Osho Meditation: Rinzai Master of the Irrational

Rinzai said, "I expound the dharma of mind-ground, by which one can enter the secular and the sacred. But you are mistaken if you suppose that your real and temporal, secular and sacred can attach a name to everything real and temporal, secular and sacred. They cannot attach a name to this man. Followers of the tao, grasp and use, but never name - this is called the 'mysterious principle.'"

When he decided that his days were almost over, Rinzai put on his finest robes and seated himself in zazen. He said to his disciples, gathered around him, "After I am gone, do not destroy my treasury of the true eye of the law."

His chief disciple, Sansho, said, "Who would have the cheek to do that?" Rinzai responded, "Afterwards, if someone asks you a question about the true eye of the law, how will you reply?" Sansho exclaimed: "Kwatz!" Rinzai commented, "Who would have thought that a blind donkey would destroy it?"

Maneesha, this is the last talk on the beautiful series, Rinzai: master of the irrational. To be with Rinzai... it has been a beautiful time. To make him our contemporary, just for a few moments, was pure nectar. This will be the last talk on Rinzai.

Before discussing Rinzai's sutra and the anecdote, Avirbhava, the director-general of the Museum of Gods, has brought a great new member. First I will tell you about the new member of her museum.

His name is Dragon.

"According to the Old Testament, the dragon is said to have descended from the Babylonian female dragon called Tiamet. In Christianity the dragon represents the devil; hence, paintings of numerous saints' lives depict combat between them and a dragon, representing God and the devil.

"Where the West sees the dragon as evil, the East considers him to be benevolent. In China it was said that when he died, the emperor ascended to heaven like a dragon. It was believed that when a dragon ascends to heaven, the pressure of its feet on the clouds causes rain. Also in Chinese mythology the dragon is a messenger of heaven who revealed yin and yang, the two forces of the universe, to the Yellow Emperor.

"In the I-Ching the dragon symbolizes wisdom.

"In Japan, the three-clawed dragon represents the emperor, having both imperial and spiritual power."

This Museum of Gods is immensely significant. It declares the end of all gods. They belong only to the museums. That is the very purpose of the Museum of Gods. Their relevance to life is finished; they can only be remembered as mythologies, as fictions, as exploitations by the priesthood, as pathological inventions of insane people.

The future man will not have a god; the future man will be a god. For long enough we have been under fictitious entities. It is time to declare ourselves free from all fictions.

The new man's god is no more in the heaven, it is in his own being - more intimate, more close.

The new man will not worship the god, the new man will live the god, will sing the god, will dance the god; he himself will be the temple of the god. Hence I have called the new man the buddha.

Now I will call Avirbhava to bring the dragon.

(A green, papier mache dragon enters gautama the buddha auditorium from the back and stomps around the hall. Every once in a while it sprays from its fanged mouth steam and smoke. Everybody is laughing while oriental music plays. Laughter, chinese music, hand-clapping. See photo on page 190.) The sutra:

'Mind-ground' simply means the empty mind. Only the ground is left, only the foundation is left, and everything else is gone. Even to have dreams you have to be alive. Do you think a dead man can dream? Your life functions as a ground for all your projections, for all your imaginations, for all your gods in heaven and hell, and all kinds of mythologies, theologies and philosophies. But for all, the ground is the mind.

Zen does not go beyond the essential ground of mind. It does not grow any mythology on it, it does not grow any system of beliefs on it; it simply remains with the silent mind - and the silent mind is exactly no-mind. These are different expressions only. You can say 'no-mind' because there are no thoughts; you can call it 'mind-ground' - there are no thoughts either.

This mind-ground can describe things as sacred, as profane, as material, as spiritual, as astral, as ethereal - this mind is capable of naming thousands of things, real and unreal. But it cannot name this man. Rinzai is pointing to his own realization, and the new man that is born out of realization.

The mind-ground cannot give a name to this man - the new man, the man of Tao, or the man of enlightenment.

Why can it not give a name to it? Because a name is a thought, and Zen does not accept any thought, sacred or profane; it accepts only the pure consciousness, the empty heart. Nothing should be echoing in it.

Hence, this mind which can create such great mythologies... Millions of people have lived under the impact of fictitious gods. The whole game is of the mind. It can create God, it can create the devil, it can create anything you want, but not this man. The man who is enlightened is no more. How can you name him? The man of enlightenment is dissolved in the cosmos; now he has no more any form or any boundaries. How can you name him?

So the whole process of naming things, which you think is thinking, is not of any worth; just the very ground of consciousness is valuable. Anything you grow on that ground is futile. It is capable of giving you anything you want. Its power of imagination is immense, knows no limits - but they will all be fictions, hallucinations, mirages. Whenever you come to the truth, the mind is incapable, absolutely impotent and incapable of naming it.

Truth has no name, it is nameless. Your ultimate being has never been named, and there is no way to give it a name. When you find it, you are so absorbed and overwhelmed by it that you disappear; only it remains. The luminosity, the love, the compassion, the grace - all are there, but you have disappeared. Who is going to name it?

Your disappearance means opening the doors of the universal. By disappearing, I mean you disappear in the ocean. Now, when the dewdrop has disappeared in the ocean, where to find it? How to name it? All that you can say is that it has become one with the ocean. It was a small ocean, that's why it could become one with the ocean. It kept itself small, within limits. Today it dropped its limits, slipped from the lotus leaf, disappeared in the ocean. But that does not mean that it has died; it simply means that it has become too big, that you can no longer call it a dewdrop.

Rinzai's last statements... "followers of the tao, grasp and use, but never name - this is called the 'mysterious principle.'"

Tao is exactly at the same height of understanding as Buddha. The word 'tao' does not mean anything. It was under compulsion that Lao Tzu called it tao - a meaningless word - just as Buddha has called it dhamma.

His whole life Lao Tzu never wrote. Even the emperor insisted that "You should write down your experiences. They will be valuable for the coming centuries."

Lao Tzu said, "You don't know what you are asking for. Nobody can write it, nobody can pronounce it. One can live it, love it, one can be dissolved into it, one can be resurrected into it, but nothing can be said about it. Words are too far away, too much misleading."

His whole life Lao Tzu denied every proposal from the disciples that "You have lived a great life of utter silence, of peace and blissfulness; it will be a great loss to humanity if you don't write down just a small treatise, a few sutras, a few footprints that can show how you reached to this height, in what direction we have to move - just to guide us."

But Lao Tzu said, "I would love to say, but I cannot corrupt the purity of the experience. The moment I say it, it will be corrupted. The words are too small and the experience is immense. Please just forgive me!"

This had been his attitude his whole life, but at the end he said to his disciples, "Now it is time that I retire into the Himalayas. My death is not far away, and I would like to meet my death and welcome her in the right place" - and there cannot be any more right place than the eternal silence of the Himalayas.

It is not only Lao Tzu, but many have moved in their last days to the Himalayas and disappeared in the eternal snow. The Himalayas have a mysterious attraction: because of the height, because of the untrodden paths, there are still thousands of places where man has not reached, which are absolutely unpolluted by man and his ugly radiations.

Lao Tzu took leave of his disciples, but he got into trouble, because the emperor informed the guards on all the ways that go to the Himalayas. There were guards on every way that led to the Himalayas going out of China. He informed the guards, "Wherever you find Lao Tzu crossing the Chinese border, hold him prisoner. Be very respectful, but make a deal with him that if he wants to go to the Himalayas, he has to write the treatise of his experiences - just the essential hints."

He was caught, with great respect, and he was given the cottage of the guard, and he was locked up and told, "Until you write down the essential experience and the steps towards it - we are under strict orders - you will not be allowed to leave China and move into the Himalayas."

Under such loving compulsion, finding no way out, Lao Tzu wrote his book, THE BOOK OF TAO.

