10 Nothing is so daring as zen

‌CHAPTER 10

Nothing is so daring as zen

5 June 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

KYOGEN WAS A SCHOLAR OF GREAT LEARNING, AND FOR SOME TIME, THIS STOOD IN THE WAY OF HIS ENLIGHTENMENT.

ONE DAY, ISAN ASKED KYOGEN, “WHEN YOU WERE WITH OUR TEACHER, HYAKUJO, YOU WERE CLEVER ENOUGH TO GIVE TEN ANSWERS TO A SINGLE QUESTION, AND HUNDREDS OF ANSWERS TO TEN QUESTIONS.

“TELL ME THIS: WHAT IS YOUR REAL SELF – THE SELF THAT EXISTED BEFORE YOU CAME OUT OF YOUR MOTHER’S WOMB, BEFORE YOU KNEW EAST FROM WEST?”

AT THIS QUESTION, KYOGEN WAS STUPEFIED AND DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY. HE RACKED HIS BRAINS AND OFFERED ALL SORTS OF ANSWERS, BUT ISAN BRUSHED THEM ASIDE.

AT LAST KYOGEN SAID, “I BEG YOU, PLEASE EXPLAIN IT TO ME.”

ISAN REPLIED, “WHAT I SAY BELONGS TO MY OWN UNDERSTANDING. HOW CAN THAT BENEFIT YOUR MIND’S EYE?”

KYOGEN WENT THROUGH ALL HIS BOOKS AND THE NOTES HE HAD MADE ON AUTHORITIES OF EVERY SCHOOL, BUT COULD FIND NO WORDS TO USE AS AN ANSWER TO ISAN’S QUESTION. SIGHING TO HIMSELF, HE SAID, “YOU CANNOT FILL AN EMPTY

STOMACH WITH PAINTINGS OF RICE CAKES.” HE THEN BURNED ALL HIS BOOKS AND PAPERS, SAYING, “I WILL GIVE UP THE STUDY OF BUDDHISM. I WILL REMAIN A RICE-GRUEL MONK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND AVOID TORTURING MY MIND.”

SADLY HE LEFT ISAN, AND TOOK ON THE SELF-APPOINTED JOB OF GRAVE-KEEPER. ONE DAY, WHEN HE WAS SWEEPING THE GROUND, A STONE STRUCK A BAMBOO. KYOGEN STOOD SPEECHLESS, FORGETTING HIMSELF FOR A WHILE.

THEN, SUDDENLY, BURSTING INTO LOUD LAUGHTER, HE BECAME ENLIGHTENED.

RETURNING TO HIS HUT, KYOGEN PERFORMED THE CEREMONY OF PURIFICATION, OFFERED INCENSE, PAID HOMAGE TO HIS TEACHER, ISAN, AND WITH THE DEEPEST SENSE OF GRATITUDE SAID, “GREAT MASTER, THANK YOU! YOUR KINDNESS TO ME IS GREATER EVEN THEN THAT OF MY PARENTS. IF YOU HAD EXPLAINED THE PROFOUND CAUSE TO ME WHEN I BEGGED YOU TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE REACHED WHERE I STAND TODAY.” KYOGEN’S VERSE ON THIS OCCASION RUNS:

ONE STROKE AND ALL IS GONE,

NO NEED OF STRATAGEM OR CURE; EACH AND EVERY ACTION MANIFESTS THE ANCIENT WAY.

MY SPIRIT IS NEVER DOWNCAST, I LEAVE NO TRACKS BEHIND ME,

ENLIGHTENMENT IS BEYOND SPEECH, BEYOND GESTURE;

THOSE WHO ARE EMANCIPATED CALL IT THE UNSURPASSED.

The search called Zen is not for anything other than your own self. It is not a study, hence no scholarship can do any justice to it. It is a very simple experience – great learning can be only a wall and not a bridge to it.

