any dialogue with them. They already know. They can teach you, but they cannot be taught.
Just because they can compose a few lines, just because they can write an article, or a novel, or a story, they start feeling very much that they are somebody. In fact, a real poet will have no ego - if a poet has a very crystallized ego, he is not a poet at all. Because he has learned nothing out of his poetry, he has not even learned this basic truth: that poetry descends only when you are not. So he must be composing, he must be doing something. Poetry can be a technique, so he may be a technician, but he is not a poet. He may be able to arrange beautiful words, in rhythm, he may follow all the rules, he may be perfect - but he is not a poet. He may be clever, technically right, but deep inside, if the ego is still there, he does not know what poetry is, because poetry happens only when you are not. In fact, a great poet will not claim that he is the creator of this poetry. How can he claim it? He was not when it happened.
It happened that when Coleridge - one of the greatest poets - died, he left almost forty thousand pieces incomplete. He would start a poem; write three lines, and then stop. Years would pass, and then suddenly one day he would add two more lines, then stop. Forty thousand incomplete poems! Just before he died, somebody asked: "What have you been doing? These are such beautiful things, why don't you complete them?" He said: "How can I complete them? I never wrote them, they came. When they come, they come; when they don't come, they don't come. What can I do? They cannot be pulled; they cannot be forced to come.
I don't know from where they come: out of the blue a line descends. Sometimes the whole poem comes in succession, sometimes not, and nothing can be done because I don't know from where they come. In fact, when they come I am not. I am so dazed, I become just a void.
So how can I complete them?" 95
That's why ancient poems exist without any signature. Nobody knows who wrote them.
Who wrote the Upanishads, the greatest of poems - who wrote them, nobody knows. The authors never signed them; they never signed them because they felt so humble. They were not the makers, not the creators.
When Ninagawa was asked, "who are you?" if he had been just like other poets, ordinary poets and writers and authors, too filled with their own egos, he would have said something like, "you don't know that I am a Nobel Laureate, a Nobel Prize winner, and that the emperor has praised me and appointed me as the royal poet?" No, Ninagawa said:
"A DEVOTEE OF BUDDHISM."
He didn't talk about poetry, he didn't talk about his famous name, he didn't talk about himself at all. He simply said:
"A DEVOTEE OF BUDDHISM"
- a devotee of Buddha. A devotee - that showed that he was there because of his heart, because of his love. He was there not because of his reasoning; he was there because of his feeling. Just a devotee.
IKKYU: "YOU ARE FROM?" NINAGAWA: "YOUR REGION."
A beautiful metaphor. In fact he was from the region, from the same part of the country, from where Ikkyu came. But he was not talking about that. He was talking about the inner region, the inner search: "Maybe you are far ahead, maybe you have reached, and I am just a beginner, but I belong to the same region, the search is the same. I am a fellow traveller."
Once your heart is filled with the urge to know the truth, you become a fellow traveller of all that makes no difference - you have started on the path. You may be just at the beginning, but now you are a fellow traveller.
Says Ninagawa:
"YOUR REGION."
I belong to the same part of the world to which you belong.
IKKYU: "AH. AND WHAT'S HAPPENlNG THERE THESE DAYS?"
He goes on poking at him, provoking him; maybe he is just a pretender trying to deceive, saying beautiful things learned somewhere, borrowed. He may have been a scholar of Zen classics where such dialogues are given. But he cannot escape Ikkyu. If he is a pretender, he will fall somewhere or other.
"AH. AND WHAT'S HAPPENING THERE THESE DAYS?"
Ikkyu brings him back and back. He understands what Ninagawa is saying, what he means by "your region", but he doesn't allow it for a moment. So he says: "What is happening there these days?" Who has become the prime minister there? Whose wife has moved with whom?
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Some rumor, some gossip; what is happening there? Some events must have taken place -
somebody died, somebody got married. Events - what is happening there? NINAGAWA: "THE CROWS CAW, THE SPARROWS TWITTER."
Prime ministers, ministers, and their world, politics, the market, economics, are not real history. They are just accidents; they happen on the periphery. They are not part of eternity, they happen in time. What is eternal is the only news for those who know, and what is accidental is the only news for those who don't know.
