< Previous | Contents | Next >
CHAPTER 4
Such a moon
30 June 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
BELOVED OSHO,
ONE DAY KYOZAN WAS LOOKING AT THE MOON TOGETHER WITH SEKISHITSU AND ASKED HIM,
“WHERE DOES THE ROUNDNESS OF THE MOON GO WHEN IT BECOMES SHARP, CRESCENT?”
SEKISHITSU SAID, “WHEN IT IS SHARP, THE ROUNDNESS IS STILL THERE.”
Maneesha, existence can be approached only in two ways: the way of philosophy and the way of poetry. Poetry ultimately ends in mysticism. Philosophy simply goes on and on, without coming to any conclusion.
Zen is the purest poetry.
It states the existential in a poetic form.
This small dialogue will tell you the poetics of your being. All the so-called religions are non-poetic – very prose, very logical, very rational; their argument is to the mind. Poetry is the argument to the heart. Those who try to understand Zen as just another philosophy will miss it, will miss the very life of the Zen approach.
This small dialogue contains great insights, experiences, and realizations.
ONE DAY, KYOZAN WAS LOOKING AT THE MOON TOGETHER WITH SEKISHITSU AND ASKED HIM,
“WHERE DOES THE ROUNDNESS OF THE MOON GO WHEN IT BECOMES SHARP, CRESCENT?”
SEKISHITSU SAID, “WHEN IT IS SHARP, THE ROUNDNESS IS STILL THERE.”
When it is round it is still sharp.
Nothing goes anywhere. Sometimes it is manifest, sometimes it is unmanifest, but it is always here – just like the moon. On the full-moon night you see its roundness, and then slowly slowly that roundness is no more round. Something starts disappearing from your vision which is not disappearing in the moon itself.
A day comes that the whole moon disappears. And on the first day of the moon it is just a small arc, it shows only for a few minutes and then is gone. But the moon as such is always there. Sometimes only a part of it is reflected by the sun – you see it. Sometimes the whole of it is reflected by the sun – you see it. But as far as the moon is concerned, whether the sun reflects it or not, it is always there.
Just think of a mirror. You are standing before a mirror – if the mirror disappears do you think you disappear? And you must have seen mirror houses, where there are many kinds of mirrors. In some mirrors you appear to be very tall, defeating the bamboos; in some others you appear to be very short, but very fat. What the mirror says is not the truth.
The truth is in you, unreflected.
You don’t need any mirror to find it. You don’t need any lamp to go inside because inside you, there is neither darkness nor light. It is something like twilight, when the sun sets and the night has not come yet – the gap. In that gap, there is a light which is not coming from the sun.
This moment in India has been called sandhya. The word comes from a root, sandhi, the boundary line. From day to night, there is a gap when the day disappears and the night begins – a discontinuity. Ordinarily sandhya means evening. But the mystics have used sandhya to mean meditation. They have used it as an indication of a quantum leap, when you move from the mind to no-mind.
This anecdote says that the moon remains itself, whether it is known or not known. And you are the moon. It is your freedom to know yourself or to remain ignorant. Nobody can force you to be enlightened and nobody can force you to remain unenlightened. It is just your mood. Just a small moment of silent watching ... and the explosion.
The moon has been one of the greatest objects of Zen poems, for the simple reason that it disappears and still it is there in its totality. In some way, it becomes your symbolic representation.
Takuan wrote:
THE MOON HAS NO INTENT
TO CAST ITS SHADOW ANYWHERE,
NOR DOES THE POND DESIGN TO LODGE THE MOON:
HOW SERENE THE WATER OF HIROSAWA!
Hirosawa is the lake where Takuan lived. What he is saying is that existence has a quality of desirelessness. Still everything happens, but it is not motivated.
THE MOON HAS NO INTENT TO CAST ITS SHADOW ANYWHERE although the shadow will be cast in thousands of places: in rivers, in ponds, in lakes, in the ocean. But the happening is not an intention, not a desire. On the other hand, NOR DOES THE POND DESIGN TO LODGE THE MOON. The silent pond has no desire to reflect the moon either. HOW SERENE THE WATER OF HIROSAWA!
There is a life which we are aware of, a life of desire, longing, greed, lust, power. A life, in short, of motivation; a life of goals, of achievements. There is another life where Zen opens the door for you, a life without motivation. Everything happens – why bother? Even desiring enlightenment is preventing it.
It will happen. Just become the silent lake of Hirosawa. When no motivation is there, your consciousness is unclouded. No question arises, no answer is needed.
You simply are, a pure existence. Another Zen master, Moan, wrote:
CLEAR, CLEAR – CLEAREST!
I RAN BAREFOOT EAST AND WEST. NOW, MORE LUCID THAN THE MOON,
THE EIGHTY-FOUR THOUSAND DHARMA GATES!
Mythologically, Buddhism believes that dharma, the nature of existence, has eighty-four thousand gates. That is only symbolic. It means there are as many gates as there are living beings. You don’t have to enter through anybody else’s gate. You are carrying your gate within you.
Moan is saying:
CLEAR, CLEAR – CLEAREST! I RAN BAREFOOT EAST AND WEST – unnecessarily. NOW, MORE LUCID THAN THE MOON, THE EIGHTY-FOUR THOUSAND DHARMA GATES! All open
suddenly, just like the lucid moon. Betsugen wrote:
IT IS IN THE DARK
THAT EYES PROBE EARTH AND HEAVEN, IN DREAM
THAT THE TORMENTED SEEK PRESENT, PAST. ENOUGH! THE MOUNTAIN MOON FILLS THE WINDOW. THE LONELY FALL THROUGH
THE GARDEN RANG WITH CRICKET SONG.