Learning is not needed, what is needed is innocence, and a learned man is never innocent; he knows too much, he knows more than he knows. And he is too proud of all the words, borrowed, that he has accumulated and goes on accumulating.

Zen is freedom from the word, freedom from all the advice and all the wisdom of centuries. It simply brings you back to yourself. It does not allow you to move even a little.

The needle of your consciousness should point to THIS! Then anything can be a cause of awakening.

This anecdote is simply stating the fact that even a stone striking the bamboos can be the cause of enlightenment. Nothing in the whole history of religion has been so daring as Zen, so rebellious and so existential.

Just listen to the anecdote – not as if you are listening to a story or a fiction. These are facts, people have lived them and if you can understand, the same door is open to you as it was open to Kyogen.

KYOGEN WAS A SCHOLAR OF GREAT LEARNING, AND FOR SOME TIME, THIS STOOD IN THE WAY OF HIS ENLIGHTENMENT.

Every religion respects scholarship, learning, knowledge, scripture. Zen is alone and unique in its approach. It wants you to burn all the burden of scriptures, to burn all the knowledge that you have borrowed so that you can come to your simple consciousness, unscratched, nothing written on it – just a pure silence, a sky without any frontiers.

Kyogen was a great scholar; although he was searching for truth, scholarship is not the way to find it. His very learning was functioning as a barrier to relax into himself. He was clinging to words, scriptures, sutras, past buddhas. It is a hilarious situation, because the buddha is within and people are keeping stone statues in their temples. The essential experience is within and people are reciting sutras of others. It is the most hilarious situation.

ONE DAY, ISAN ASKED KYOGEN, “WHEN YOU WERE WITH OUR TEACHER, HYAKUJO, YOU WERE CLEVER ENOUGH TO GIVE TEN ANSWERS TO A SINGLE QUESTION, AND HUNDREDS OF ANSWERS TO TEN QUESTIONS.

“TELL ME THIS: WHAT IS YOUR REAL SELF – THE SELF THAT EXISTED BEFORE YOU CAME OUT OF YOUR MOTHER’S WOMB, BEFORE YOU KNEW EAST FROM WEST?”

AT THIS QUESTION, KYOGEN WAS STUPEFIED AND DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY. HE RACKED HIS BRAINS AND OFFERED ALL SORTS OF ANSWERS, BUT ISAN BRUSHED THEM ASIDE.

AT LAST KYOGEN SAID, “I BEG YOU, PLEASE EXPLAIN IT TO ME.”

ISAN REPLIED “WHAT I SAY BELONGS TO MY OWN UNDERSTANDING. HOW CAN THAT

BENEFIT your MIND’S EYE? – your consciousness? What I know is so deep within me, and it is not a commodity that can be given to you. You will have to find it on your own within yourself.”

KYOGEN WENT THROUGH ALL HIS BOOKS AND THE NOTES HE HAD MADE ON AUTHORITIES OF EVERY SCHOOL, BUT COULD FIND NO WORDS TO USE AS AN ANSWER TO ISAN’S QUESTION.

Kyogen must have been a very honest and sincere inquirer, otherwise thousands of books are available with all kinds of answers. But there is not a single book in the world which can give you the

answer that breathes, that has a heart, that can laugh, that can dance. That answer is not going to be from any source other than your own.

Kyogen tried all the great scriptures, and notes he had taken while listening to great masters like Hyakujo, but he could not find the answer to the question Isan had raised: “Who are you? What is inside you? What is your center of being? What is the flame that keeps you alive?”

Isan was questioning the very life source. Of course you cannot find it in any book, unless you are a stupid scholar. And there are thousands of stupid scholars around the world. The universities are full of them. They are talking about and about: about truth, about love, about being. You ask and they have answers for all your questions.

I was expelled from one college because I insisted to the professor of philosophy, “First you answer whether you know yourself or not!”

He tried all kinds of answers; he was a great scholar, an old man, but I was insistent that “All these answers you are giving are borrowed. What is your answer?”

