9 No words, no mind, and you are in

‌CHAPTER 9

No words, no mind, and you are in

5 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

HOGEN BECAME A PRIEST AT THE AGE OF SEVEN, STUDYING BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM. ONE DAY, SOME YEARS LATER, WHEN HOGEN WAS ON THE WAY TO THE LAKE, IT BEGAN TO RAIN AND HE TOOK SHELTER IN JIZO’S TEMPLE.

JIZO, WHO WAS SITTING BY THE FIREPLACE, ASKED HOGEN, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

HOGEN REPLIED, “JUST WANDERING FROM MASTER TO MASTER IN SEARCH OF ENLIGHTENMENT.”

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” ASKED JIZO. “I DON’T KNOW,” SAID HOGEN.

“DON’T KNOW IS THE MOST INTIMATE,” SAID JIZO.

THE TWO SAT TOGETHER BY THE FIRE, TALKING OF A TREATISE ON BUDDHISM, AND WHEN THEY GOT TO A SENTENCE THAT READ, “HEAVEN AND I ARE OF THE SAME ROOT,” JIZO ASKED, “ARE MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS AND THE GREAT EARTH DIFFERENT FROM ME OR THE SAME?”

SHINZAN, WHO WAS WITH THEM, REPLIED, “THE SAME.”

JIZO HELD UP TWO FINGERS, AND, LOOKING AT THEM EARNESTLY, SAID THERE WERE TWO, AND THEN WENT OUT. IT HAD NOW STOPPED RAINING, AND JIZO ACCOMPANIED HOGEN AND SHINZAN TO THE GATE. ON THE WAY, IN THE GARDEN THERE WAS A STONE, AND POINTING TO IT, JIZO ASKED A QUESTION: “IT IS SAID THAT IN THE THREE WORLDS, ALL IS MIND. IS THIS STONE IN THE MIND OR OUTSIDE IT?”

HOGEN ANSWERED, “INSIDE IT.”

JIZO SAID, “YOU PEOPLE ON A PILGRIMAGE, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE STONE IS IN YOUR MIND?”

HOGEN WAS AT A LOSS AND COULD FIND NO ANSWER, SO HE UNDID HIS BUNDLE AND ASKED JIZO TO HELP HIM RESOLVE THE PROBLEM.

AFTER A MONTH, HOGEN EXPLAINED HIS VIEW OF PHILOSOPHY, BUT JIZO SAID, “BUDDHISM IS NOT PHILOSOPHY.”

HOGEN THEN SAID, “I HAVE NOW GOT TO THE POINT OF AVOIDING ALL WORDS AND GIVING UP ALL PHILOSOPHY.”

JIZO SAID, “IF YOU NOW EXPLAIN BUDDHISM, EVERYTHING IS ACCOMPLISHED.” AT THIS, HOGEN WAS PROFOUNDLY ENLIGHTENED.

Maneesha, these small anecdotes are not just for reading, are not just to become more acquainted with different worldviews. Zen is not possible to capture in scriptures, in doctrines. By thinking, by concentration, by contemplation, you cannot find it.

The strangest thing about Zen is that it is hidden in the seeker, and the seeker is running from master to master, from philosophy to philosophy – thinking that by gathering much knowledge he will be able to understand the truth of existence, that he will be able to experience the significance and meaning of life.

But going from one master to another master one simply gathers words. And if those masters are not authentic, but only teachers ... Always remember the difference: the teacher is knowledgeable, but it is not his own experience. Somebody has been drinking the water and he is talking about the thirst and the quenching of thirst – for the teacher, these are not his experiences. Perhaps he has seen somebody thirsty and then after drinking water feeling satisfied. He has seen the difference, but still he does not know what happened inside the man who was in thirst and then in contentment.

The master knows directly, immediately; it is never, never a borrowed thing. It is his own. It is his own song, it is his own dance. He is not imitating anyone and he is not in any way pretending. The teacher is doing that. The teacher can pretend to be a master – out of a hundred masters, ninety-nine are only teachers. And it is very difficult for people to make out the difference, because both talk the same language. The teacher’s words are empty, but how can you know? The master’s words are breathing, alive, are surrounded by silence and peace. But in your state it is very difficult to make the distinction.

But in Zen, it has been a longstanding tradition since Bodhidharma left India: the disciples wander from teacher to teacher, master to master, listening to this, listening to that, hoping that somewhere they will find the man who triggers in them a flame that was already there, but needed to be triggered.

HOGEN BECAME A PRIEST AT THE AGE OF SEVEN.