These are not ordinary poems. These are statements of something that cannot be said but still has to be said. You can sing it but you cannot say it, you can dance it but you cannot say it. It is in my gesture but it is not in my word. You can see it but I cannot show it to you.
Keppo wrote:
SEARCHING HIM TOOK MY STRENGTH. ONE NIGHT I BENT MY POINTING FINGER – NEVER SUCH A MOON!
SEARCHING HIM TOOK MY STRENGTH. I have searched so much – I am tired, it has taken all my strength. But one night it happened and it happened in a strange situation:
ONE NIGHT I BENT MY POINTING FINGER – NEVER SUCH A MOON!
My bent finger pointed to the moon, to myself. The moon is the symbol – the symbol of your eternity, of your beauty, of your blissfulness.
And Buson wrote:
SUCH A MOON –
THE THIEF PAUSES TO SING.
The thief is always afraid. He moves very cautiously. But SUCH A MOON! THE THIEF PAUSES TO SING. The thief forgets that he is a thief, and he becomes a singer.
Every moment is ready to open its doors. If you are willing to relax into non-doing, if you are willing to relax into no effort, if you are ready to put the mind aside and just be, you will also explode in a song.
Question 1
Maneesha has asked:
BELOVED OSHO, KING OF THE NIGHT,
IT SEEMS THAT ZEN MONKS, POETS, AND MASTERS WERE ALMOST AS MOONSTRUCK AS WE ARE – THE SINGING CUCKOOS AND GIBBERING LUNATICS WHO SURROUND YOU!
WOULD YOU PLEASE COMMENT?
Maneesha, it is such an existential fact, it needs no comment. It is true. I attract only lunatics, all kinds of crazy people, unfits. Do you hear Sardar Gurudayal Singh? A perfect lunatic! And soon, when we enter into our meditation, you will see: five thousand lunatics can create fifty thousand’s worth of lunacy. Anybody hearing you in your meditation cannot sleep in the night. He has seen the worst thing in life. He will never cross this road again – one never knows, these people may be doing their meditation!
But before we start, making the whole world shake with your gibberish ... thousands of languages, most of them non-existent. No grammar, and everybody is speaking in somebody else’s language. But such a great joy, such a great freedom to say what has been moving in your head.
And do you see, after that, what a great silence descends on you? Before the silence descends on you, a few laughs for the silent, solitary cuckoo, hiding in the bamboo trees.
A sudden news flash comes over the air. “Pope the Polack was killed in a plane crash this afternoon,” says the announcer.
“Our sources say that the rest of the passengers and crew all survived by parachuting to safety. But evidently the pope decided not to open his parachute, because it was not raining!”
A bunch of old hippies are hanging out and having a pot party. Suddenly there is a loud banging at the door, and a gruff voice says, “Police!”
One hippy looks around frantically and then stuffs his burning reefer into the cuckoo clock. About an hour later, the cuckoo suddenly sticks his head out in a cloud of smoke and says, “Hey man, anybody got the time?”
Two drunks, Dick and Willy, are walking down a country lane. Suddenly, Dick turns to Willy and says, “Have you shit in your pants?”
“No,” replies Willy.
A little further down the road, Dick says to Willy again, “Are you sure you have not shit in your pants?” “I’m quite sure,” says Willy.
Further on down the lane, Dick says, “Come on, take your pants down and let me see.” So Willy takes down his pants, Dick looks inside and cries, “See? I told you so!”
“Oh,” says Willy, “I thought you meant today!”
Ruthie Finkelstein is so fed up with her husband, Moishe, that she is almost suicidal. As if by a miracle, the very next morning she receives a letter which says:
Hello there! This letter was started by a woman like yourself, in the hope of bringing relief to tired and discontented wives.
Unlike most chain letters, this one does not cost anything. Just send a copy of this letter to five of your friends who are equally fed up. Then bundle up your husband and send him to the woman at the top of the list, and add your name to the bottom of the list.
When your name comes to the top of the list, you will receive 16,500 men. And some of them are bound to be a hell of a lot better than the idiot you already have.
Do not break the chain. Have faith! One woman broke the chain and got her own son-of-a-bitch back.
At the date of writing this letter, another friend of mine received 183 men. They buried her yesterday
... but it took three undertakers thirty-six hours to get the smile off her face!
Now, it is time, Nivedano, to give a beat and everybody really goes crazy. Totally! (Drumbeat)
(Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Everybody goes into deep silence.
Close your eyes and become just a frozen stone statue of Buddha. Deeper and deeper ...
It is your own being, there is no question of fear. Be drowned into the silence, the peace, the bliss. That is your being’s very fragrance.
See the full moon and remember it.
In every activity, in every moment, it is always inside you. This is your eternal being.
To make it more clear to you and more sharply realized ... Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat)
And everybody dies. Do you see?
There is no death, but only a vibrant life. Your heart is singing, dancing, rejoicing.
To carry this silence day out, day in, is all that authentic religion means. It is your immortal treasure, and it gives you total freedom.
It makes you the emperor, without any outer empire. Great! Great! the experience of oneself.
The full moon night. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Come back, back into your buddha posture.
Somebody may have died really – give another beat! ... (Drumbeat)
This is good.
This may really resurrect even one who has entered his grave. Nivedano is a master.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Can we celebrate the moment with so many buddhas? Yes!
< Previous | Contents | Next >