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CHAPTER 12
Hidden behind these reflecting eyes
8 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
BELOVED OSHO,
ONCE A MONK MADE A PORTRAIT OF JOSHU AND GAVE IT TO HIM.
JOSHU SAID TO THE MONK, “TELL ME, DOES THIS LOOK LIKE ME OR NOT? IF IT LOOKS LIKE ME, I WILL BEAT ME TO DEATH; IF IT DOESN’T, I WILL BURN YOU TO DEATH!”
THE MONK HAD NOTHING TO SAY.
ONE OF KINZAN’S MONKS PAINTED A PORTRAIT OF HIM AND PRESENTED IT TO HIM. KINZAN SAID TO THE MONK, “IS IT LIKE ME OR NOT?”
THE MONK MADE NO ANSWER.
KINZAN, ANSWERING HIMSELF, SAID, “LET THE ASSEMBLY DECIDE!”
FUKE WAS THE CHIEF DISCIPLE OF BANZAN, AND WAS THE MOST ECCENTRIC OF ALL THE ZEN MONKS.
WHEN BANZAN WAS ABOUT TO DIE, HE ASKED HIS MONKS TO BRING HIM HIS PORTRAIT, BUT HE WAS NOT SATISFIED WITH ANY OF THEM.
AT THAT TIME, FUKE HAD ONE OF THEM, AND BANZAN SAID, “WHY DON’T YOU SHOW ME IT THEN?”
FUKE TURNED A SOMERSAULT AND WENT OUT.
BANZAN SAID, “THIS LUNATIC WILL PERVERT THE TRUE WAY FROM NOW ON.”
Maneesha, Zen is more a gesture than an explicit explanation. It is a very subtle fragrance. You need immense sensitivity to feel the breeze and its coolness.
It does not speak loudly, it whispers – but whispers immense music, great poetry. It only hints, without any explanation. If you are centered in yourself the hint is enough; if you are not centered in yourself, even the whole explanation will be of no use. It will give you more knowledge, more ego, a more sophisticated personality, but it will not make you wise ... as wise as an innocent child, those clear eyes which can see without any judgment .…
In these anecdotes you will find again and again the indication of the wordless.
The whole process of Zen is that nothing has to be disciplined, nothing has to be achieved. All that has to happen has happened; just you have to be awake to see it. You are already at the point where you want to be, but you have never looked underneath your feet.
Zen is only a warning: “Don’t run, just sit still.” In your very stillness is hidden the whole splendor of existence.
Out of context, these Zen anecdotes will look a little crazy. But in the context of Zen they have immense meaning, although the meaning is not logical. The meaning is existential.
ONCE A MONK MADE A PORTRAIT OF JOSHU AND GAVE IT TO HIM ...
Joshu being one of the greatest masters.
JOSHU SAID TO THE MONK, “TELL ME, DOES THIS LOOK LIKE ME OR NOT? IF IT LOOKS LIKE ME, I WILL BEAT ME TO DEATH; IF IT DOES NOT I WILL BURN YOU TO DEATH!”
Zen is going beyond I and you; the portrait can only be of the body, which is not you. The portrait is only of your skeleton but not of your consciousness. Of course it cannot be like Joshu.
I am reminded of a great painter. A beautiful young lady was visiting him. The painter was immensely impressed by her beauty – the painter was no one other than Picasso. And Picasso had made a self- portrait, which was hanging on the wall behind him. The young lady asked, “Is it your self-portrait?”
Sometimes poets and painters and musicians and dancers, whether they belong to the East or to the West, come very close to the Zen understanding.
Picasso said, looking at the portrait, “I think it is not me.”
The lady said, “This is strange ... you have been telling people that this is your self-portrait.”
Picasso said, “If it were me, it would have kissed you! And this idiot is simply hanging on the wall. How can it be me?”
Joshu is asking, “Tell me, does this portrait look like me? IF IT LOOKS LIKE ME I WILL BEAT ME TO DEATH.”
Me is not your real life. Me is only a utilitarian word: it is useful but it is not real. There is no one inside you who can say “Me.” The moment you are silent there is no ‘me’, no ‘I’, no ‘thou’.
Joshu is making the point, according to Zen language, that “if you say it looks like me, I will beat me to death, because the death of me can only be my life.” In the death of the ego you are resurrected; you find a new space, a new being, a new eternity. ‘Me’ is just for the marketplace.
And he said, “IF IT DOES NOT, I WILL BURN YOU TO DEATH” – because you and I are just a polarity of the same non-existential but utilitarian subject.
Joshu is saying, “Just tell me – whatever you say, either I am going to kill myself or I am going to kill you, but murder is going to happen!”
THE MONK HAD NOTHING TO SAY.