He must have been a very intelligent child. To become a monk at the age of seven is nothing ordinary – an extraordinary perception, at the age of seven, the quest for truth. Even at the age of seventy people are not aware of what this truth is all about. In fact they wonder why people unnecessarily talk about truth, the ultimate, the being – there is so much to do in the world. Money, power, prestige, respectability ... there is the whole world to conquer.

Certainly, a boy of seven must have been of immense intelligence to see the futility of all power, of all that the world can give. The very fact that such a small child starts moving from master to master is enough proof of his intelligenceSTUDYING BUDDHISM AND CONFUCIANISM.

Buddhism and Confucianism can be said to be polar opposites. Confucianism is an ancient type of communism – no God, no soul, but only morality, social conduct, social ethicsa better way of

behavior, of being a gentleman, nice and cultured. Confucianism is an education of the personality, while Buddhism is not a study at all. And secondly, Buddhism is absolutely against personality. The more cultured the personality is, the more difficult to penetrate in, because the cultured personality becomes a solid rock.

An innocent child has no personality. He is vulnerable; and vulnerability is one of the greatest values for those who are seeking for truth. So Hogen must have been in great difficulty, moving amongst Confucian teachers. They can never be masters, they have never tried to enter in. They have been always cultivating the garden outside the house, painting the house from the outside. They have completely forgotten that the real house is inside. The painted wall, the beautiful garden around, are perfectly good, but one should not end with them. One should not start living in the porch! And that’s what is happening with almost everybody, all around the world.

Confucian ideology was prevalent all over the great empire of China and the neighboring countries, and for twenty-five centuries Confucius has been held up as one of the greatest men. Buddhism is a totally different approach. It penetrates within you, it does not bother about your porch. It wants to reach to the center of consciousness, not the garden surrounding your house; not the body, not the mind, but you in your essence. It is a very different way, almost opposite.

Confucianism is going outwards. Zen is going inwards. Between these two, this small child of seven, Hogen, must have been in great torture.

ONE DAY, SOME YEARS LATER, WHEN HOGEN WAS ON THE WAY TO THE LAKE, IT BEGAN TO RAIN AND HE TOOK SHELTER IN JIZO’S TEMPLE.

Jizo is a Zen master.

JIZO, WHO WAS SITTING BY THE FIREPLACE, ASKED HOGEN, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

These simple questions in Zen have a very different meaning. When a Zen master asks, “From where are you coming?” he does not mean the place, the village from where you are coming. He means “From what source have you attained your consciousness? From where are you coming, and where are you going?”

These questions are not at all concerned with your outer coming and going. When Jizo said, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

HOGEN REPLIED, “JUST WANDERING FROM MASTER TO MASTER IN SEARCH OF ENLIGHTENMENT.”

At that age, perhaps very few people in the world have even thought about the word ‘enlightenment’. “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” ASKED JIZO.

“I DON’T KNOW,” SAID HOGEN.

This purity and this innocence and this exposure ...”I don’t know. I don’t even know why I am trying to find something about which I cannot even say a word. And I am wandering from one master to another master – I don’t know.”

“DON’T KNOW IS THE MOST INTIMATE,” SAID JIZO.

A tremendous statement:

DON’T KNOW IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

All knowledge is far away from you. Only innocence is at the very center of your being. It is the most intimate.

This statement of Hogen, “I DON’T KNOW,” is of tremendous value in Zen. It does not mean that he is ignorant, it simply means he is perfectly aware that he is still not at the center of his being. All that he knows is not worth mentioning.

Socrates reached the same statement at the age of seventy: “I don’t know.” Hogen, at his age, has the same genius, no ordinary thing. Even a man of the quality of Socrates realized it only at the very end of his life – that he knows nothing, and all that he knows is futile.

He knows about things, a thousand and one things, but he does not know about himself. Death will take all that knowledge and will leave him alone. And he has not tried, in his whole life, to know that aloneness which will be left ultimately in his hands. That should have been his first concern, because death can come any moment.

His last moment he recognized. Although he was known as a great teacher ... he was a great teacher; because of his teachings he was being poisoned. But in the eyes of Zen his knowledge and his logic are just useless. Unnecessarily they poisoned him – an innocent person who does not know himself, who has not yet come home, who has been wandering into words, linguistics, grammar, philosophy.

Hogen is certainly a Himalayan height in consciousness. As far as age is concerned he is only a child, but his mental age is nearabout Socrates’ – seventy. He said, very innocently, “I DON’T KNOW.”

