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CHAPTER 1
The way of the birds
27 June 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
BELOVED OSHO,
A MONK SAID TO TOZAN, “YOU ALWAYS TELL LEARNERS TO TAKE THE WAY OF THE BIRDS. WHAT IS THIS WAY OF THE BIRDS?”
TOZAN SAID, “YOU MEET NOBODY ON IT.”
THE MONK THEN ASKED, “HOW CAN WE GO ON THIS WAY?”
TOZAN ANSWERED, “BY EGOLESSNESS, ATTENDING TO EACH STEP AS IT COMES.” THE MONK SAID, “ISN’T THE BIRDS’ WAY THE SAME AS ONE’S ORIGINAL NATURE?” TOZAN SAID, “O MONK, WHY DO YOU GET EVERYTHING UPSIDE-DOWN?”
THE MONK ASKED, “WHAT IS THIS PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GET THINGS UPSIDE-DOWN?”
TOZAN SAID, “IF THERE WERE NO TOPSY-TURVINESS HOW COULD A SERVANT BECOME A LORD?”
THE MONK ASKED, “WHAT IS OUR ORIGINAL NATURE?” TOZAN ANSWERED, “NOT TAKING THE WAY OF THE BIRDS.”
2
WHEN A MONK ASKED KASSAN, “WHAT IS THE WAY?” HE ANSWERED, “THE SUN OVERFLOWS OUR EYES; FOR TEN THOUSAND LEAGUES NOT A CLOUD HANGS IN THE SKY.”
“WHAT IS THE REAL FORM OF THE UNIVERSE?” ASKED THE MONK.
“THE FISHES AT PLAY IN THE CLEAR-FLOWING WATER MAKE THEIR MISTAKES,” REPLIED KASSAN.
Maneesha, the bird flying across the sky leaves no footprints. This is called the Way of the Birds – simply disappearing into the nothingness of the sky, without leaving a trace behind. Zen wants you to be just like the Birds’ Way – a nobody, a nothingness.
It is strange but true that in your nothingness you are for the first time born. The nothingness is the womb out of which your spiritual heights are revealed.
Just as you cannot follow the bird because he leaves no footprints, the buddha also leaves no footprints. You cannot follow a buddha for the simple reason that you are a buddha; you have just forgotten it. And once you try to follow a buddha, you are going astray.
Those who make footprints behind themselves – create organized religions, give commandments for the coming future, scriptures to be followed by those who have not come yet – are all engaged in nonreligious activity.
Religion is a rebellion – rebellion against following. This is a religious place. You are not my followers. You can love me, I can love you .… Following means a subtle spiritual slavery. I don’t have any follower and I don’t want anybody to be a follower of anybody else either. The moment you start following someone, you are going to miss yourself. You will be lost in dark nights and dark clouds and it will become more and more difficult to find the way back home.
A MONK SAID TO TOZAN, “YOU ALWAYS TELL LEARNERS TO TAKE THE WAY OF THE BIRDS. WHAT IS THIS WAY OF THE BIRDS?”
TOZAN SAID, “YOU MEET NOBODY ON IT.”
It reminds me of a very beautiful story in Aesop’s fables. There are scholars who think that Aesop as a person never existed, that those stories are told by Gautam Buddha, who was also called bodhisat. And the word bodhisat, as it moved from country to country, became Aesop. But it does not matter who told them; the stories are significant on their own.
This story is that a little girl, Alice, reaches the wonderland and wants to see the king. She was led to the king’s court and the king asked the little girl, “Did you meet somebody on the way coming towards me? I am waiting for somebody.”
The girl factually replied, “Nobody, sir.”
And from this point the story becomes pure Zen.
The king said, “If you say you met nobody, then he should have reached here by now!” The girl said, “Don’t be angry, sir, nobody is nobody!”
The king said, “I understand language, you don’t have to teach me. Nobody is of course nobody, but where is he? It certainly proves that nobody walks slower than you!”
The poor girl now gets into trouble. She says, “No, nobody walks faster than me!”
The king said, “This is very contradictory. If nobody walks faster than you, he must be here by now.”
It is a children’s book, but certainly the source cannot be found anywhere else except Gautam Buddha. Even if Aesop existed as a historical person, he must have got the idea of ‘nobody’ from Gautam Buddha’s insistence that to be somebody is to be nothing and to be nobody is to be all. The ego makes you somebody and egolessness makes you nobody. But the ego is a confinement, and the moment you stop the ego you are as vast as the whole universe, you are the universe.
The Birds’ Way, Tozan said, is one where you meet nobody. Don’t misunderstand like the king in Aesop’s fable. ‘You meet nobody’ does not mean that you meet nobody, it means you become nobody. That is the meeting with nobody.
THE MONK THEN ASKED, “HOW CAN WE GO ON THIS WAY?”
TOZAN ANSWERED, “BY EGOLESSNESS, ATTENDING TO EACH STEP AS IT COMES.”