NINAGAWA: "THE CROWS CAW, THE SPARROWS TWITTER."
This is the eternal news, which has always been happening and is happening still. Summer and winter, nature flows, and clouds come and go. This is eternity. In the morning the sun rises, and in the evening the sun sets, still. And in the night there are stars in the sky with their subtle music. This is all. That is the real news. The crows don't bother who has become the prime minister, and the
sparrows don't pay a single, a single bit of attention to the world of events. Only man is filled with this junk.
Henry Ford has said: "History is bunk." It is rare for something like this to come from a very rich man, but it is true. What does it matter whether Napoleon wins or is defeated? Who rules? The eternal moves, not even aware that these things are happening. What is Ninagawa saying? He is saying it is always the same:
THE CROWS CAW, THE SPARROWS TWITTER. "AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE NOW?"
Ikkyu's hard - from another dimension he attacks. "AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE NOW?" NINAGAWA: "IN A FIELD DYED DEEP VIOLET."
The temple was known as the violet field, Murasakino. IKKYU: "WHY?"
Why do you call it that? You are in a field dyed deep violet. Why do you call it "DYED DEEP VIOLET?"
NINAGAWA: "MISCANTHUS, MORNING GLORIES, SAFFLOWERS, CHRYSANTHEMUMS, ASTERS."
Flowers all over. Ninagawa doesn't say that this was the name of the temple - violet field.
Names belong to the memory, to the past, and the master was asking about the now. And now, all over, all around are flowers:
MISCANTHUS, MORNING GLORIES,
SAFFLOWERS, CHRYSANTHEMUMS, ASTERS.
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They were giving the whole place a deep violet colour. When Ikkyu asked about the now, Ninagawa talked about the now.
Ikkyu is really impossible; he won't relax. He asks:
"AND AFTER THEY'RE GONE?"
These flowers are here now, okay, so you call it a deep violet colour, a violet field. But soon these flowers will be gone, then what will you call it, after they are gone?
NINAGAWA: "IT IS MIYAGINO - THE FIELD OF AUTUMN FLOWERING."
This is to be understood. Clouds come and go - these are two aspects of the same coin.
Flowers flower, then disappear - these are also two aspects of the same phenomenon. Absence and presence are not opposite: they are two aspects of the same thing. Now there are flowers, so it is called the violet field, and when the flowers are gone people will say that this is the field of the absence of these autumn flowers. It will still be the violet field, but from the other side, the absence.
It happened once that a Zen master loved his mother very much. In fact, before he became a Zen disciple, his father died. He wanted to become a Zen monk, but his mother said: "I am poor, and I am alone, and your father is dead." So he said: "Don't worry. Even when I become a monk, I will be your son and you will be my mother. I am not renouncing, you are not losing anything." So the mother allowed him to become a monk.
He loved the mother very much. He would go to the market to purchase things
for her, and people would laugh. They would say: "We have never seen a monk purchasing things."
Buddhist monks simply beg; and not only would he not be begging, he would be purchasing meat and fish, and people would simply ridicule him. This was too much.
Of course he was buying these things for his mother, not for himself; she liked them and she was not a nun or a religious person. Then the mother, seeing that people laughed, that the whole town laughed about a monk purchasing fish, became a vegetarian. And because people laughed about him purchasing things, she said: "Don't go. I will purchase them myself." He continued to be a devoted son.
Then one day he went to preach somewhere and the mother died when he was not there.
He came just in time; the dead body was there and people were getting ready to take it to the cemetery.
He came near the body and said: "Mother, so you have left?" And he himself replied: "Yes, son, I have left the body." Then he said: "Don't be too worried, because soon I will also be leaving the body." Then he replied, from the mother's side: "Good, I will wait for you." And then he told the people: "I have said good- bye to my mother. The dialogue is over. The funeral is over. Now you can take the dead body." Somebody asked: "We cannot follow, what is the matter? To whom were you talking?" He said: "To the absence of my mother, because that is another aspect of her being." They asked: "But why were you answering?" He said:
"Because she could not answer, so I had to do both. Absence cannot answer, so I had to answer from her side. But she is there, as she was before, only now she is in her absent aspect."
