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Chapter 4 - This harvest moon
predecessors are not needed, you are enough unto yourself. It is just a question of awakening.
So everybody will wake up -- how long can you sleep? We will go on harassing you.
IF THE BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS HAD NOT DIRECTLY TRANSMITTED THE
DHARMA, HOW COULD IT HAVE COME DOWN TO US TODAY?
Absolute bullshit! -- but very scholarly, supported by the scriptures. Dharma is your very nature, that is the meaning of the word 'dharma'. Just as coldness is the dharma of ice and heat is the dharma of fire, buddhahood is your dharma. Awareness is your dharma, your fire, your coolness, your nature. It has nothing to do with anybody who has become enlightened before you.
Even if the whole history is completely erased, it won't affect in any way people becoming enlightened. Because it is their nature, sooner or later they will blossom. They may go astray a little bit here and there and that is nothing wrong
... just going for a morning walk, or being lost in a bazaar, in a shopping mall. But finally you will have to come home. You will have to realize yourself. Hence I cannot support Dogen's idea.
He says:
THE TRUE WAY OF EXPRESSING THIS GRATITUDE CAN BE FOUND ONLY IN
OUR DAILY PRACTICE ITSELF.
Gratitude for what? He is asking you to be grateful for Gautam Buddha, for Bodhidharma, for other patriarchs and masters. Gratitude is a by-product. He is not aware about the very psychology of man. Gratitude comes after you have become a buddha. Then you feel gratitude towards existence; then you feel the miracle that you have not asked for anything and you have been given
everything, all the mysteries. Dogen goes on saying:
HOW TRANSIENT OUR LIFE IS! TO UTTER TWO OR THREE WORDS OF THE
BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS COMPLETELY IS TO EXPRESS THE BUDDHAS AND
PATRIARCHS THEMSELVES FULLY. WHY IS THIS SO?
IN THEIR REALM THERE IS NO GAP BETWEEN BODY AND MIND, SO EVERY
WORD OF THEIR UTTERING IS THEIR WARM BODY AND MIND.
THEREFORE, WHEN WE BECOME THE BUDDHAS AND PATRIARCHS, WE
TRANSCEND THEM.
He has not yet become a buddha. He does not know transcendence, he is still talking about it.
THIS IS THE PRACTICAL EXPRESSION OF TWO OR THREE WORDS OF BUDDHAS AND THE PATRIARCHS.
SO I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO PURSUE THE PRACTICE OF THE BUDDHAS
AND PATRIARCHS.
This is the way of a teacher, of a priest, of a professor; but these are not the words of a man who is awakened. The awakened people speak in a very different way -- the same words, but they have a different nuance to them.
Osho - The Miracle 59
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