And it needs a man like Jizo, a great master, to understand such a statement. Otherwise you will think, “What is there in it? He is simply ignorant.”

But Jizo could see in the eyes of Hogen that his statement, “I DON’T KNOW,” is not an expression of ignorance, but an expression of immense awareness: I DON’T KNOW.

That’s why Jizo says, “DON’T KNOW, at this age ... It is the most intimate thing in the world.” Because it opens the doors of wonder and the doors of mysteries. The day you drop all your knowledge, you become unburdened. You can fly, you lose all weight.

All religions teach doctrines; Zen simply points to the one who is hiding inside you. There is no other scripture and there is no other God and there is nothing else to learn. First be and explore your inner consciousness, and you will find all the treasures that even Alexander the Great could not find by conquering the world.

Conquer yourself.

And in conquering yourself is the greatest victory, the most precious experience, because now you know your eternity, beginningless. Now you know death is a lie, it never happens. Only the consciousness moves from one house into another house. It is a house-changing, but the one who changes the house is invisible.

Jizo loved the small boy when he said, “I don’t know.”

SHINZAN, WHO WAS WITH THEM, REPLIED, “THE SAME.”

In our innermost core we are joined with the stars. It is one organic whole, the whole existence; we are just dewdrops in this vast ocean.

JIZO HELD UP TWO FINGERS ... A great genius, this boy Hogen. Jizo has recognized his search and his authenticity. He HELD UP TWO FINGERS, AND, LOOKING AT THEM EARNESTLY, SAID THERE WERE TWO, AND THEN WENT OUT.

IT HAD NOW STOPPED RAINING, AND JIZO ACCOMPANIED HOGEN AND SHINZAN TO THE GATE. ON THE WAY, IN THE GARDEN, THERE WAS A STONE, AND POINTING TO IT, JIZO ASKED A QUESTION: “IT IS SAID THAT IN THE THREE WORLDS, ALL IS MIND. IS THIS STONE IN THE MIND OR OUTSIDE IT?”

HOGEN ANSWERED, “INSIDE IT.”

JIZO SAID, “YOU PEOPLE ON A PILGRIMAGE, WHY DO YOU THINK THAT THE STONE IS IN YOUR MIND?

Why carry such a load?

HOGEN WAS AT A LOSS AND COULD FIND NO ANSWER, SO HE UNDID HIS BUNDLE AND ASKED JIZO TO HELP HIM RESOLVE THE PROBLEM.

He stopped going out. He dropped his bag and he said, “You have to help me resolve this problem: is the stone outside the mind or inside the mind?”

AND AFTER A MONTH, HOGEN EXPLAINED HIS VIEW OF PHILOSOPHY, BUT JIZO SAID, “BUDDHISM IS NOT PHILOSOPHY.”

There have been philosophers who say that the stone exists only within you: what you see outside is only a projection, just as you see a projection of a film on the screen. There is nothing outside, you are projecting everything. These philosophers – in India, the Adi Shankaracharya; in England, Bradley ... and Bosanquet, and there were many others in different countries – are trying to say that the outside is only dream. It is your projection, it is not really there. It is your imagination, it is maya, just hallucination, a mirage.

In a desert you see a mirage, far away a small pool of water, but as you come closer the water disappears. There was no water; it was only sun rays reflected back from the desert. Because of their reflection and wavering, from far away they created the illusion of water, as if water waves were there. Even if there is a tree, it is reflected in those wavering sun rays. That becomes absolute proof: the tree is reflected in the water; it cannot be reflected in the sand. But when you come close, the tree is standing alone. What you have seen was not true.

That is the standpoint of these philosophers, the mayavadins, the illusionists.

Jizo became very interested in Hogen and after one month he asked him – Hogen has been studying with him – what was his view. Whatever that small boy must have understood, he said.

Jizo said, “Remember, Buddhism is not philosophy. You have to understand clearly: this is not a school of philosophy; you are not here to inquire intellectually what is true and what is false. You are here to experience what your consciousness is, where your roots are. This is not a school of philosophy, this is pure existentialism.” ... But not the existentialism that is prevalent in the West, because that existentialism has again become intellectual. Zen has been fighting against intellect, against mind, and pushing aside the mind so that it can see directly without thinking.

Thinking creates waves, distorts things. The moment you can see without thinking, the truth is revealed in its immense beauty. First it is revealed inside, and then you can start experiencing it spreading all over the universe. Then in every flower it is you; then in every star, however far, it is you.