He became so troubled, he threatened the college authorities: “I will leave, retire – either I can be in this college or this student. He is making me so troubled, I cannot sleep at night. And he is so strange that even early in the morning, at three o’clock, he knocks on my door and asks, ‘Have you found the answer?’”

Such questions are neither asked nor answered. The principal called me and said, “Why are you torturing that old man?”

I said, “I am torturing nobody. If a man cannot answer the simplest question, then all else that he is saying is nonsense.”

A truth is never borrowed. The moment it is borrowed it becomes untrue. A truth cannot be read in a scripture, a truth has to be lived only in the innermost temple of your being.

Naturally Kyogen could not find the answer.

SIGHING TO HIMSELF, HE SAID, “YOU CANNOT FILL AN EMPTY STOMACH WITH PAINTINGS OF RICE CAKES.” HE THEN BURNED ALL HIS BOOKS AND PAPERS, SAYING, “I WILL GIVE UP THE STUDY OF BUDDHISM. I WILL REMAIN A RICE-GRUEL MONK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND AVOID TORTURING MY MIND.”

SADLY HE LEFT ISAN, AND TOOK ON THE SELF-APPOINTED JOB OF GRAVE-KEEPER. ONE DAY, WHEN HE WAS SWEEPING THE GROUND, A STONE STRUCK A BAMBOO.

(THE BAMBOOS AROUND BUDDHA HALL START CREAKING MADLY!)

Do you hear the sound? The bamboos are shouting as loudly as they can. KYOGEN STOOD SPEECHLESS, FORGETTING HIMSELF FOR A WHILE.

And that is the whole secret of Zen. If you can forget yourself even for a split second you have arrived home.

THEN, SUDDENLY, BURSTING INTO LOUD LAUGHTER, HE BECAME ENLIGHTENED.

Laughter is strangely connected with Zen experience. Either people have laughed before they became enlightened, or people have laughed after they had become enlightened; but laughter seems to be something very essential to the experience. Before or after, but it has to be there.

It is not an ordinary laughter, it is a laughter that says, “I am searching for something which I already have!” It is a laughter about oneself. It is not pointing to anybody, to any incident or to any thing. It is simply a recognition that, “I have been stupid in searching, I should rather have been silent and in my silence let the flower blossom.”

Parents can only give birth to your body. It is only the master who can trigger a process in you which brings consciousness, awareness, life at its optimum.

“IF YOU HAD EXPLAINED THE PROFOUND CAUSE TO ME WHEN I BEGGED YOU TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER, I SHOULD NEVER HAVE REACHED WHERE I STAND TODAY.”

This is a very special standpoint of Zen. The master has not to give you a verbal answer, because the verbal answer will become knowledge, and knowledge is a hindrance. The authentic master will create the situation. It is always perhaps – perhaps you may be able to hear the bamboos, perhaps not. The master’s function is to create a situation in which you can become awake.

It is very indirect work, subtle work. It is not like a Christian preacher, a missionary, a Hindu pundit or a Jewish rabbi talking about scriptures, quoting others.

Zen wants you to remember not to believe in quotes. Let it be your own experience – never stop before that!

It is because of this that Kyogen is thanking his master Isan for not explaining ... THE PROFOUND CAUSE TO ME WHEN I BEGGED YOU TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER. “If you had given it to me I

would have never received it. Because you did not give it – you simply created a quest in me, ‘Who is in?’ – I have found it. All gratefulness goes to you.”

Kyogen’s verse on this occasion runs:

ONE STROKE AND ALL IS GONE,

NO NEED OF STRATAGEM OR CURE;

EACH AND EVERY ACTION MANIFESTS THE ANCIENT WAY.

MY SPIRIT IS NEVER DOWNCAST, I LEAVE NO TRACKS BEHIND ME,

ENLIGHTENMENT IS BEYOND SPEECH, BEYOND GESTURE;

THOSE WHO ARE EMANCIPATED CALL IT THE UNSURPASSED.

