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CHAPTER 6
The finger pointing to nothing
1 June 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
BELOVED OSHO,
“IN ANCIENT TIMES, THERE WERE SIXTEEN BODHISATTVAS. AT THE MONKS’ BATHTIME, FOLLOWING THE RULE, THEY HAD BATHS. THEY SUDDENLY EXPERIENCED REALIZATION THROUGH THE TOUCH OF THE WATER. YOU REVEREND ZEN STUDENTS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THEIR WORDS? – ‘WE EXPERIENCED THE SUBTLE AND CLEAR TOUCH, HAVE ATTAINED BUDDHAHOOD, AND STILL RETAIN IT.’
“YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ATTAIN THIS CONDITION AFTER SEVEN TIMES PIERCING AND EIGHT TIMES BREAKING THROUGH.”
Maneesha, before I discuss the anecdote I have to give you the background. First, buddhahood is your nature. If you are sensitive enough, you can become aware of it through any sense: through touch, through taste, through the eyes, through the ears. Because it is not outside of you, it is only a question of deep concentration; then any sense that is predominant in you will become the revelation.
Remember, everybody has different senses of different intensity. Somebody can see more, only then can he become a painter. Most people cannot see like a painter. Somebody has ears for music, not everybody does. The subtler the music, the deeper the sensitivity to hear will be needed.
I am reminded of a great dancer, Nijinsky, who in his dances used to jump to heights which are scientifically impossible. They go against gravitation. You can jump only to a certain limit. It was a
miracle to see Nijinsky jumping – as if he was beyond gravitation, as if he had become so light that he was free from gravitation.
Even more miraculous was his coming back to earth. If anything comes towards the earth, it comes with a force, gravitation pulls it. You cannot hesitate, and you cannot delay or postpone, it is not in your hands. If you fall from a height, it is not in your hands to go with lesser speed or greater speed. There is no speedometer in your hands.
But Nijinsky fell just like a feather, showing again that gravitation was transcended. Obviously, he was asked again and again, “What is the secret?”
And he said, “Don’t ask me, because whenever ‘I’ try I fail. I cannot jump that height, neither can I fall like a feather. But dancing, once in a while I forget myself and suddenly it happens. The moment I am not – the miracle! I cannot give you the secret, because there is no secret in my hands.”
Nijinsky was not a mystic, but he was experiencing a mystical state. He was not a philosopher; hence he could not even give an explanation. He simply said in the most authentic, sincere way that, “There comes a moment in my dance that I don’t find myself anywhere. In that state whatever happens is not my doing.”
You can experience buddhahood just by being silent or just by being so loving that your hands melt into love; or by being so total in any act that your ‘I’ disappears and only isness remains.
Isness is another name of buddhahood.
It is always within you, the question is which door you are going to enter into. This anecdote says:
“IN ANCIENT TIMES, THERE WERE SIXTEEN BODHISATTVAS. AT THE MONKS’ BATHTIME, FOLLOWING THE RULE, THEY HAD BATHS.
THEY SUDDENLY EXPERIENCED REALIZATION THROUGH THE TOUCH OF THE WATER...”
Don’t think it is just a story. If you are really alive and your touch is total, you can become enlightened just under your own shower. This anecdote is being told by some teacher to some disciples. He says, “YOU REVEREND ZEN STUDENTS...” Naturally it is not a dialogue between two masters, it is a conversation between a teacher and a student.
“‘WE EXPERIENCED THE SUBTLE AND CLEAR TOUCH, HAVE ATTAINED BUDDHAHOOD, AND STILL RETAIN IT.’
YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ATTAIN THIS CONDITION AFTER SEVEN TIMES PIERCING AND EIGHT TIMES BREAKING THROUGH.”
Seven times piercing means going through all your layers, which are counted as seven. Only then can you reach to your center. And you will have to do it eight times! It is not a question, why eight?...
it is simply the experience that unless you go eight times piercing the seven layers of your mind you will not know what your innermost being is.
Just today I received a scientific research survey which has astonished scientists – it will astonish anyone. The survey was done on students to check their intelligence. During the test there were machines detecting the activity going on inside the brain. The puzzling conclusion was that the less activity shown, the more intelligence there was. This was absolutely against the traditional idea: a more active mind has to be more intelligent.