Jizo’s showing two fingers is not the same as Winston Churchill’s two fingers! Winston Churchill means by his two fingers, “victory.” He is making the “V” sign. Jizo is saying something else, totally

different. He is saying, “Although these two fingers look like two, they are joined deep in oneness. These two fingers are not two, these five fingers are not five; deep down they are joined in oneness.”

HOGEN THEN SAID, “I HAVE NOW GOT TO THE POINT OF AVOIDING ALL WORDS AND GIVING UP ALL PHILOSOPHY.”

JIZO SAID, “IF YOU now EXPLAIN BUDDHISM, EVERYTHING IS ACCOMPLISHED” – without

words, without philosophy.

AT THIS, HOGEN WAS PROFOUNDLY ENLIGHTENED.

Nothing was said.

Nothing can be said. He was absolutely silent. Two things joined, and the miracle happened.

First he was innocent, and he was aware of his innocence. Secondly, he went into philosophy but when Jizo told him Buddhism is not philosophy, it is actual experience, actualization ... He must have been a very rare child who said, “If Buddhism is not philosophy, I discard all philosophy, all words. I remain alone in my ignorance.”

JIZO SAID, “That is great. IF YOU NOW EXPLAIN BUDDHISM, EVERYTHING IS ACCOMPLISHED.”

But how to say anything when you have discarded words, you have discarded philosophy, you have discarded mind itself? Now you cannot even say “I do not know,” because that too is using words.

Jizo remained utterly silent. In that silence, HOGEN WAS PROFOUNDLY ENLIGHTENED. No words, no mind, and you are in.

No words, no mind, and you have realized the ultimate source of your being. And once accomplished, you cannot lose it. Once becoming aware of it, it remains with you twenty-four hours – in life, in death, just an undercurrent of a vibrating and dancing consciousness. That is your reality and that is the reality of the whole existence. Different waves, different wave rhythms, different vibes, but everything is just a vibration of consciousness.

Muso wrote:

MANY TIMES THE MOUNTAINS HAVE TURNED FROM GREEN TO YELLOW –

SO MUCH FOR THE CAPRICIOUS EARTH! DUST IN YOUR EYES,

THE TRIPLE WORLD IS NARROW;

NOTHING ON THE MIND, YOUR CHAIR IS WIDE ENOUGH.

Zen uses strange ways of explanation because ordinary ways are spoiled by being used for ordinary things, commodities in the marketplace.

NOTHING ON THE MIND, YOUR CHAIR IS WIDE ENOUGH – in fact, the whole existence is your chair. It is your mind that is making you so small, so confined, so enslaved. Once the mind is not there, you simply start widening, spreading, and that widening has been found to be the most ecstatic experience.

Daito wrote:

AT LAST I HAVE BROKEN UNMON’S BARRIER!

Unmon was one of the famous masters and he used to call the mind “the barrier.” Daito must have been a disciple to Unmon.

AT LAST, he says, I HAVE BROKEN UNMON’S BARRIER! THERE IS EXIT EVERYWHERE .…

All doors and all walls have disappeared. The whole universe has become available. ... EAST, WEST, NORTH, SOUTH.

IN AT THE MORNING, OUT AT EVENING, NEITHER HOST NOR GUEST.

MY EVERY STEP STIRS UP A LITTLE BREEZE.

Just everything is gone, all duality has gone. At the most, MY EVERY STEP STIRS UP A LITTLE BREEZE.

In this silence, even that little breeze is not stirred. Question 1

Maneesha asks:

IS IT TRUE THAT THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWER, ONLY AN APPROPRIATE OR INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE?

Maneesha, there is neither a right or wrong answer, nor is there an appropriate or inappropriate response. Because even appropriate and inappropriate will create the distinction of duality.

There is only spontaneity, without anything to qualify it as right or wrong.

There is only spontaneity.

You fall in love; you can’t say why, you can’t show the cause. You can’t rationalize, you can simply shrug your shoulders. You will say, “I cannot say why – it just happened.”

That which just happens is the most beautiful, the most graceful. There is no question of duality.

This is a problem, Maneesha. You can get rid of one duality, and mind immediately provides you another duality – better, refined, a little more difficult to figure out that it is a duality.

You have understood that there is no right or wrong but perhaps there is an appropriate or inappropriate response. No. There is only spontaneous response, neither appropriate nor inappropriate – just spontaneous, without any qualification and without any judgment.