The monk was not a man of great understanding. He may have been a good painter, but he had no perception of the reality which is faceless, egoless, which is not a personality.
Joshu is trying to remind him, “Don’t waste your time in making portraits of illusions.”
Why do you go on painting the moon reflected in the water? When the moon is available, why don’t you look up? But you are too attached to the reflection in the water, even though it brings only misery
... A reflection cannot give you nourishment; a reflection is continuously changing, it is in the hands of the winds. You cannot hold the reflection of the moon in the water.
And that’s what everybody is trying to do. Somebody is trying to hold power – a reflection of the moon in the water. Somebody is holding on to prestige, respectability, to richness. Anything that is outside you is only a reflection in your eyes.
Your eyes are functioning like a silent lake of water. Rather than bothering about what is reflected, go in and see who is hidden behind these reflecting eyes.
But the monk was not able to say anything. He failed.
ONE OF KINZAN’S MONKS PAINTED A PORTRAIT OF HIM AND PRESENTED IT TO HIM. KINZAN SAID TO THE MONK, “IS IT LIKE ME OR NOT?”
THE MONK MADE NO ANSWER.
KINZAN, ANSWERING HIMSELF, SAID, “LET THE ASSEMBLY DECIDE!”
His saying, “LET THE ASSEMBLY DECIDE!” means that whatever personality you have is given to you by people, by the assembly of people. Somebody has said, “You are beautiful, very beautiful,”
and suddenly your personality ... you start feeling beautiful. And if so many people go on repeating it, you start believing it. In fact you wanted to believe it and now people are giving you every opportunity to believe it.
But, beautiful or ugly, personality is false. And things which are false, whether they are ugly or beautiful does not matter. What matters is reality. Whatever you think you are is just your portrait. When you stand before a mirror, you are standing before your portrait. Just look in the mirror and see: is this portrait you?
All personality is given by society. You come into the world without any personality, without any name, without any fame. You simply come as roses bloom, as birds are born.
... Listen to the cuckoo.
This song that the cuckoo is making is just coming from its very center, it is not a personality. The cuckoo has not rehearsed it, the cuckoo is not an actor. What is coming out is natural.
That which is natural you can find only in deep silence. Your words, your mind, are continuously distracting you, taking you away from yourself.
Kinzan is saying, LET THE ASSEMBLY DECIDE, because neither you know nor I know. Then let the people decide, because this portrait, this personality that appears on the outside, can be decided only by others. Just think for a moment: do you ever feel, from inside, many things that are imposed upon you by the outside?
For example, in the East the old man becomes more respectable. He does not feel any problem in becoming old; the more elderly and ancient he becomes, the more respect is available to him from the society. But in the West, to become old is thought to be like a disease. One avoids it as much as possible, by all kinds of means – plastic surgery ... But whatever you do ... even those who have gone through plastic surgery will one day enter the grave. It cannot be avoided; you cannot say, “This is not right – I have gone through plastic surgery and still the oldness is coming.” And after oldness is death.
The West worships youth, but youth is fleeting. The East shows a better understanding by giving respect to the old. It is saying, just as oldness makes you wise, death will make you wiser! Don’t be worried – all these things change, and that which changes from childhood till death is not you. Within all this change there is something that remains unchanging, and nobody can make a portrait of it.
FUKE WAS THE CHIEF DISCIPLE OF BANZAN, AND WAS THE MOST ECCENTRIC OF ALL THE ZEN MONKS.
WHEN BANZAN WAS ABOUT TO DIE, HE ASKED HIS MONKS TO BRING HIM HIS PORTRAIT, BUT HE WAS NOT SATISFIED WITH ANY OF THEM.
AT THAT TIME, FUKE HAD ONE OF THEM, AND BANZAN SAID, “WHY DON’T YOU SHOW ME IT THEN?”
FUKE TURNED A SOMERSAULT AND WENT OUT.
BANZAN SAID, “THIS LUNATIC WILL PERVERT THE TRUE WAY FROM NOW ON.”
You should not think that Banzan is condemning Fuke. These words are very loving, and Banzan in fact is saying that what other learned, so-called scholarly people have not been able to do, the man who was thought to be eccentric has managed. He simply turned a somersault and went out. He is saying something through his gesture – “At this moment of death, why are you worried about your portrait? What will you do with it? Just take a somersault and go out!”
Zen has never taken death seriously. Nobody can take death seriously who knows. It is a fiction. BANZAN SAID, “THIS LUNATIC WILL PERVERT THE TRUE WAY FROM NOW ON.”
He is not condemning him, he is simply saying that this lunatic has proved wiser than the other so-called wise monks. And from now on he will be followed, but following is a perversion.
Zen wants you to act authentically.
You should not repeat, you should not imitate.