That has been the superstition up to now, even in the eyes of science. But this survey confirms something which the mystic has always been saying: No-mind is intelligence.
Looking at the survey you can see two things: less activity, more intelligence. The natural conclusion will be, no activity, absolute intelligence. But even the scientists who were doing the survey did not conclude it the way I am concluding it.
No-mind means intelligence; mind means gibberish, not intelligence. And when I am asking you for gibberish, I am simply asking you to throw out the mind and all its activity so you remain behind, pure, clean, transparent, perceptive.
Another report I have received is from an institute in America. The institute trains actors for films. The director must have read my books, because he forces every student in the institute to do the Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini Meditation and gibberish. And even those people who had come just to learn the art of acting have, strangely, felt a tremendous opening through gibberish – a silence from the unknown descending and overwhelming them.
SETCHO’S COMMENTARY:
THE ENLIGHTENED MAN IS MASTER OF ONE SINGLE THING:
STRETCHING AT EASE ON HIS BED.
IF, IN A DREAM, THE ANCIENTS SAID THEY WERE ENLIGHTENED,
LET THEM EMERGE FROM THE SCENTED WATER, AND I WOULD SPIT AT THEM!
Setcho’s intellectuality is too much. He cannot understand, he is like a blind man commenting on light.
A few footnotes:
... SIXTEEN BODHISATTVAS...
IN THE SURANGAMA SUTRA – an ancient Buddhist scripture – THERE IS AN EPISODE IN WHICH TWENTY-FIVE BODHISATTVAS RELATE THEIR EXPERIENCES OF ATTAINING REALIZATION.
FIRST KYOCHINNYO AND FOUR OTHERS, THE FIRST FIVE DISCIPLES OF BUDDHA, STAND UP AND DESCRIBE THEIR PATHS TO REALIZATION.
KYOCHINNYO SAYS, “AS FOR MY REALIZATION, SEEING A SIGHT WAS THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF IT.”
If you can really see a beautiful rose or a beautiful sunset with your totality there is no need of any other discipline to become a buddha. But the seeing has to be total and ultimate and unconditional.
SECOND, KYOGON DOJI SAYS, “SMELLING A SCENT WAS THE CAUSE OF MY REALIZATION.” THIRD, YAKUO AND YAKUJO CITE TASTING AS THE CAUSE OF THEIR REALIZATION.
FOURTH, BADDABARA AND THE FIFTEEN OTHER BODHISATTVAS IN THIS ANECDOTE RISE AND MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE BUDDHA, AND BADDABARA SAYS,
“WE FORMERLY HEARD THE PREACHING OF ION-O, THE FIRST BUDDHA, AND BECAME MONKS.
AT THE MONKS’ BATHTIME, FOLLOWING THE RULE, WE ENTERED THE BATHROOM. WE SUDDENLY EXPERIENCED REALIZATION THROUGH THE TOUCH OF THE WATER.
WE DID NOT WASH OFF DIRT, DID NOT WASH THE BODY. WE ACHIEVED PEACE OF MIND AND OBTAINED THE STATE OF NO-POSSESSION.
THE AFOREMENTIONED BUDDHA NAMED ME BADDABARA, SAYING, ’YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED SUBTLE AND CLEAR TOUCHING AND ATTAINED
BUDDHAHOOD, AND RETAIN IT.’ THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION, THEREFORE, IS THAT TOUCHING WAS THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF OUR REALIZATION.”
OTHER BODHISATTVAS IN TURN TELL OF THEIR EXPERIENCES, AND FINALLY THE BODHISATTVA KANNON CITES THE IMPORTANCE, IN HIS CASE, OF “LISTENING TO SOUND.”
All your senses are doors, and remember, a door can open outwards and the same door can open inwards. It is with the same sense which you use to hear outer music, that you can hear the music of your own being. The question is simply whether to go inwards or to go outwards; the door is the same.
Question 1 Maneesha is asking:
BELOVED OSHO,
ALTHOUGH I AM NOT EVEN SURE WHAT INTUITION IS, I SUSPECT THAT THERE IS A CONNECTION BETWEEN INTUITION AND ZEN. IS THAT SO?