He starts from the very first line, "Truth cannot be said. The moment it is said, it becomes untrue."

All those who read this small treatise are warned from the very beginning that these are words, and words cannot carry the wordless silence. This is the preface to his own treatise: "I am being forced, so I am writing it, but this is not the truth. You cannot get the truth from a book." Such honesty!

Rinzai says, "followers of the tao, grasp and use" - they grasp the mind-ground, they grasp their very being, and use it - "but never name - this is called the 'mysterious principle.'" They get hold of it, they use it in their whole life, they become one with it, but they never say a single word about it, what it is.

You have to live with a master who has attained to it, perhaps in deep silence, sitting with the master.

Your heart and his heart may start synchronizing, dancing in the same tune, getting into a harmony.

Nothing will be said, nothing will be heard, but everything will be understood. Because of this it is called the "mysterious principle." Nobody has said it, nobody has ever heard about it, but thousands of people have lived it.

Religion is not an explanation, it is an experience. It is nothing to be studied, it has to be lived. That's where all the religions have gone wrong. They have become scriptures, they have become temples, churches, synagogues, they have created prayers, rituals, according to the masses. Whatever the masses need they are ready to supply: just remain in their fold, because the presence of the followers is their political power.

Your so-called religions - I want to clarify it, with absolute certainty - are nothing but hidden politics.

Their faces are religious, but those faces are not real, they are masks. Deep inside is pure politics and nothing else. Naturally they have to conform to the masses. It is so laughable, so ridiculous a thing that the religions have to conform to the masses, who know nothing, just in order to keep them in the fold.

I have heard about three rabbis in New York, talking to each other. The first rabbi said, "My synagogue is the most sophisticated, because I even allow people to smoke or drink inside the synagogue while the preacher is preaching. There is no harm in smoking or drinking. This is a modern idea of a synagogue."

The second rabbi said, "That is nothing. I allow people even to make love - what is the harm? The preacher is preaching and people are enjoying, loving each other. Love is the message!"

The third one said, "You are still far behind my synagogue. My synagogue is the last word, because in front of my synagogue hangs a big board saying that on Jewish holidays the synagogue will remain closed!"

Now, you cannot improve on that.

Considering the people... Gurdjieff used to say, "If you consider the people, you will never be religious." Never consider anybody. Just search for your truth and live accordingly, even if it goes against the whole world. Don't make any compromises or any considerations. A man of authentic religion is a man of no compromises and no considerations.

When he decided that his days were almost over, rinzai put on his finest robes and seated himself in zazen.

These small symbols show the very fine quality of the man. They are indications, for those who can understand, that he is preparing himself to meet death. Obviously he should put on his finest robes and seat himself in zazen. He should meet death in a beautiful silence of meditation.

He said to his disciples, gathered around him, "after i am gone, do not destroy my treasury of the true eye of the law."

I have explained to you that Zen calls what in India we have for thousands of years called the third eye - the eye that looks within - the true eye of the law. These two eyes look outwards, and it is very symbolic that outside everything is always divided in two. If there is night, there is day; if there is love, there is hate; if there is friend, there is enemy.

To look outside it is absolutely necessary that you should have two eyes. But to look inside, these two eyes should melt into one. And as you turn inwards, there is only one eye of the law, one eye of Tao, or simply the third eye.

He asked his followers before his last breath, "After I am gone, do not destroy my treasury of the true eye of the law. I have given you a treasury, I have introduced you to the mysterious principle, I have made you aware of the third eye; don't let anybody destroy it."

His chief disciple, sansho, said, "Who would have the cheek to do that? Who can destroy it, who will have the guts, the cheek to do it?"

Rinzai responded: "Afterwards, if someone asks you a question about the true eye of the law, how will you reply?" Sansho exclaimed: "Kwatz!" Rinzai commented, "Who would have thought that a blind donkey would destroy it?"

Sansho is responding exactly... Shouting "Kwatz!" was introduced by Rinzai into the Zen tradition.

When you cannot answer a question, when a question is not answerable, then a good shout immediately puts the other person, at least for a moment, in silence. That is your answer. You are saying, "Be silent and you will know!" - not saying so much in words, but just giving a good shout. The man simply is shocked.

For a moment the mind becomes alert: "What is going on? I have asked a very logical, rational question and this fellow shouts at me!" And the shout comes so quickly, without reason and rhyme, that the mind cannot work out the meaning of it. So it becomes silent - at least for a few moments.

Sansho gave a good shout, "Kwatz!", but that was not the right thing.

Rinzai commented, "Who would have thought that a blind donkey would destroy it?" He is saying that it is always destroyed by the blindness of man. Before a blind man you may shout as much as you want; it won't help him to have the third eye. He cannot even look outwards, how can he look inwards? He does not know what 'look' means.

Every great religious peak is destroyed after the death of the master by blind donkeys. You will not be able to recognize them, because these blind donkeys are not the donkeys you know. These blind donkeys are the pundits, the rabbis, the bishops, the popes, the shankaracharyas. These blind donkeys go on destroying everything, because they have to manipulate the public mind. They are not concerned about saving the truth. Who cares about the truth? - the real question is how many followers you have.

Everybody cares about having more power, and there is only one power outside, and that is the power of having the masses behind you. But to have the masses behind you, you have to be behind them. You have to come to all kinds of compromises, otherwise they will not follow you.

They have already had a prejudiced mind for centuries. They know what is right and what is wrong - and they know nothing! They know what is truth, what is God, what is heaven, and you cannot change their conditionings. It will be easier for them to leave you and go to some other fold, where their prejudices are nourished.

It is a very strange situation: where your ignorance is nourished you feel happy, and where your ignorance is exposed and killed you feel very unhappy, because you are so much identified with your ignorance. This is your blind donkey-ness.

Rinzai is saying that there is no way to save the third eye, except if you have it and you go on transmitting it to other recipients. It cannot be saved in scriptures, it cannot be saved in any other way. The only way to save it is to have it - and have it in such abundance that you can share with others.

Rinzai then died, in Zazen - sitting in the Buddha-posture. The year was 866 or 867, and he left behind him twenty-two enlightened disciples.

It is a great contribution to human consciousness. To leave twenty-two enlightened disciples is to raise the level of consciousness - a single man's great effort and great contribution. And throughout these eleven hundred years Rinzai's disciples have continued to become enlightened. It is still a living stream, flowing, it has not got lost into a desert.

The desert is that of the scholars. That desert is being created by the universities and the colleges and the schools. In that desert everything gets lost. In the vast deserts of Sahara, small streams of consciousness simply get lost, rather than reaching to the ocean. All scholarship leads you away from the ocean, because all these scholars are the servants of the vested interests. They have a certain interest, and for that interest they can compromise everything - and they have compromised everything.

If he has not created living fires around him, every great master is going to be forgotten. Humanity loses much when a master is forgotten. There have been thousands of mystics, and even their names are forgotten.

Anando is compiling a book on all the mystics I have spoken on. She talked to Professor Coleman Barks. He was very much interested; he wanted to publish it himself. But he said, "From where has he found these three hundred? I have not even heard these names - three hundred buddhas!" He has left, otherwise I would have sent him the message that I am still living and I am going to speak on at least two hundred more. There are more still, but even their names are lost.

You are listening to people and their sutras which have been forgotten by the majority of humanity.

My effort is to revive all those golden peaks in your consciousness, so you can have the trust that "If so many people became enlightened, there is no reason why I cannot become enlightened."

My speaking on these people has a single purpose: to create a trust in you about yourself, that your destiny is to be a buddha.

Ikkyu wrote:

Whether i elevate this message

Or put it down,

Everything under the heavens

Is the imperial domain.

I salute and say,

"so be it... So be it."

That is another version of total relaxation with existence, another version of let-go, another version of suchness, thisness, isness.