Question 1 Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

IS IT TRUE TO SAY THAT TIMING IS EVERYTHING?

No, it is not true to say that timing is everything, because once you start thinking that timing is everything, you will stop seeking, searching. You will simply wait for the spring to come, you will become absolutely unaware of the fact that for enlightenment no season is right or wrong, no climate is right or wrong. Every moment is right, you just have to catch hold of your own being. But it has been said even by Gautam Buddha that timing is needed.

I want you to know that Gautam Buddha is simply trying to console those who cannot gather courage in this moment. He does not want to discourage them by saying, “You will never become enlightened.” He is saying, “You will become enlightened, just wait for the time, for the ripening, for the cause.”

But I say unto you, in spite of Gautam Buddha, that no timing is needed, no causation is needed, because you are already enlightened. It is just that you are afraid to declare it, you are just afraid of what people will say... “I am enlightened? People will laugh, they will say, ‘Look at this fellow, he is enlightened.’”

Every day Neelam brings news to me that somebody is creating trouble, walking naked in the ashram because he thinks he has become enlightened. But just walking naked has nothing to do with enlightenment.

One woman was declaring herself a master and one man declaring his enlightenment – and both are cuckoos. So I told Neelam, “It is better to put both the cuckoos together.” The woman has been declaring herself for almost fifteen years. I said, “Neelam, tell the woman that if she is really a master and enlightened, take care of this fellow. He is very new, needs care.” And that fellow is a much bigger cuckoo.

The woman was cured. She said, “I am no more ... he is too much. I take my words back that I am enlightened or I am a master... If this man has to be taken care of, I refuse. I will be simple from now

onwards.” And for three, four days she has proved simple. The greater cuckoo managed to make the smaller cuckoo silent. Now Neelam was asking me what to do with the remaining cuckoo. I said, “Simply wait, somebody will be coming who is bigger. Give this one into his charge and tell him, ‘Here is your first disciple.’ There is no other way.”

And then Anando told the enlightened man that, “You either be silent and stop disturbing other people or you will be given to a greater cuckoo.” For at least one and a half days he has been behaving silently, just being afraid, because here there are so many potential cuckoos! I have even told Neelam to make a special office and department where cuckoos meet and discuss their enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not something that you have to shout on the streets, enlightenment is your recognition of your silent inner flame. It will make you saner, not a cuckoo; it will even help create a certain energy field around you which can trigger other people to enlightenment. But you don’t have to be a nuisance. You cannot force anybody to enlightenment. You can kill someone, that is not difficult, but even dead he will remain unenlightened. Enlightenment is not something that can be done from outside.

But from the outside, situations can be created, devices can be created in which suddenly you become aware of your own self. The master himself, his presence, is nothing but a situation; those who are thirsty will draw water from the well. But the thirst has to be authentic; otherwise people go on standing by the side of the well, thirsty, and their thirst is either intellectual or just a curiosity to know what this enlightenment is. It has to be a tremendously powerful longing in you, a very life and death question – then there is no barrier, then there is no timing.

So even though it goes against Gautam Buddha’s statement, I will not say that you have to wait for tomorrow. Do it now, this is the time!

Maneesha is asking:

... OR THAT AT LEAST IT IS CRUCIAL IN REGARD TO WHAT HAPPENS BETWEEN MASTER AND DISCIPLE?

No, nothing is crucial. What is crucial when a stone hits the bamboo? – do you think you are going to become enlightened? People have become enlightened in strange situations, there is no way of saying how. You can repeat the situation, but you will not become enlightened. The situation becomes a repetitive ritual. You have bamboos, you can try – hit a bamboo!

But it is not a question of the bamboo and the sound of a stone hitting it, it is the stillness that happened. And this stillness is surrounding you. You just have to be aware of its value, you have to be aware that you are always here, no cause, no reason, no timing.