AND IF IT IS, CAN INTUITION BE TRIGGERED THROUGH ANY OF THE SENSES, EVEN THROUGH THINKING?
No, Maneesha. Thinking is not capable of triggering intuition. Intuition... the very word is against tuition. Tuition comes from outside, intuition blossoms like a flower from your innermost core.
Thinking cannot do it, but these bamboos can do it, this finger pointing to nothing can do it, this silence pervading here can do it.
Thinking is a hindrance, it cannot trigger your innermost being. In fact it is preventing the triggering.
When you see a beautiful sunset, immediately the thought comes and hinders. It says, “How beautiful, what a beautiful sunset!” and it has prevented the sunset from reaching and hitting your very being.
If you can hear these poor bamboos without a single word arising you have arrived home. Maneesha is asking:
COULD THE “INTUITIVE FLASH” BE A COGNITIVE QUANTUM LEAP; AND ENLIGHTENMENT, A QUANTUM LEAP OF THE BEING?
Intuition and enlightenment are not two things. Your innermost center is your enlightenment. It is not that you become enlightened, you are enlightened, but your thinking prevents you from recognizing it. The quantum leap is needed: from thinking to no-thinking, from mind to no-mind, from out to in, from there to here, from then to now.
Before we enter into the quantum leap, the bamboos are asking for a few laughs. A student demonstration turns into a riot.
Suddenly, a man staggers out of the crowd, carrying a limp girl in his arms.
“Here,” shouts a cop, running up to the man. “Give her to me, I will get her out of this!” “To hell with you!” replies the man. “Go and find one of your own!”
A man with a weight problem goes to see his doctor.
“I want to lose weight,” he says, “but it is no good giving me a diet. I have tried them before and they never worked.”
“The only thing I can suggest,” says Doctor Bones, scratching his nose, “is a rather unusual Indian technique, using exercising only. No diet. So you can eat anything you like. But, what you have to do, is have wild, passionate, sexual intercourse at least four times a night. Okay? Come back and see me in a month.”
A month goes by and the patient returns. “How much weight have you lost?” “About two pounds,” replies the man.
“And how many times did you have sex this month?” continues Bones. “Fifteen times,” replies the patient.
“My God!” cries Bones, “that is not good enough!”
“Maybe not,” replies the man, “but it is pretty good for a Catholic priest in a small town!”
Many people have trouble understanding what a miracle is. Paddy is one of these people and even though Father Murphy has explained the subject many times and in great detail, Paddy is still not satisfied.
“Father,” says Paddy, “perhaps you could give me an example of a miracle?” “All right, Patrick,” says the priest, “turn around.”
Paddy turns around and Father Murphy gives him a large boot in the backside. “Now, Patrick,” asks the priest, “did you feel that?”
“I certainly did,” replies Paddy, rubbing his buttocks.
“Well, Patrick,” continues Father Murphy, “it would have been a miracle if you had not.” A young sailor is washed ashore on an island inhabited by cannibals.
Since the cannibal tribe is fasting for one month, the chief announces that the sailor’s life will be spared if he can pass the three-tent test.
“In the first tent,” says the chief, “there is a jug full of strong liquor. You must drink it all.”In the second tent is a lion with a toothache. You must take out his sore tooth.
“In the third tent is a nymphomaniac. She has already exhausted two husbands who were trying to fulfill her needs. You must satisfy her twice!”
The sailor shrugs and goes into the first tent. After five minutes of silence, he wobbles out and goes into the second tent. There are screams and moans and eventually, he crawls out covered in cuts and bruises.
Standing up he looks around and asks, “Now, where is that girl with the sore tooth?”
Now, Nivedano, give the first drum and everybody goes into absolute gibberish. Don’t spare anything.
(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) (Drumbeat)
Everybody goes into absolute silence.
Just gather your energy inwards, close your eyes... This, this, a thousand times this!
Even the bamboos have become silent.
(A FEW BAMBOOS STILL GO ON MAKING SOME NOISE.)
Just a few of them, Setchos, are still giving commentary. (EVEN THE BAMBOOS BECOME ABSOLUTELY SILENT.)
Nivedano... (Drumbeat)
Relax. Relax as if you are dead. Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
Now come back from the dead. Has everybody come back to life? Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
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