Living moment to moment, step by step, neither bothering with the past which is gone, nor becoming concerned about the future which has not come yet. Always being herenow, and you are a nobody; you are a no-mind. And this opening is the greatest ecstasy. This opening brings all your potentiality to its flowering.
Zen treats you like lotuses.
You need to open to the sky, to the stars. In your opening is your freedom, in your opening is your dignity, in your opening is your splendor.
But the poor monk did not understand. He said,
“IS NOT THE BIRDS’ WAY THE SAME AS ONE’S ORIGINAL NATURE?” TOZAN SAID, “O MONK, WHY DO YOU GET EVERYTHING UPSIDE-DOWN?”
THE MONK ASKED, “WHAT IS THIS PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GET THINGS UPSIDE-DOWN?”
TOZAN SAID, “IF THERE WERE NO TOPSY-TURVINESS HOW COULD A SERVANT BECOME A LORD?”
The mind is a servant and it has become the master. It is perfectly good as a mechanical computer, a biological miracle, but it is not the master. You have completely forgotten the master, and the servant has become the master in its absence.
Be awake to the beyond, to the within.
Get out of your mind to see who you are, what is your space without mind. And suddenly you will know how you have lived up to now in a topsy-turviness. The master is almost absent and the servant has become the lord.
THE MONK ASKED, “WHAT IS OUR ORIGINAL NATURE?” TOZAN ANSWERED, “NOT TAKING THE WAY OF THE BIRDS.”
Tozan is a great master. When he sees that the monk is mediocre and will not understand immediately, without bringing mind in – will not see directly – he changes his statement out of compassion.
The monk could not understand what is the Way of the Birds. TOZAN ANSWERED – contradicting himself – NOT TAKING THE WAY OF THE BIRDS.
If you cannot understand the greatest insight directly, then you have to go from the ABC of religiousness.
Zen is XYZ.
WHEN A MONK ASKED KASSAN, “WHAT IS THE WAY?” HE ANSWERED, “THE SUN OVERFLOWS OUR EYES; FOR TEN THOUSAND LEAGUES NOT A CLOUD HANGS IN THE SKY.”
This is the Way. Just spaciousness, nothing clouding your consciousness, no anger, no greed. no ego, Just a pure, innocent being.
“WHAT IS THE REAL FORM OF THE UNIVERSE?” ASKED THE MONK.
“THE FISHES AT PLAY IN THE CLEAR-FLOWING WATER MAKE THEIR MISTAKES,” REPLIED KASSAN.
Kassan said, “Don’t be worried about the universe; think of yourself as just like a small fish in the ocean.”
Zen is alone in its great insight that it does not use the word ‘sin’, but only ‘mistake’. The fish can make mistakes in the ocean, but that does not change its original nature. Whatever you have done, you have simply been writing on water. Your right, your wrong, your virtue, your sin – all are divisions of the mind. Your sinners and your saints – all are fish in the same ocean. Somebody is going this way, somebody is going that way.
Not to make this distinction of sinners and saints, of right and wrong, and just to be utterly silent, without any judgment – this is your original nature. You have found the universe within yourself. Then the sun rises within you and the whole sky with all the stars is part of your consciousness.
Zen is expansion of consciousness to the limitless, to the eternal. It is not concerned with small, stupid things. All the so-called religions are concerned with stupid things, with rituals which are non-essential, with gods which are created by man’s imagination. The only authentic concern for a seeker is to find the center of his own being ... and he has found the center of the whole existence.
A poem by Basho reads:
WITH YOUR SINGING
MAKE ME LONELIER THAN EVER ...
The birds are singing – WITH YOUR SINGING
MAKE ME LONELIER THAN EVER, YOU, SOLITARY BIRD,
CUCKOO OF THE FOREST.
Because of this poem the new series that we are entering will be called ZEN: THE SOLITARY BIRD, CUCKOO OF THE FOREST.
Hofuku wrote this poem on the Way ...
DON’T TELL ME HOW DIFFICULT THE WAY. THE BIRD’S PATH, WINDING FAR,
IS RIGHT BEFORE YOU.
WATER OF THE DOKEI GORGE, YOU RETURN TO THE OCEAN, I TO THE MOUNTAIN.
Such a tremendously beautiful statement. A river may be going to the mountain, or to the ocean. As far as reasoning is concerned it appears they are going in different ways, diametrically opposite. The river that goes towards the ocean we know; we can see it. But every time the river comes, riding on the clouds, back to the mountains ... that is a little subtle and one needs a poet’s, a mystic’s understanding to see. The river is coming back to its original source.
This statement of Hofuku ... YOU RETURN TO THE OCEAN, okay; I am going to the mountain. But that does not make you superior or inferior, neither does it make me superior or inferior.
This whole universe is ours and all the dimensions are ours. Wherever your original nature takes you, wherever your spontaneity takes you, it is your home. Zen makes this whole existence our home.