Maneesha is asking:

IS THAT THE REAL REASON WHY YOU WEAR A WATCH?

Now, it is a secret thing, but I will tell you if you promise not to tell anybody!

I wear a watch just to see that I don’t pour so much in you that you burst, that I don’t make you too much aflame so that you get burned. This watch is simply to keep me aware of when to leave you alone. I create the situation and move out of the way.

Before we enter into our daily meditation, into our Zen... I am using laughter as a preface, a foreword to the coming silence. As laughter recedes into silence... the greater the laughter, the more total the laughter, the greater the silence that will follow behind it.

Nobody in the past has ever used laughter as a device. But I find that only in laughter are you once in a while total. In laughter only, once in a while you forget yourself; just the laughter remains and you are not.

The funeral procession is about to drive into the cemetery on top of the hill, when suddenly, the back door of the hearse swings open.

The coffin rolls slowly out and falls with a crash on the road.

The funeral director leaps out of the car and tries to stop the coffin, but it begins to slide down the hill.

Faster and faster it goes, until it reaches the bottom of the hill, where it hits a lamppost. The lid falls off and the corpse goes flying through the air to land face up on the drugstore counter.

“For God’s sake,” croaks the corpse, “give me something to stop this coffin...!” Wilbur Wallace II, a yuppie Wall Street broker, falls in love with a young actress.

He thinks he wants to marry her, but he decides that before proposing, he should get a private investigating agency to check out her background and activities.

“After all,” thinks Wilbur to himself, “I have a growing fortune and a Wall Street reputation to protect.”

Using a false name to conceal his identity, Wilbur employs Mr. E.T. Pickle from “Pickle and Pepper Private Investigators,” and a couple of weeks later, receives a confidential report on the girl.

The report states that she has a flawless reputation, and friends and family of the best nature.

“The only shadow,” adds the report, “is that currently she is often seen in the company of a third-rate Wall Street broker.”

Yety and Bertha, two middle-aged women from New York, are having a vacation at the Horowitz Hotel in Palm Springs.

They are enjoying a late breakfast together one morning, when Yety asks, “What are you doing tonight?”

“Oh!” says Bertha, “I have got a date with that Herman Hornstein.”

“What?” says Yetty, slopping her coffee, “you are going out with him? He is a sex-maniac! A complete animal! He will get you in his room, throw you on his bed, tear off your dress, and then force you to make love. What are you going to do?”

“Well,” replies Bertha, “I guess I will wear an old dress.”

Salvatore goes to see his doctor because his wife keeps on having children. Doctor Fig gives him a condom and tells him to follow the instructions and his wife will have no more children.

A month later, Salvatore is back.

“My wife-a is pregnant again!” he explains.

“Did you follow the instructions like I said?” asks Doctor Fig.

“Sure, Doc,” says Salvatore, “it say-a: ‘Stretch-a over the organ before the intercourse.’ Well, we no gotta organ, so I stretch-a it over my violin!”

Now, be ready for the real work.

At the first drum you have to start with totality, saying anything that is moving in your mind, all kinds of rubbish – throw it out.

This is a moment of cleansing. Don’t hide anything, because nobody is listening. Everybody is engaged in throwing out his own gibberish. In this moment to remain silent is very dangerous, because all kinds of people are throwing things, and if you listen silently, you will get it! So defeat everybody!

Nivedano, give the first drum... (Drumbeat)

(Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

Everybody falls absolutely silent... close your eyes, no movement. Just be frozen, gather your energy in.

This is the point. Nivedano... (Drumbeat)

Everybody relax... just be dead.

Let the body breathe, but you simply be conscious and utterly relaxed, watching inwards. A rare moment.

This. This.

A thousand times This.

The very essence of your being.

Force the needle into this timelessness, deeper and deeper. Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back to life, to authentic life.

Just be alive, nobody special, but just be. A few are still dead – Nivedano, hit hard!... (Drumbeat)

Wake up!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

< Previous | Contents | Next >