That’s why the awakened ones have been insisting continuously: don’t judge – judgment creates duality. Non-judgment, and you are at ease, at home. Judgment brings mind in – whether you think it is appropriate or inappropriate. The mind has come in from the back door. You had pushed it out the front door because it was continuously saying, “This is right and this is wrong.” It has come from the back side, more refined, with a better commodity to sell – the mind is such a good salesman. Now it says, “Think in terms of appropriate or inappropriate.” But it is again the same game of dividing things.

Existence is one; it simply is.

To realize this isness is to realize the ultimate freedom from mind and its dualities.

Before we enter into this isness, a little laughter – appropriate or inappropriate – is absolutely needed. It will not harm anybody. But it will wake many who have gone to sleep by this time. I have to take care of the sleeping ones before they start snoring!

Calvin Dufus, Kowalski’s cousin, is at a nightclub where a ventriloquist and his dummy are telling nothing but Polack jokes. Finally Calvin stands up.

“I’m tired of all these Polish jokes!” he shouts. “What makes you think that we are all so stupid?”

“Please, sir,” says the ventriloquist. “They are only jokes, and I have never met a Polack without a sense of humor.”

“I’m not talking to you!” shouts Dufus. “I’m talking to that little jerk on your knee!” In a big divorce case in Hollywood, Horace Kringecock is in the witness stand.

“Now, as I understand it,” says Babblebrain, his attorney, “every night you would come home from work, and you would find a different naked man in the clothes closet.”

“Yes,” replies Horace, “that is right.”

“And, of course,” continues Babblebrain, “this caused you incredible anguish, mental suffering, and heartache. Am I right?”

“That’s right!” cries Horace. “I could never find any place to hang my coat!”

Pope the Polack is on a pilgrimage to South Africa. He is riding around in the popemobile when he sees two white men pulling a black man out of a river with a rope.

The pope directs his popemobile to the water’s edge and leaps out to meet the two white guys.

“Well done,” cries Pope the Polack. “You have completely restored my faith in the people of South Africa by courageously saving the black man from drowning.” He then throws himself down and kisses the swamp, jumps back into the popemobile, and drives off.

“Who was that?” asked one of the white guys.

“Oh, that was Pope the Polack,” says the other. “He knows everything about everything.”

“Well, maybe he does,” says the first white guy, throwing the black man back into the river, “but he doesn’t know shit about hunting crocodiles!”

Kowalski finds himself drunk in a train compartment with Father Blessbutt. “What is yer reading, Yer Holiness?” asks Kowalski.

“It is the Bible, my son,” sighs the priest. Father Blessbutt smells the whiskey on Kowalski’s breath, and continues, “Right now I am reading the amazing story of Samson. He was the strongest man in the world.

“One day, out in the fields, he saw five thousand Philistines coming over the hill. Samson took the jawbone of an ass and slew five hundred of them. And then he routed the rest.”

Kowalski is very impressed. That night he is telling everybody in the pub all about it. “I’m going to get a Bible,” Kowalski announces.

“My god!” says Nurdski. “What for?”

“Well,” says Kowalski, “this priest was telling me that all sorts of amazing things are in it. Like there is a tough guy called Simpson. One day, he’s out in the garden when fifty thousand Filipinos come over the hill. But Simpson attacks them, just with the ass-bone of a Jew. He kills five thousand of them single-handed, and then he screws the rest!”

Now get ready ...

Nivedano, give the first beat and everybody goes crazy. (Drumbeat)

(Gibberish) (Drumbeat)

Be silent ... you have thrown all dust out. Now, go inwards ... no movement of the body. This ...

This very isness is the secret of all secrets.

One who knows this knows the eternal and the immortal, knows also that he is one with the whole. Go deeper, deeper to the roots.

Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)

Fall down ... relax totally, almost as if you are dead. This is just to help you to reach to your very center. This very silence is the door to the kingdom of God.

This very silence ... makes you alone, an emperor without any empire. You don’t have to conquer the world.

If you know this isness you have conquered the whole universe.

The experience of this isness makes one a buddha, the awakened one.

You all carry the buddha inside you, never looking inwards – the beauty of it, the joy of it, the blissfulness of it.

Carry this experience the whole day.

Awake or asleep, let it flow like an undercurrent and your life will become a dance, a celebration. And unless your life becomes a celebration, you have not lived it to its totality.

Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)

Now you all come back from death to a new life, realizing yourself as a buddha.

Not searching for any god outside, but declaring in your every action the very essence of godliness, in your love, in your peace, in your joy.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate so many buddhas ... assembled in this immense silence? Yes!

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