He is saying, "Whether i elevate this message or put it down, everything under the heavens is the imperial domain. I salute and say, 'So be it... So be it.' Whatever happens, my absolute determination, my absolute commitment is that whatever happens is good.

So be it."

It may seem sometimes that something is a misfortune - but still Ikkyu is right. Many times blessings come in disguise, and those who are ready to accept even misfortunes joyfully, they transform the misfortune into a joy. Just by accepting them, without any resistance, is the way of transforming them into a beautiful space.

So be it.

Whatever happens, don't have any grudge, don't have any complaint against existence. That is the purest message of Zen.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved master,

From recognition of an internal, unwavering witness, to worship of an external god for whom people kill - can we really make the journey back to the witness again within a split second, with just one step? Unless i'm actually sitting in front of you, remembering to witness seems such an uphill task!

Maneesha, it is not an uphill task, it is a downhill task! The ego is always ready for an uphill task; it is a question of downhill. To be just natural, simple, nobody, cannot be an uphill task. So first change the idea: it is not an uphill task, it is downhill.

And secondly you say, "Unless I'm actually sitting in front of you, remembering to witness seems such an uphill task!"

You are making it uphill. If it is possible in front of me, what prevents you when you are not sitting in front of me? If it is possible in front of me, then it is possible anywhere.

And you say, "Unless I'm actually sitting in front of you..." But how can you be certain that I am actually here? You don't have any proof of my being here. You cannot believe your eyes - they deceive you many times. It may be simply just that the whole assembly has fallen asleep and you are all dreaming me; I am the dream of you all.

You cannot determine whether anything outside your witnessing has any reality or not. Because of this, the great philosopher Shankara continuously insisted and proved to the whole of India that the outside world is just a dream, maya, illusion. And there are parallels in the West: Bradley and Bosanquet both tried the same idea - that you cannot say whether the outside is real or unreal, because in a dream you start believing in the dream.

Your believing is not very reliable. In a dream, do you ever doubt, "Perhaps I am in a dream"? In a dream you are so deeply involved that the dream becomes actual, so actual that if you are having a nightmare, and a lion or a dragon is just sitting on your chest, you will wake up out of fear, and you will experience a great relief that it was a dream. But even the dream has its effects: your breathing shows as if you have been running fast, your perspiration shows that your body has believed, your mind has believed, that the dragon was a reality.

There is no way to prove that the outside is not another dream - maybe a little longer, seventy years long; maybe a special dream that when you go to sleep it waits for you, and when you wake up it continues again. But there is no way to prove rationally that the outside is really there. It may be, it may not be.

So don't be worried about my actuality. I may be just a device... in fact, I am a device. If you can become a witness in front of me, you know that you have the capacity to become a witness. Then there is no reason to make it an uphill task. Just be playful about it.

I know in the beginning you will forget many times. Just try to understand this simple thing: when you forget, don't be bothered; otherwise, what happens is you forget witnessing, and then you remember, "My God, I forgot!" - and now you start repenting. That is also forgetting again. What you have forgotten is forgotten. Now you have remembered, continue.

Never repent for those moments which have gone. They are gone. If you start repenting, you will be destroying more moments. And man's mind is such that it can forget. Now that I have said, "Don't repent!" it will repent, and then it will repent that it has repented, and the witnessing will be far away.

So just make it simple: when you forget, you forget. That chapter is closed. Now you are remembering - remember, witness. Slowly, slowly the gaps of forgetting will become smaller, fewer.

It needs a little time. You are not seasonal flowers which appear in a few days and disappear in a few days. You are flowers of eternity.

So there is no need to worry about it; if for a few moments you forget witnessing, it is perfectly okay.

Now, witness! Don't give a single thought for that which is gone. It is natural, don't feel guilty.

I never want anyone who belongs to me to feel guilty for anything. Whatever has happened, so be it! Now you are aware, witness. You will fall again, many times you will forget, many times you will wake up. This is the natural process. It is nothing personal; it has to happen to everybody.

So take it easy, and just go on growing, more and more witnessing and less and less forgetting. A time comes - has to come - when even if you want to forget, you cannot. Then you will be angry with me - really angry that "Now I want to forget and I cannot forget!" Now you are very happily trying to witness, but the day you will be a perfect witness, you will be angry at me, because there is some beauty in forgetting a few things. But you cannot forget... your witnessing has become so solid that you cannot take even a holiday. Holidays are not for saints.

Now Gurudayal Singh has declared the time for the saints.

Old Herbie the tramp knocks at the door of an inn named George and the Dragon.

A big woman opens the door and says, "What do you want?"

"Could you spare a poor man a bite to eat?" asks Herbie.

"No!" screams the woman, slamming the door.

A few minutes later, Herbie knocks again.

"Please, miss," asks the tramp, "could I have a little something to eat?"

"Get out, you good-for-nothing!" shouts the woman, "and don't you ever come back!"

After a few minutes, Herbie knocks on the door again.

The woman answers it.

"Pardon me," says Herbie, "but could I have a few words with George this time?"

You will get it in the night, exactly in the middle of the night!

Donald Dixteen is standing at a public urinal, when big black Rufus runs in. Rufus frantically unzips his pants, whips out his twelve inch whacker, and starts pissing buckets.

"Wow!" cries Rufus with relief. "I just made it!"

"Really?" says Donald, eyeing Rufus' massive machinery. "Will you make me one too?"

It is Halloween night in Washington and there is a Ghosts and Ghouls party at the White House.

Nancy Reagan, George Bush and all the White House staff are dressed up as monsters and witches, with hideous, ghostly masks. Everyone is waiting excitedly for Ronald Reagan himself to appear.

"I can't wait to see Ronnie's costume," says Nancy, who is dressed as Dracula's daughter, with a carving knife stuck through her neck.

"Me neither," replies Bush, who is disguised as Frankenstein for the evening. "Last year Ronald really scared the shit out of everybody when he was carried in in that coffin!"

Just then, the door opens and in walks Reagan. But to everyone's disappointment he is dressed as usual, in his dark-grey business suit. In his hand is a little black box.

"Oh, Ronald!" cries Nancy. "What a shame! We all thought you were really going to scare us this year."

"Scare you?" exclaims Reagan, looking round at the assembled ghosts. "I'm seventy-five years old, I'm senile, physically weak and mentally retarded - and with this little box I can destroy the whole world! Doesn't that scare you?"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards, with all your consciousness, with your total life energy, and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment.

Just like a spear, move towards the center. At the center you are just a witness, a pure silent space, witnessing the body, the mind - also witnessing the flowers showering on you, also witnessing that your individuality is dissolving, that you are becoming a part of the ocean.

At this moment, when you are at the center of your being, you are a buddha. And remember, the buddha is not made of bones and blood and marrow. The buddha is made only of witnessing.

Whenever you are only a witness, you are a buddha.

And this is so simple, because it is so natural. It is your very being.

This eternity... this universe is absolutely happy with you, is rejoicing with your silence.

To make the witnessing absolutely clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax, let go. Remember the last words of Ikkyu, "So be it...."

Utterly silent, serene, the Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of consciousness. Individuals are gone; there is not even a ripple on the lake.

You are blessed. At this moment, nowhere else in the world are ten thousand buddhas sitting in meditation, witnessing and creating a tremendously powerful energy-field.

We are trying to revive a golden past - not of the ordinary masses, but only of the buddhas. The world has only one possibility to survive, and that possibility is to spread buddhahood around the earth as fast as you can. Otherwise, within twelve years this immensely beautiful planet will be simply dead - nothing alive, not even a wild flower. And it is unfortunate because this is the only planet in the whole universe which has grown to the point where one can become a buddha, where one can become an immortal.

At this moment you are immortal.

At this moment death does not exist for you.

At this moment you have the very secret miraculous principle in your hands. Use it, be it - there is no name for it - sing it, dance it, but remain utterly silent about it. Saying anything about it is betraying the miraculous principle.