... Do you hear the river going back to the mountains? Question 1
Maneesha has asked:
BELOVED OSHO,
IS IT NOT TRUE THAT, PARADOXICALLY, THOSE WHO ARE AT HOME IN SILENCE CAN USE SOUND – MUSIC OR WORDS – MOST POTENTLY?
It looks paradoxical but it is not, because what is sound? Just a ripple in silence.
A lake is silent. Then comes a breeze and leaves the whole lake full of ripples. When silent, it was reflecting the moon. When ripples come, the moon is shattered in a thousand pieces all over the lake, making it pure silver. But anyway, it is the same lake reflecting the same moon, either in silence or in sound.
Remember always, Maneesha, that wherever you find something paradoxical, you will be closer to reality than ever, because paradox is the very nature of existence. Those who are at home in silence can use sound; they are the master, the sound becomes their servant. They can use music as an expression of their silence, they can use words as an expression of their experience of the mystic, of the poetic nature of existence.
Question 2
Her second question is:
I HEAR THE GOSSIP HAS SPREAD IN THE GARDEN – THE BAMBOOS HAVE TOLD THE BIRDS – THAT YOU DEDICATED ONE OF THESE ZEN DISCOURSE SERIES TO THE BAMBOOS.
IS THAT WHY THE BIRDS WERE SINGING SO FERVENTLY LAST NIGHT?
Maneesha, I have heard them. That’s why I am dedicating this series to the birds. I knew that they were feeling neglected: the bamboos were standing proudly in the sky and the poor birds were thinking, “Nothing is being said about us, and we are singing here and nobody is being even thankful to us.”
I am thankful to the birds. This series will be known in Basho’s words – ZEN: THE SOLITARY BIRD, CUCKOO OF THE FOREST.
Zen is very pagan; it trusts in nature, not in nurture. It trusts in the original, not in the carbon copy. It wants you to make your statement, but don’t repeat the scriptures; they take away your dignity as man.
Find your own signature.
This is our whole search – finding your own signature.
Before we enter into our daily meditation ... now I have to mention also the birds. They are silent, being happy and proud. Soon the clouds will start asking! Before they ask ... the coming series will be devoted to them.
To the birds and to the bamboos and to the clouds, a few laughs, because they cannot understand our language but they can understand our laughter.
Sarjano goes into the medical center and asks Dr. Azima for some condoms. “These-a are the best-a ones,” says Azima, handing him a packet.
But Sarjano interrupts him and says, “Don’t-a worry – the cheapest will-a do.”
So Azima gives him the cheapest and Sarjano pays. Then he immediately opens the pack, pulls out a condom, unrolls it, throws it on the floor and begins to stamp on it with his foot.
“What-a the hell are you-a doing?” cries Azima.
“Don’t-a stop me,” says Sarjano. “This is-a exactly the way I-a gave up smoking!”
Doctor Feelgood is in the habit of smoking huge cigars in his office. Nobody likes it, but nobody complains, because he has been doing it for years.
One day, a pregnant woman comes into his office. “Hello, Mrs. Lovejoy,” says Feelgood. “I see you are pregnant again. How many kids will it be now?”
“This will be my fourteenth,” replies Mrs. Lovejoy.
“My God!” cries Feelgood, almost choking on his cigar. “Why on earth do you have so many children?”
“Well,” says Mrs. Lovejoy, “I love my husband very much.”
“And I love my cigar,” replies Feelgood. “But I take it out of my mouth once in a while!” Kowalski meets Slobovia at the Pig and Whistle Pub for a few after-dinner beers.
“Hey Kowals,” asks Slobovia, “how come you let your wife do whatever she wants to do?”
“Well,” replies Kowalski, “because she has a perfect right.” Then Kowalski adds, “And she has a pretty good left, too!”
When a persistent pain does not ease after several days, Pope the Polack makes an appointment to see his doctor. During the examination the doctor is shocked to find a bouquet of flowers lodged in the pope’s rectum.
“Where the hell did these come from?” the doctor asks, removing a rose.
“I’m not sure,” says the holy celibate, blushing, “why don’t you read the card?” Nivedano, beat the drum – and everybody goes into absolute and total craziness! (Drumbeat)
(Gibberish)
Now be silent. Close your eyes.
Feel as if your body is frozen; gather your energy inwards. Deeper and deeper ...
This is the Way of the Birds, the way of Zen. To make it deeper, Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
And everybody dies.
This death will make you more aware of your life in ... Beyond body and mind is the master.
Without any fear, go deeper and deeper.
The deeper you go the more you know that you are immortal and death is only a fiction. At the deepest point in this moment is contained your whole eternity.
Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Come back to life resurrected, showered with silence, filled with the fragrance of your own being. At least in this moment be a buddha and then carry out your buddhahood in your daily activities. I’m against renouncing anything. Just remember your buddhahood. Then everything is right.
Whether you are going to the mountains or to the ocean, with the remembrance of buddhahood, that you are buddha, all that you do is beautiful is truthful, is sincere.
Except this there is no religion.
And this religion does not become a bondage to you. It is your total freedom. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Can we celebrate so many buddhas together? Yes!
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