Now you can understand what Banzan is saying. He is saying, “This lunatic has done the thing. He has shown me the way – ‘Don’t bother, just take a somersault and go out! It is time to go out, you have lived enough in the body. Now what are you going to do with the portrait?’”
But only people deeply nourished in Zen will be able to understand why Banzan says that Fuke will “pervert the True Way from now on” – because many will follow what he has done. At this moment it was spontaneous; from now on, anybody doing it will be just an imitation. He has done it so perfectly that there is every possibility he will be imitated, and that imitation is the perversion of the True Way.
When Rinzai was dying he asked his disciples, “I have lived my life always authentically and originally. Now I don’t know how to die originally. You are my disciples – will someone suggest a way?”
Just see the point that even death is just a game: “Will someone suggest how I should die? – so nobody can say that I was not original.”
The disciples looked at each other. It was a very difficult question. Almost ninety-nine point nine percent of people die lying on the bed. But that is not original, that is a very traditional way of dying.
Someone suggested that an ancient monk had died sitting in the lotus postureRinzai said, “If
somebody has died sitting in the lotus posture, now that is no longer original. You suggest something that is ORIGINAL.”
Somebody suggested, “You can die standing.”
But one monk said, “I have heard about one monk who died standing, so I don’t think that is original.”
Rinzai said, “Such a difficulty! Can’t anyone suggest to me, in my old age ... I have been teaching you my whole life and you cannot even help me to die originally?”
One disciple said, “The only thing I can conceive is to die standing on your head. I don’t think anybody has done that before.”
Rinzai said, “This looks right. Is there any objection?”
And there was no objection from his thousands of disciples, so he decided to stand on his head and die. And he stood on his head and died!
Now the disciples were in difficulty:
What to do with such a man? Is he really dead? Can somebody die and still remain standing on the head? Should we burn him, or wait? Perhaps he is not dead .…
They tried in every way to find out: the breathing is not there, the heartbeat is not there, and my god, he is standing on his head! Even people who are alive and are not practicing yoga will find it very difficult to stand on the head. And dead people don’t practice yoga.
Somebody suggested, “The only way to be on the safe side is ... his elder sister is a nun, living in a nearby monastery. It is better that we call her and tell her, ‘Your brother is dying and he is making a fool of himself, standing on his head. He is creating trouble for us.’”
The nun came and she said to Rinzai, “Rinzai, you have always been mischievous from your childhood. Now this is no time to be mischievous – just get up and lie down and die the way people usually die!”
Rinzai stood up, laughed ... and the whole assembly laughed – “This is strange!” And he lay down on the bed, and the sister went away. She did not even wait, and he was dying!
Now it became even more difficult for the disciples to decide whether he was dead or not. He opened one of his eyes and said, “Don’t be worried, I am dead. You just prepare for the funeral; otherwise the sun is going to set and it will be night. You prepare the funeral while I rest.”
Great people ... strangely great. But they have happened only on the path of Zen, because Zen does not take anything seriously – neither life nor death, neither good nor bad. Its insistence is very simple and single: just find your inner center, from where your consciousness arises and radiates. Then do whatever comes spontaneously to you and it is right. Even if the whole world says it is wrong, it does not matter.
Ryokan has written:
I SEEM TO HEAR YOUR VOICE IN THE SONG OF THE CUCKOO. IN THE MOUNTAINS,
ANOTHER DAY PASSES.
Life and death are nothing; they are just like another day passing in the mountains, or the song of the cuckoo suddenly bursting forth and then disappearing. So you are: you come and you go, nothing is serious in it.
Another poet has written:
ONLY WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR MIND AND NO MIND IN THINGS, ARE YOU VACANT AND SPIRITUAL, EMPTY AND MARVELOUS.
It does not matter whether you go on living or you stop breathing, but first fulfill a simple requirement: NOTHING IN YOUR MIND
AND NO MIND IN THINGS.
Vacant, and you are spiritual, empty, and you are marvelous.
Now you can live or you can die; they are just two sides of the same coin. Question 1
Maneesha has asked a question:
WHO CAN PORTRAY THE MASTER?
ARE NOT ALL PAINTINGS IN FACT SELF-PORTRAITS?
Maneesha, neither can one portray the master nor can one portray oneself. What you call self- portraits are nothing but reflections of the moon in the lakeBefore we really become non-serious,
a few laughs to make you light, to make this silence less heavy.
Three surgeons are in the pub, chatting about their experiences. The first one says, “Once a guy came to me who had been in a car accident and lost both his legs. But I fixed him up, and now he is an Olympic runner.”
“Amazing!” says the second. “I had a patient once who had been hit by a train, and his body was completely smashed. I gave him surgery, and today he is a famous dancer.”