Spread the fire of buddhahood to all the nooks and corners of the earth. That is the only protection against nuclear weapons.

Now collect as much of the experience as you can before Nivedano calls you back, and persuade the buddha - go on persuading every day. Inch by inch he will come closer to the circumference.

Bring him with you.

Everybody is pregnant with a buddha. Just it takes a little time... because for centuries you have never thought about it. It is so new to think that you are a buddha, so rebellious to think that you are a buddha.

But as far as I am concerned, this is a simple fact, a simple truth.

Gather as much as you can.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but come with the same serenity, silence, grace, beauty, and sit for a few moments remembering the space you have been in, remembering the path, the golden path, that you have followed to reach your center.

Remember that at the center only witnessing is the truth. Everything dies, only witnessing remains.

Witnessing is our eternity, but live it in your actions, in your words, in your responses, in your silences, in your songs, in your dances.

We can create a world of great splendor, in spite of all the idiots who are determined to destroy it.

Okay, Maneesha?

first quote

second quote

Chapter 7. There is no final destination

John Nguyen 6:53 AM Add Comment

Rinzai Master of the Irrational

John Nguyen

Osho - Rinzai Master of the Irrational

Chapter 7. There is no final destination

Our beloved master,

Once, when Kingyu saw rinzai coming to his monastery, he sat in his room holding his stick crosswise. Rinzai struck the stick three times with his hand, then entered the monk's hall and sat down in the first seat.

Kingyu came in, saw Rinzai, and said, "In an encounter between host and guest, each should observe the customary formalities. Where are you from, and why are you so rude?"

"What are you talking about, old osho?" answered Rinzai.

As kingyu was about to open his mouth to reply, Rinzai struck him. Kingyu pretended to fall down. Rinzai hit him again. Kingyu said, "Today things were not to my advantage."

At a later time, Isan asked Kyozan, "In the case of these two venerable ones, was either the winner or loser?"

Kyozan said, "When one wins, one wins unconditionally. When one loses, one loses unconditionally."

Maneesha, the anecdote that you have brought can be understood only if you understand Zen's position about conditionality. In our lives everything is conditioned - conditioned by circumstances, conditioned by traditions. When I say everything is conditioned, I mean nothing is yours; everything has come to you from the outside. You are just a gathering point. On your own you are nothing, you are utterly empty.

Zen wants you to approach life unconditionally. That means without any prejudice, without any precondition, without any expectation. You can be total only if you are standing at your very center.

You love, but your love is conditional. You have friends but your friends are conditional. Just a small change in circumstances and the lovers become enemies and the friends are no more friends.

Machiavelli had a great insight when he wrote the book THE PRINCE. Although it is a book of diplomacy and has nothing to do with religion, there are insights which can help you to understand.

Machiavelli says, "A king should never tell to his friend what he cannot tell to the enemy, because no one knows: who is a friend today may be an enemy tomorrow, and who is an enemy today may be a friend tomorrow." He is laying down a diplomatic policy - but our whole life is diplomatic. We say things because the listener will appreciate them; then it has become conditional. To say the truth we don't have to consider at all whether it will be liked or not.

Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples unconditionality as a basic principle for finding the truth. If you put any conditions, those conditions will be the barriers, and what are all your religions except conditions?

When a follower of Krishna or a follower of Christ sits for meditation, his desire is to see Krishna - he is expecting existence to be according to his desire - and the Christian is asking for Christ. Because of their conditioned minds it is possible Hindus may see Krishna. The Christian will not see Krishna and the Hindu will not see Christ; they will see according to their conditions. They will see their own conditions in a kind of hallucination, and they will feel immensely joyous that they have realized God.

All your so-called saints are simply psychopaths. They don't understand that the basic foundation of finding the truth is to first clean your mind of all conditions. Approach existence absolutely empty.

Allow existence to say something. Don't ask.

That's where Zen comes to be the highest kind of religiousness. Just compare it to Jesus' saying to his followers, "Ask and it shall be given unto you" - but ask. What you can ask will be some desire, some longing, some passion, some greed. What can you ask? - and existence has no obligation to fulfill your asking.

Jesus goes on by saying, "Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you." It seems as if existence is closed; unless you knock, the doors will not be opened.

The truth is, existence has no doors, so where are you going to knock? And existence is every moment available; your doors are closed. Are you going to knock on your own doors? And who is going to open them?

Jesus says, "Seek and ye shall find." Beautiful words, and if you don't understand, then great poetry.

But if you understand, then they are not fundamental statements of a religious consciousness.

A religious consciousness will just change the whole thing into its opposite: seek and you will miss; don't seek and you have already found. Knock and you will be knocking in vain, because existence has no doors; it is in every dimension open. Ask and you will be living in an illusion. It will be given to you not by existence, but by your own imagination.

Don't put any condition on existence, don't put any pressure on existence. Just be available and rejoice, whatever comes to you. And existence comes in such abundance to the unconditional man that it is simply surprising. You had not asked and all the treasures, all the splendors, all the mysteries, are your own. You were not seeking, and the truth is already there.

You are the truth, the whole seeking is stupid. The more you seek, the farther you will go away from the truth. So stop seeking - and complete stoppage of desiring, seeking, asking, they are all the same things. Just remain at your center, available and open, unconditionally, and you have found that which cannot be said.

In this background you should understand this anecdote.

Obviously the first seat belonged to Kingyu; he was the master of the monastery. And this is strange behavior from a guest, that he knocks first the stick of the master three times, and then, without saying anything, enters the assembly hall and sits in the place of the master.

Kingyu came in, saw Rinzai, and said, "In an encounter between host and guest, each should observe the customary formalities.

That's where Rinzai differs, and any great master will differ. Kingyu had many more disciples than Rinzai, because the masses could understand him more clearly. He was following in a way the formalities of the masses. He expects Rinzai also...

He says to Rinzai, "In an encounter between host and guest" - he thinks he is the host, which formally he is, and Rinzai is a guest, which formally he is - "Each should observe the customary formalities."

There Rinzai does not agree, and no great master can agree. Traditional formalities? Then what is Zen all about? It is the revolution against the formal. It is all for the spontaneous, not for the customary.

"Where are you from, and why are you so rude?"

He is not rude. On the surface he will appear rude to anybody, but he is exactly expressing his position. When he struck three times on the stick, he told his host, "Try to understand that a greater master is here. You are only a formal teacher."

Those three strikings on the stick show that from now onwards, "formally, you are the host; but in existence I am the host, you are the guest." What is true on the surface is not necessarily true at the center.

Rinzai is saying, "A master has come to a disciple." He has made it clear by striking the stick of Kingyu that from now onwards, "While I'm here, I am the master." He is not being rude, he is simply being straightforward, and that is the quality of an authentic master.

Kingyu asked him, "Where are you from, and why are you so rude?" He could not understand the behavior, although the behavior is clear. The master has struck three times on Kingyu's stick, and he is sitting in his seat in the assembly hall.

Rinzai is saying, "You are a mere teacher, you are not yet a master. Whatever you know is mere knowledge, it is not your own existential experience."

"What are you talking about, old Osho?" answered rinzai. Osho is a very honorable word. Just in a single word he has said, "I have not been rude; I have just declared that I have come here."

"What are you talking about, old Osho? You are old and you are well respected by me, but that does not mean that you know the truth. You have strived hard your whole life, you disciplined yourself, you have been training yourself, but you have not yet got the point. I respect you, your old age, your lifelong effort.

"I am not rude, but truth has to be said even if it appears to be rude. What are you talking about, old Osho?"

By the word 'osho' he has made the position clear: "I am not rude, and I cannot be rude to anybody.

It is really out of compassion that I have struck on your stick, showing you that you don't deserve to have it. It should be in my hands. You did not understand, that's why I had to come to the assembly hall and sit in the position where you used to sit.