So when Ikkyu asked:
"AND AFTER THEY ARE GONE?"
Ninagawa said:
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"IT IS MIYAGINO - THE FIELD OF AUTUMN FLOWERING."
It is the same field, but in an absent aspect. Manifested or un-manifested, being or non-being, life or death, are two aspects of the same phenomenon. There is nothing to choose, and those who choose are stupid, and unnecessarily fall into suffering. Now amazed, Ikkyu asked the last question:
- when flowers are gone?
NINAGAWA: "THE STREAM FLOWS THROUGH, THE WIND SWEEPS OVER."
AMAZED AT NINAGAWA'S ZEN-LIKE SPEECH, IKKYU LED HIM TO HIS ROOM
AND SERVED HIM TEA.
Remember, it is Zen-like, but it is not exactly Zen. He is a poet, and a very great poet of deep understanding, but the highest of poetry is just the beginning of Zen, the beginning of religion.
It is Zen-like stuff. He understands he has a certain glimpse, he is open, he feels, he has groped in the dark and he knows a certain quality; through his own enquiry he has stumbled upon it. But still it is just a glimpse. Sometimes it can happen - a dark night, a sudden lightning, and you have a glimpse. Then again there is darkness. This is what happens to the greatest poet: he is just on the boundary line from where he can have glimpses of the beyond.
But they are glimpses. They are Zen-like.
When will they become Zen? They will become Zen only when they are no longer glimpses, but have become your very being. Then you live in them from moment to moment, they don't come and go. They have simply become your innermost being, the way you are. It is not like lightning, it is full noontide, it is day; the sun is high in the sky and remains there; there is no possibility of darkness coming again. It is not a glimpse, it has become part of you, you carry it wherever you go. The inner light is burning now - you don't depend on accidents, you have settled in it, it has become your home.
Trying to reach reality through the head is just like someone trying to see through the ears.
It is not possible. Ears can hear, but cannot see. Trying to reach reality through the heart is like trying to see with the hands. The hands cannot see, but they can still give a glimpse of what seeing can be.
A blind person, if he loves a woman, touches her face, feels the curves, touches the body, feels the roundness, the warmth and the marble-like texture, then through the hands comes a certain glimpse of seeing. Hands can give you a certain glimpse of seeing, not exactly seeing because how can hands see? They can only grope. But when you touch a face with closed eyes, you can feel the curves, the nose, the eyes, the way the face is.
A poet is like a hand, he feels the nature of reality with his hands. Certain glimpses come to him, Zen-like. And a real man of Zen is like eyes, he is not groping, he has no need to touch with the hand - he can see.
AMAZED AT NINAGAWA'S ZEN-LIKE SPEECH, IKKYU LED HIM TO HIS ROOM
AND SERVED HIM TEA.
These are symbols showing that you are allowed - come nearer and closer. 99
...AND SERVED HIM TEA.
Tea is a Zen symbol which means awareness, because tea makes you more alert, more aware. Tea was invented by Buddhists and for centuries they have used tea as a help in meditation. And tea is helpful. If you take a cup of tea, strong, and then sit in meditation for at least one hour you will not feel sleepy, and you can remain aware. Otherwise, whenever you feel silent, and sit relaxed, sleep comes. To avoid sleep, tea has helped.
The story is that Bodhidharma was meditating on a certain mountain in China called "Ta".
From that "Ta" comes the name "tea". That mountain can be pronounced as "Ta",
or "Cha"; that's why in India tea is called "chai", or "cha".
Bodhidharma was meditating; he was really a great meditator. He liked to meditate for eighteen hours, but it was difficult. He would feel sleepy again and again, and his eyelids would drop, again and again. So he cut off his eyelids and threw them away, now there was no possibility of closing the eyes. The story is beautiful - those eyelids became the first seeds of tea, and a certain plant came out of them. Bodhidharma prepared the first tea in the world out of the plants, and he was amazed to find that if you took the leaves and drank them, you could remain alert for longer periods. So for centuries Zen people have been drinking tea, and tea has become a very, very sacred thing.
When a Zen master serves tea, it is a metaphor. He is saying: Be more aware. You are on the right path, he says to Ninagawa, you are on the right path, but you are walking a little sleepily. You have found the direction; now move in the same direction. Soon your Zen-like being will become Zen, but you will need to be more aware.