“That’s nothing,” says the third. “A guy came to me who was a bomb-disposal expert. One day a bomb went off and all they found was an asshole and a pair of false teethand today he is the
president of America!”
Paddy and Mickey, the two Dunn brothers, are living with their old mother on the west coast of Ireland. One day Paddy announces that he is going to London to seek his fortune. “Holy Jesus!” cries his mother. “If you are going to the big bad city, be sure to write to your old mother every week.”
So Paddy goes off and they don’t hear a thing from him for months. Then one morning a letter arrives, but all it says is, “I am fine. How are you? Your son, Paddy Dunn.” There is no address on it, so they look at the postmark, which says “London W.C.1”. Then old Mrs. Dunn says to Mick, “Go to London and bring your brother back.”
When Mick arrives in London, he wanders around for a while looking for “W.C.1” until he comes to Picadilly Circus, and there he sees a sign saying “W.C.”
“This must be it,” he thinks, and then walks down the steps. When he reaches the bottom, there are three doors marked “1 ...2 ...3”. So he knocks on number one and shouts, “Are you Dunn in there?”
“Sure, I am done,” says a voice from inside. “But there is no paper in here!” “Jesus!” cries Mick. “That is no excuse for not writing to your mother!”
Swami Deva Coconut’s mother, Mrs. Cherrypit, is gossiping to a friend outside the supermarket. “You should see my boy,” says Mrs. Cherrypit. “He has taken up meditation.”
“Really?” replies her friend. “That’s a pity, but I guess it is better than sitting around and doing nothing.”
Rufus and Mabel – two Oregonians, obviously rednecks – have just got married and are on their way back to the farm in Clarno. Their old horse Daisy is getting slower and slower, and despite Rufus’ efforts, just before dark old Daisy falls down dead. There is nothing to do but camp for the night under a nearby tree.
The newlyweds snuggle under the blanket and Rufus says to Mabel, “Well, what about it, darling?” “What about what, dear?” replies Mabel.
“Oh, dear ... never mind,” says Rufus. But shortly afterwards, he tries again. “Well ... what about it, darling?” he stammers.
“What about what?” Mabel replies.
“Ah,” says Rufus, “didn’t your mom ever tell you about what marriage is for?” “I don’t know what you mean, dear,” replies Mabel.
“Well,” says Rufus, “ah, you are a woman, and I am a man. And you see, well ... you see a man has this thing here ... and it gives life.”
“It does?” cries Mabel. “Well, for God’s sake, Rufus. Let’s stick it in your poor old Daisy, right now!”
Now, Nivedano ...
Remember, the first step of the meditation is gibberish. And gibberish simply means throwing out your craziness, which is already there in the mind, piled up for centuries. As you throw it out you will find yourself becoming light, becoming more alive, just within two minutes.
You will be surprised that when Nivedano gives his second beat, to enter into silence, you enter into silence as deeply as you have never done before. Just those two minutes have cleaned the way.
In fact in those two minutes, if you put your total energy ... the more you put into it, the deeper will be the following silence. So don’t be partial, don’t be middle-class. Just be a first-rate crazy man!
About women there is no question, they beat every man every day. Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) (Drumbeat)
Be silent, no movement ... go in. Close your eyes.
This is you.
No portrait of it is possible.
It is just a pure silence, a space without boundaries.
This is all that you have brought into the world, and this is all that you will take away when you die. In birth, in life, in death, this is the only thing that constantly remains the same.
The unchanging, ultimate truth.
To experience it go deeper and deeper.
Drop all fear, because it is your own being, your own unknown territory that you are going to explore. There is no question of fear.
Nobody else can enter there, it is absolutely private. Hence fearlessly open your wings, the whole sky is yours.
To bring it to a deeper contrast ... Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
Everybody dies – let the body die, even if it continues to breathe it does not matter. You go in.
This small word ‘in’ is the whole philosophy of all the buddhas. To be centered in thisness is to be a buddha in your own right. Remember!
And let this remembrance flow like an undercurrent twenty-four hours within you. Then you will act like a buddha, you will walk like a buddha.
Everything that you touch with awareness will turn into precious gold. This is the source from where the cuckoo sings.
This is the source from where the bamboos grow. This is the source from where lotuses bloom.
It is a single source, although there are millions of expressions of it. It is not me, it is not you; it simply is.
This isness is Zen. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Come back.
Sit like a buddha for a few seconds, just a silent statue, remembering the experience of your inner being.
Catching hold of the thread, so that you can keep it whatever you are doing ... it is always there inside, like the heartbeat or like the breathing.
This silence has to become your totality.
Then it is your music and it is your dance.
Then you are no more seeing the reflection of the moon, you have become the moon. There is no greater bliss and there is no higher peak of ecstasy than to be a buddha. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Can we celebrate the buddhas? Yes!
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