"Obviously you are feeling insulted, but all I am saying is that the moment a real master enters, then he is always the host, he is never the guest."

As Kingyu was about to open his mouth to reply, Rinzai struck him. He did not allow him to speak, because it is not a question of speaking, it is not a dialogue.

Try to understand: don't be bothered about words, but the actual situation. He was going to open his mouth means he was going to say something. Rinzai struck him to say, "Don't say anything, see!

Don't get lost into explanations, just see the situation, just look into my eyes!"

Kingyu pretended to fall down. Rinzai hit him again - because no pretensions are allowed in Zen. Either you fall down, not by any effort but as a happening... You don't pretend; it is not a drama.

Kingyu pretended to fall down. Rinzai hit him again. Now this hit is for his pretension - not only this pretending to fall, but his whole life is a pretension. He is not a master, yet he has been pretending to be the master.

Kingyu said, "Today things were not to my advantage."

That is not the response of one who has understood. He is still thinking in terms of advantage.

He has not understood the meaning of the behavior of Rinzai. He throws the responsibility, like everybody else in the world, on destiny, on kismet, on the lines of the hand, on the birth chart - all kinds of stupid excuses. "What can I do? Today things were not to my advantage."

The reality is that Rinzai did too much, gave him again and again opportunities to understand - which would have been one of the greatest days in his life - that a master has walked down from his hill to his monastery, uninvited, and tried to wake him up. But he is thinking of advantages....

At a later time, Isan asked Kyozan, "In the case of these two venerable ones, was either the winner or loser?"

This was asked century after century in Zen: "What happened that day? Who was the winner and who was the loser?"

At a later time, Isan asked Kyozan - both great masters - "In the case of these two venerable ones, was either the winner or loser?" Kyozan said, "When one wins, one wins unconditionally. When one loses, one loses unconditionally."

This is such a profound statement; it means the question of being a winner or loser is meaningless.

The point is, whatever happens it should be unconditional, it should be spontaneous. To be a failure spontaneously is as valuable as to be victorious. The real value is in spontaneity, in unconditionality.

If you fail, you accept your failure unconditionally, with joy. That's a gift of nature. One never knows, even a dark night may turn into a beautiful dawn. You should not start having opinions about who has won and who has lost. Both the participants in a Zen encounter should remain spontaneous whatever happens. The value is in the spontaneity; it has been taken away from victory completely.

Victory is part of a struggling world, a world with conditions, a world with desires. Zen pays no attention to victory or defeat; they are both meaningless. What is meaningful is spontaneity. It is possible that the spontaneous one may be defeated and the victorious may not be unconditional. In the eyes of Zen, the defeated one is at a higher state.

It happened once, a Zen samurai, a Zen warrior, had come home early from the front, and he found the servant making love to his wife.

Being a man of Zen, he said to the servant, "Don't be worried, just finish your job. I am waiting outside. You will have to take a sword in your hand and fight with me. It is perfectly okay whatever is happening. I am waiting outside."

This poor servant started trembling. He does not even know how to hold a sword, and his master is a famous warrior; he will chop off his head in a single blow.

So he ran from the back door to the Zen master who was also the master of the warrior. He said to the master, "I have got into trouble. It is all my fault, but it has happened."

The master listened to his story and he said, "There is no need to be worried. I will teach you how to hold the sword, and I will also tell you that it does not matter that your master is a great warrior.

All that matters is spontaneity. And in spontaneity you will be the better, because he seems to be confident: there is no question of this servant surviving; it will be almost like a cat playing with a rat.

"So don't be worried. Be total, and hit him hard, because this is your only chance of living, survival.

So don't be half-hearted, don't be conditional, thinking that perhaps he may forgive you. He will never forgive you. You will have to fight with him. You have provoked and challenged him. But there is no problem: as far as I can see, you will end up the winner."

The servant could not believe it, and the master said, "You should understand that I am his master also, and I know that he will behave according to his training. Knowing perfectly well that he is going to win, he cannot be unconditional - and you have no other alternative than to be unconditional.

Just be total. You don't know where to hit, how to hit, so hit anywhere. Just go crazy!"

The servant said, "If you say so, I will do it. In fact there is no chance of my survival, so why not do it totally!"

Seeing that the time had come, he learned how to hold the sword, and he came back and challenged his master, "Now come on!"

The master could not believe it. He was thinking the servant would fall at his feet and cry and weep and say, "Just forgive me!"

But instead of that the servant roared like a lion, and he has got a sword from the Zen master. He recognized the sword, and he said, "From where did you get it?"

The servant said, "From your master. Now come, let it be decided once and for all. Either I will survive or you will survive, but both cannot."

The master felt a little tremble in his heart, but still he thought, "How can he manage? It is years' training.... I have been fighting for years in wars, and this poor servant..." But he had to take out his sword.

The servant went really crazy. Not knowing where to hit, he was hitting here and there and just...

The samurai was at a loss, because he could fight with any warrior who knew how to fight - but this man knows nothing and he is doing all kinds of things. The servant pushed him to the wall, and the master had to ask him, "Please forgive me. You will kill me. You don't know how to fight - what are you doing?"

The servant said, "It is not a question of doing. It is my last moment; I will do everything with totality."

The servant became the winner, and the warrior also went to the master and said, "What miracle have you done? Within five minutes he became such a great warrior, and he was making such blows, so stupid that he could have killed me. He knows nothing but he could have killed me. He pushed me to the wall of my house, his sword on my chest. I had to ask to be forgiven and tell him that whatever he is doing it is perfectly okay and to continue."

The master said, "You have to learn a lesson, that it is finally the totality, the unconditional absoluteness... whether it brings defeat or victory does not matter. What matters is that the man was total, and the total man never is defeated. His totality is his victory."

That's what Kyozan is saying: "When one wins, one wins unconditionally." He does not take any credit that "I am the victor"; it is always the unconditional consciousness that is the victor.

"When one loses, one loses unconditionally." There is no question of any defeatism; there is no question of feeling a failure. He gave his total effort. But if nature wants that the other should win, it is perfectly okay. "I have not left anything, I did my best and was total, and I was absolutely spontaneous. More than that I cannot do."

So when two warriors fight in Japan - and it happens often, even today - most probably nobody wins and nobody is defeated, because both are total. Their efforts are so spontaneous that finally they end up without winning or being defeated. Very rarely is a person defeated, and whoever is defeated, it is just circumstantial. The victor does not declare himself and his egoism; on the contrary, he embraces the defeated and he appreciates the way the defeated fought. It was spontaneous and total, "and it is just by chance that I am the winner and you are not. It is just by chance. But as far as your spontaneity and totality are concerned, you are absolutely equal to me."

This is a very different approach. Victory or defeat are no more the values. A great shift in values takes place: spontaneity, absoluteness, putting all that you have at the stake, that is valuable.

Whether victory happens or defeat happens, that is not material.

One German professor, Herrigel, was one of the first Western disciples of a Zen master in Japan.

He was learning archery. He was already a great archer in Germany, because there values are different. He was a great archer because he was always right one hundred percent, his arrow reaching to the exact middle of the target, the bull's-eye. In Germany your success will be counted by the percentage - a hundred percent, ninety percent, eighty percent. That is the way it is counted all around the world, except in Japan.

In Japan, when Herrigel had learned archery for years in Germany and had become the champion archer of Germany, he heard about a different valuation. He went to Japan and remained there for three years with a master. He could not understand why the master was always saying, "You missed" - and his arrow was always reaching exactly to the bull's- eye.

The master said, "That is not the point, whether your arrow reaches the bull's-eye or not. The point is that you should be spontaneous. Forget about the target. Remember that you should be spontaneous, you should not make an effort."

Three years passed, but the German professor, Herrigel, could not understand what this man was talking about. Every day he would try, and the master would say, "No!"