AMAZED AT NINAGAWA'S ZEN-LIKE SPEECH, IKKYU LED HIM TO HIS ROOM
AND SERVED HIM TEA.
He is serving awareness, a cup full of awareness. It is a symbol to indicate that he should become more aware, that's all that he needs.
THEN IKKYU SPOKE THIS IMPROMPTU VERSE: "I WANT TO SERVE YOU
DELICACIES. ALAS! THE ZEN SECT CAN OFFER NOTHING."
It has two meanings. The ordinary meaning is that in the Zen sect delicacies are not allowed. Very simple food is allowed; rice, a few vegetables, tea - no delicacies. So the first, the ordinary meaning is:
I WANT TO SERVE YOU DELICACIES. ALAS! THE ZEN SECT CAN OFFER
NOTHING.
This is the last effort of Ikkyu to penetrate him to the deepest core, to see whether he can understand the meaning or not.
The second meaning is:
I WANT TO SERVE YOU DELICACIES ALAS! THE ZEN SECT CAN OFFER... only NOTHING.
I can offer nothing. It can mean: I cannot offer anything, or it can mean: I can offer you only nothing. Then nothing is offered. Awareness and nothingness are two aspects of the same thing. The more you become aware, the more you feel being nothing.
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So first Ikkyu served tea to say: Become aware. Then he says: Alas! I cannot offer anything
- except nothing.
This is the last net thrown by the master. After he had given the tea, if Ninagawa had been a pretender, he would have relaxed. He would have thought: "I am accepted. The master has led me to his tea-room, offered me tea, served me tea. I am relaxed." After taking tea he would have relaxed, because you cannot pretend for long. Pretension is such a strain that one relaxes. And when the master has served and given you tea, now there is no need to pretend, everything is finished. So it was the last trap.
Ninagawa replied:
"THE MIND WHICH TREATS ME TO NOTHING IS THE ORIGINAL VOID
- A DELICACY OF DELICACIES."
No. He had a really Zen-like understanding; he was not a mere poet. Something of the real poetry of existence had happened to him. He could immediately understand. He could be immediate and he could respond. He said:
"THE MIND WHICH TREATS ME TO NOTHING IS THE ORIGINAL VOID
- A DELICACY OF DELICACIES."
Nothing is the delicacy of delicacies - more than that cannot be offered. That is the last delicacy, the last taste of existence itself. It is as if you have eaten God himself - the delicacy of delicacies.
DEEPLY MOVED, THE MASTER SAID: "MY SON, YOU HAVE LEARNED MUCH."
This learning is not knowledge. Zen makes a difference between learning and knowledge; let me explain it to you. Knowledge is borrowed: learning is yours. Knowledge is through words, language, concepts: learning is through experience. Knowledge is always finished: you know it, it is complete. Learning is never complete; it is always on the way. Learning is a process - one goes on and on and on, to the very last moment one goes on learning.
Knowledge stops somewhere, and becomes the ego. Learning never stops, it remains humbleness. Knowledge is borrowed: you cannot deceive a master by your knowledge, because your words will be just on the surface; deep down your being will show. Your words cannot hide you. For a master your words are transparent. Whatsoever you show that you know he can always see behind to what is really there. This man would have been caught by Ikkyu if he had been a man of knowledge. But no, he was really a man of learning: he had learned, he was not pretending. Through many experiences of life, existence, he had learned much.
"MY SON", SAID IKKYU, "YOU HAVE LEARNED MUCH".
And this is very much from a Zen master, because they are very miserly about saying such things. When a Zen master says such a thing he means it. And he can say such a thing only when he is really moved, when he really feels the authentic. Only then, otherwise not.
Look into this story, and feel yourself parallel to it. Have you learned, or have you only gathered knowledge? Let it become a very fundamental law: don't react through knowledge, react - that is, respond - spontaneously. Only then will you be closer and closer to me, and only then, one day, can I lead you in and serve you tea. Otherwise you can just be physically 101
closer to me and that won't help. I have to serve awareness to you and I have to give you the delicacy of delicacies - nothingness.
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