Finally he decided to go back: "This is useless, wasting time!" He could not understand what this spontaneity is. He could not understand how you can be spontaneous when you are an archer. You have to take the bow in your hand, you have to aim, you have to be exact so that your arrow reaches to the point - how can you be without effort? Some effort is absolutely needed. And you will agree that he was not wrong.

But Zen will not agree. The Zen master continued working, without getting bored or fed up that three years have passed and this man cannot relax.

Herrigel told him after three years, "Tomorrow I have to leave. I'm sorry that I could not understand. I still carry the idea that I am one hundred percent right, so how can you say that I don't know archery at all?"

So the next day, early in the morning, he went to see the master for the last time. The master was teaching somebody else, so he sat there on the bench and just looked. For the first time he was not concerned; he was going, he had dropped the idea of learning archery through Zen, so he was totally relaxed and was watching, just watching how the master took the bow in his hand and how he totally relaxed as if not concerned at all whether the arrow reaches to the target or not, with no tension and with no desire, being just playful and relaxed.

He had been seeing the master for three years, but because he was full of desire he could not see that his archery was totally different: the value is not in the target, the value is in your gesture, in you.

Are you relaxed? Are you total? Is your mind absolutely silent? A different orientation... because the archery is not important, the meditation is important. And a man of meditation, although he does not care about the target, simply reaches the target, with no mind, in utter clarity, in silence, relaxed.

Zen has brought a different valuation to everything. In China they have a saying that when a musician becomes perfect, he throws away his instruments; when an archer becomes perfect, he throws away his bows and arrows. Strange, because what is the point of becoming a perfect archer and now you are throwing away your bows and arrows?

One man declared to the emperor of China, "Now you have to announce it and recognize me as the greatest archer in China. I am ready for any challenge." And he was absolutely perfect, just like Professor Herrigel - one hundred percent successful.

But the king said, "Have you heard about an old archer who lives deep in the mountains?"

He said, "I have heard about him, but I am ready to contest."

The king laughed. He said, "You should go and meet that old man. If he recognizes you, I will recognize you, because I don't know archery.... But he is a great archer, perhaps the greatest, so you should go. Bring his recognition, and my recognition is available. But without asking him I cannot do it. It is not a question of a challenge."

So the man had to travel to the high mountains, where he found a very old man whose back was bent, who could not stand straight. He asked, "Are you the archer?"

The man said, "I used to be. But perhaps half a century has passed, and when I became a perfect archer, according to my master, I had to throw away my bows and arrows. You think you are a perfect master; have you come for recognition?" The king had sent information to him that he was sending somebody.

The man said, "Yes."

The old man said, "Then why are you carrying the bow and the arrows?"

The man said, "Strange... That's what my mastery is."

The old man laughed. He brought him out of his small cottage to a mountain cliff. The old man was so old, maybe one hundred and forty years old, and the cliff went so deep underneath, thousands of feet into the valley. If you just missed a single step or trembled or hesitated, you were gone. The old man walked to the very edge of the cliff, half his feet hanging off the cliff, half his feet on the cliff.

The young man could not believe his eyes. The old man said, "Now you also come. There is enough space here for one more!" The young man tried just two steps and sat down, trembling, seeing the situation.

The old man laughed and he said, "What kind of archer are you? How many birds can you kill with a single arrow?"

The young man said, "Of course one bird."

The old man said, "You have to learn under a Zen master. It is a sheer wastage of one arrow, just one bird. My master never allowed anybody the certificate unless he was able with one arrow to bring down the whole flock."

The young man said, "How many can you bring down?"

He said, "You say the number."

Just then a flock of birds flew over. The old man just looked, and seven birds fell down.

The young man said, "My God!"

The old man said, "When you can look with totality, your very eyes become arrows. But you are a novice; you could not come to the edge of the cliff. If you are trembling inside, then your archery cannot be perfect. You may manage to hit the targets, but that is not the point. The point is that you have an untrembling total presence. Then your total presence becomes as sharp as any arrow.

"That's why the ancient proverb: When the musician becomes perfect, he throws away the musical instruments. Now his very voice, his very being is musical; now the very air around him has a music.

And when the archer becomes perfect, his untrembling totality becomes almost a death ray, if he looks towards a flock of birds, or a flock of animals."

The master said, "You go back and learn from this point. The target is not the target; you are the target. Become total - and if I am alive, I will visit you after five years to see whether I can give you the recognition. Or if I am gone, my son will come after five years. He is as great an adept as I am, and you will be able to recognize him, because whatever I can do with my eyes, he can also do."

After five years the old man came. These five years the archer tried his best to be total, and he succeeded. The old man asked, "Where are your bows and arrows?"

He said, "It must be two years by now, but it seems like centuries have passed and I have not seen the arrows and the bow. Now I can do what you were able to do."

The old man did not ask for a test, he simply gave the recognition. He said, "I can see in your eyes the unwavering totality. I can see in your body the spontaneous relaxedness. You can go to the king and tell him that the old man gives the recognition, and just for your recognition I have come down from the hills."

Zen brings a new valuation into everything. It is not a life-renouncing religion, it is a life-transforming religion. It transforms everything, it negates nothing. But one thing has to be remembered:

unconditionality, totality, spontaneity - strange values, because no religion talks about them, and they are the authentic values that will give you the alchemy to change your being.

All religions talk about formalities, etiquette, manners. They are all concerned with your polished personality. They make you pretenders, they make you actors, but they don't change your center.

This a beautiful anecdote, and Kyozan is saying, "When one wins, one wins unconditionally." There was no desire to win, one was simply playful, enjoying the very art and enjoying the meditativeness and spontaneity. Now whatever happens, that is not the concern.

Of course when two persons will be fighting, one will be defeated, one will be victorious. What does it matter who is victorious and who is defeated? All that matters is whether both are at the same degree of concentration, at the same degree of unconditionality. Whoever is higher in unconditionality - he may be the defeated one, but according to Zen he is at a higher point of consciousness, and that is real victory. The formal victory is another thing.

Ikkyu wrote:

Myself of long ago,

In nature

Non-existent:

No final destination,

Nothing of any value.

He is giving you the very manifesto of Zen. Myself of long ago, in nature... I have disappeared in nature, I don't know when, I have not kept a diary and I don't remember that I was anything else at any time.

Myself of long ago, in nature non-existent: I don't find myself, I find only nature. No final destination... I am going nowhere. There is no final destination, because final destination will mean death.

Life is a continuity always and always. There is no final destination it is going towards. Just the pilgrimage, just the journey in itself is life, not reaching to some point, no goal - just dancing and being in pilgrimage, moving joyously, without bothering about any destination.

What will you do by getting to a destination? Nobody has asked this, because everybody is trying to have some destination in life. But the implications...

If you really reach the destination of life, then what? Then you will look very embarrassed. Nowhere to go... you have reached to the final destination - and in the journey you have lost everything. You had to lose everything. So standing naked at the final destination, you will look all around like an idiot: what was the point? You were hurrying so hard, and you were worrying so hard, and this is the outcome.

I have told you about one of Rabindranath's stories. It is a song. The story says in song, "I have been searching for God for centuries. Sometimes he was around the moon, but by the time I reached there he had moved to some other star. I saw him at another star, but by the time I reached there he had moved again. This went on and on, but there was great joy in that he is there, and one day I am going to find him. How long can he hide? How long can he escape?

"And it happened that one day I reached a house where there was a board saying that this was the house of God. I had a great sense of relief that my destiny was fulfilled. I went up the steps and I was just going to knock on the door when I became aware that, 'Just wait, have a second thought!

What are you going to do if God comes and opens the door? What will you do next?'"

Your whole life has been a journey, a pilgrimage, finding, searching. You are trained as a runner since millions of years, and suddenly you meet God and you don't have anything to say. What will you say?

Have you ever thought that if you meet God by chance, neither will you have anything to say, nor will he have anything to say? You unnecessarily burned yourself out, finished. Final destination means ultimate death.

Ikkyu is right when he says, "No final destination, nothing of any value" - everything is just to enjoy and dance and sing. But don't ask about value; don't ask what is virtue and what is good. Rejoice in everything, and go on in different pilgrimages knowing perfectly well that life is not going to end anywhere, the journey will continue, the caravan will continue. There is no place where the road ends.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Our beloved master,

When there is nothing to perceive - no input from the body or the mind and so one has nothing by which to define oneself - is what is left witnessing? There does not even seem to be a witness, but just the awareness that there is no one there.

That's exactly right. There is no witness, there is only witnessing. There is only consciousness, but no personality to it, no form. There is only awareness, like a flame arising from nowhere and disappearing into nowhere, and just in the middle you see the flame.

Have you watched a candle, where the flame goes? Gautam Buddha himself used as the word for the ultimate experience, blowing out the candle. Nirvana means blowing out the candle. Nothing is, just a pure awareness, not even confined into your individuality, but just a floating cloud, no firm shape - a tremendous isness, a great joy.

But it is not your joy; you are absent. Then arises in your absence the joy, the blissfulness. The moment you are not, then the witnessing is pure. And this witnessing brings the greatest benediction possible. This witnessing is the buddha.

We have been serious. Now Sardar Gurudayal Singh, a man of great patience... Even if I go on the whole night talking seriously, he will still wait that his time will come. A great trust. That's why he can laugh before the joke is told: it shows a great trust that whatever happens, something good is going to happen.

"My wife is like Venus De Milo," says Paddy into his beer one night.

"Really?" says Seamus, in surprise. "You mean she has a shapely body and stands around naked?"

"No," replies Paddy. "She's an old relic and not all there! Many parts are missing."

"Well, in that case," says Seamus, "my wife is like Mona Lisa."

"Why is that?" asks Paddy. "Is it because she is Italian and has a mysterious, seductive smile?"

"No," replies Seamus. "It's because she is as flat as a canvas and belongs in a museum!"

Little Ernie gets the idea that it might be fun to become a politician when he grows up. So his dad takes him to Washington to watch the inauguration of the new American president, Adolf Ramsbottom.

Little Ernie notices Father Fungus, the bishop of New York, standing on the podium next to the new president.

"Dad," whispers Ernie, "is the priest there to pray for the president?"

"No, son," replies his dad. "The truth is that the priest looks at the president - and then prays for the rest of the world."

Kowalski goes into a crowded bar for a few drinks after work. A couple of hours later, he feels the need to take a shit, so he asks the bartender for directions to the toilet.

"It's upstairs," replies the barman, "down the hall, turn left, and second door on the right."

Kowalski, who is pretty well plastered by now, blinks at the bartender, and sets off in search of the toilet.

He manages to get up the stairs all right, but gets confused from there onwards. Finally, completely lost and desperate to relieve himself, he pulls up a loose board from the floor and makes his deposit.

But what Kowalski does not know is that this floorboard is right in the middle of the ceiling of the bar below.

When he gets back downstairs, he finds that the bar is completely deserted. The place smells awful.

Kowalski goes over to the bartender, sits down at the bar and orders another drink.

"Where did everybody go?" asks Kowalski, drunkenly.

"My God!" replies the bartender. "Where were you when the shit hit the fan?"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes and feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards with your totality and with an urgency as if this is your last moment. Deeper and deeper, like a spear, move towards the center. It is not far away, and the moment you reach the center you are just a witness, witness of the body, witness of the mind and witness of many new things - a silence, a peace, a deep serenity, a cool breeze fragrant with thousands of roses.

At the center you belong to the eternity. At the center you are the buddha.

The buddha is never born and never dies; it is your very nature.

Recognize your very nature as carefully as possible, because slowly, slowly we have to bring the buddha to our ordinary life - in our actions, in our gestures, in our responses.

To bring the buddha from the hidden center to the circumference of life is the whole art of religion.

Everything else is non-essential, commentary.

To make it more clear, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax and watch. The body is lying down, but you are not the body; the mind is there, but you are not the mind.

You are just a pure witness.

You are not a person either.

Suddenly, the Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of silent consciousness. Individuals are gone, like dewdrops in the ocean. A tremendously precious moment...

Persuade the buddha, collect all the flowers that are showering on you the peace, the silence, the blissfulness. You have to bring them out in your actions, gestures, words, silences.

My effort is to bring out as many buddhas around the world, fully recognizing themselves... because that is the only protection against the stupid politicians and the warmongers. They are determined to destroy this beautiful planet.

Only a buddha-consciousness spreading like wildfire and taking over the hearts of millions of men can protect this small, beautiful planet.

In the whole universe - so vast, unbounded, infinite - this small planet only is alive, and this small planet only is conscious, and this small planet has been able to reach to the highest consciousness in the buddhas.

Before Nivedano calls you back, remember to gather as much experience of being on the center and bring it with you.

Persuade the buddha every day... Sooner or later the spring will come, and you will, without any doubt, recognize your buddhahood. And your recognition is not only of your buddhahood; your recognition is that the whole life is capable of being at the highest peak of consciousness.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but bring the buddha with you.

Show the buddha in every action - even getting up, sitting down. Show the beauty and the grace and the music.

Life has to become a poetry, a painting, a music, a dance.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

first quote

second quote

Chapter 6. All you can do is drop your mind

John Nguyen 6:28 AM Add Comment

Rinzai Master of the Irrational

John Nguyen

Osho - Rinzai Master of the Irrational

Chapter 6. All you can do is drop your mind

Our beloved master,

When Rinzai once visited Horin, Horin said: "Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves."

Rinzai commented: "If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?"

Horin then said: "Seeing there is wind, waves arise; playing with the water, the rough sail flaps."

Rinzai said: "The frog in the moon shines brightly alone, and all rivers and hills are at peace. The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky."

Horin said: "Though you may spread your three inches of tongue, and illuminate the celestial quietness, just try and say a single word to fit the occasion!"

Rinzai responded: "When you meet a master swordsman, show him your sword. When you meet a man who is not a poet, do not show him your poem."

Maneesha, the way of Zen requires certain conditions to be fulfilled. They are not the conditions that other religions require; they are the conditions of receptivity, of awareness, of listening, of an understanding of the wordless, a deep penetration into silence. No other religion asks you these things. They want you to be virtuous, to be moral, not to indulge in adultery. Their requirements are very superficial.

Zen requires real qualities of being. Only then the master can impart his understanding of the ultimate. In other words, Zen is not a theology, but a being-to-being communion. The disciple has to rise to the same height as the master, otherwise he will miss whatever is being said to him. These qualities will bring him very close to the height of the master.

A master certainly knows at what height you are and he speaks accordingly. He never wastes a single word or a single moment.

Maneesha has brought this small anecdote, which will explain to you what Rinzai, who was the founder of Zen in Japan, is about.

When Rinzai once visited Horin, Horin said: "Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves."

Rinzai commented: "If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?"

All deception is taking the shadow for the real. But strangely enough - perhaps you have never observed it - a shadow itself cannot cast a shadow. Hence the ancient law that if you see a man without a shadow, remember he is a ghost, because a real man will have a shadow. Only a man who appears as a man but is transparent - you can pass your hand through him and you will not touch anything - will not make any shadow.

The reflection of the moon in the lake is a shadow itself. How can it cast a shadow? That is impossible. But what Horin wanted to say is not anything unnecessary or non-essential.

He said, "Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves."

What do they deceive themselves about? What is their deception? What is their illusion? Their illusion is to take the reflection as the real moon.

But Rinzai commented:

"If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?"

The fish can certainly be deceived, because even men are deceived by shadows. Rinzai's question is clear and from a height of consciousness. Everybody in the world is deceived by shadows. What are all your imaginations? What are all your dreams?

Have you ever considered the fact that while dreaming you never think that this is unreal? While awake you may think perhaps that all you are saying is unreal, only a dream; but in a dream you can never think that it is a dream, for the simple reason that if you are so much aware as to experience the dream as a dream, the dream will stop. Dreaming can continue only in a very unconscious, unaware state.

The real question is not about the fish. The fish is only a symbol. The real question is about the man.

"If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?"

There is only one way for the fish to be deceived, and that is to take the reflection as the real moon.

Horin missed the point. He started explaining why the fish gets caught into a deception. That was not what Rinzai wanted him to do. For him the fish was not the point at all, neither was the reflection of the moon. His concern was this, that what to say about a fish, even men are deceived by shadows - and not only in dreams, but in actual life when they are awake. Every day you continue to get deceived, but you are not aware, hence it does not hurt you and your dignity.

You see a woman as very beautiful - and she is certainly beautiful, but where does that beauty go after the honeymoon? Then you want to kill the same woman for whom you were ready to die one day.

You can appreciate other women's beauty, but I have never heard of any husband appreciating his own wife's beauty. Perhaps what he saw was not the real woman as she is; he saw the woman as he wanted to see her.

It was a dream projection, and a dream projection cannot be prolonged for long. Sooner or later the dream projection drops away, and suddenly you see the real person. Nothing has changed: the woman is the same, the man is the same, but neither the woman thinks you are the same man she fell in love with, nor do you think she is the same woman you had fallen in love with.

What happened? Just within a week... and if you are intelligent enough, then just over the weekend.

It depends on intelligence. The idiots can live out their whole lives. The more intelligent a person is, the sooner he will see his projections, imaginations dropping, the clouds disappearing, and he will see the pure sky without any clouds - and it is going to change his opinion.

Rinzai is saying that we are all living in shadow. You think, you project, you imagine, you dream.

The greatest lovers in the world were those who never met; their love is eternal. People sing songs of Siri and Farhad, of Laila and Majnu, of Soni and Mahival, and the only reason why their love is remembered is that they were never allowed by their parents and the society to be together.

If Laila and Majnu had got married, you would never have heard their names. Have you ever heard any story, any poetry concerning a married couple? I at least have searched enough, and I have not found it. It seems to be intrinsically impossible, because as they come close, their projections start falling. If they are kept away, forced to be apart, then their dreams become even more beautiful.

Their imagination takes wings.

And not only in this matter but in other matters also, you live in shadows, in your hopes. What have you got in your hopes? Just empty imagination that tomorrow something will happen that has not happened up to now, and you will feel fulfilled. It never happens. What happens tomorrow is death, and death creates fear for a simple reason you may not be aware of.

The fear of death is that it takes the future out of your hands. You have been living in the future in your imagination, and death comes and puts a full stop. No more tomorrow. The future is simply your idea of how things should be. The existence has no obligation to you to fulfill your desires and your hopes. People even give promises, people say to each other, "I will love you my whole life," not knowing at all that the whole life is a long thing.

One man was saying to his girlfriend, "I will love you my whole life."

Then for a moment he became silent, and the woman said, "Why have you become silent suddenly?"

He said, "Just tell me one thing. In your old age, will you start looking like your mother? - because then I cannot give that promise. Suddenly I thought, 'What am I saying? In the old age this woman is going to look like the mother-in-law!'" And mother-in-laws... it is just strange that people don't shoot them.

I have heard, a hunter was going into the forest for hunting. His wife insisted on going and she also insisted on taking his mother-in-law. Not to create any trouble he said, "Okay, there is no harm in it.

You can sit in the top of a tree and you can see."

The mother-in-law was not too old to climb a tree, so she was sitting in a small tree when a lion came near. The wife saw it from her tall tree and shouted to her husband, "Just see, one lion is very close to my mother."

The husband said, "It is not my problem, it is the lion's problem. Now he has got into trouble. If he wants to get out, he will get out. You just keep quiet."

People expect something, and it is never fulfilled. There is always frustration all around. People are living in despair, and the reason is that what they expected... existence has no desire, no reason to go according to their expectations. If you want to be happy, go along with existence and its ends wherever it takes you.

That's what I mean by let-go: you simply drop your projections, your imaginations, and let the existence take hold of your whole life. Then there is no despair, because there is no possibility of being frustrated. There is no anguish and no anxiety; you are relaxed with existence. Whatever happens, that is good.

The whole existence is wiser than you, so whatever happens - Buddha says suchness - just whatever happens, remember, such is the nature of existence. Don't stand aloof and against existence; be part, and feel a certain oneness.

That oneness can be called suchness, or isness, or thisness, but the meaning is that whatever happens is good. You have to find out the beauty of it and the joy of it. Only such a man can be blissful; otherwise there is always the feeling of being deceived.

Every man - out of a thousand, perhaps one man dies without the idea that he has been deceived by life. Almost everybody dies with the idea, "What was it? Seventy years I struggled; what is the game?" All your expectations are shattered, all your dreams are broken, all your promises remain unfulfilled. You are dying a bankrupt.

Almost everybody dies a bankrupt as far as his expectations are concerned. Only a man of let-go is not deceived by anything. He takes everything that comes in the way happily and joyously, and if things change, he allows the change without any hindrance, without creating any barriers to prevent the change. Such a man knows no deceptions. He knows life has never deceived him, but has always fulfilled those longings which he was not even aware of.

Horin then said:

"Seeing there is wind, waves arise; playing with the water, the rough sail flaps."

He did not understand that Rinzai was not talking about the fish, and he is trying to explain his own statement without listening to what Rinzai has raised as a question.

Rinzai said: "The frog in the moon shines brightly alone, and all rivers and hills are at peace. The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky."

Everything is as it should be. So peaceful are the hills in the full moon night... rivers are at peace, dancing in the full moon night. Because of their dance the full moon's reflection becomes a silver spread over all. Everything is silent and peaceful, there is no frustration in the hills, there is no frustration in the rivers. Even the frog in the moon shines brightly alone.

If you look at nature, just taking man and his mind away, everything is bliss, everything is buddha. It is only man's mind that creates trouble, because it cannot allow a let-go.

The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky.

And there is great joy that autumn is coming. The moon is full of blissfulness and all that shines in the moonlight, except man...

Man can also be as happy as the hills and as peaceful as the rivers if he looks at the moon and the surroundings without any mind. With no thought, he will also become part of the whole scene.

But man remains always concerned with his own stupid ideas. When the whole existence is rejoicing, it is only man who is worried. Have you ever seen a tree worried? No animal is ever worried. Even in dying, it dies peacefully. Such is the way of existence, that anything that is born is going to die.

But man's mind intrudes, always creates problems, because it expects things to be different than they are. He is not ready to accept the suchness of existence; he wants it according to him. This, according to him, is the whole misery. Everybody is trying that everything should be according to him. One may say it, one may not say it, but even without saying it, your mind is weaving thoughts about how things should be brought according to YOUR idea - and this is impossible.

You cannot change existence.

All that you can do is drop your mind.

Horin said: "Though you may spread your three inches of tongue, and illuminate the celestial quietness, just try and say a single word to fit the occasion!"

Rinzai responded - and his response is of fundamental importance: "When you meet a master swordsman, show him your sword. When you meet a man who is not a poet, do not show him your poem."

Each according to his worth, each according to his receptivity. You are not yet able to receive one word and understand it. I cannot recite a poem to you, because you will not understand it; you will certainly misunderstand.

I have heard, a thief was brought into the court, and the judge said, "Why have you entered this man's house?"

The poor thief said, "I have entered to steal something. But the man was so strange: he caught hold of me, and when I tried hard to escape he said, 'Don't be worried, just sit down and listen. I have written a new poem.' I thought it was better to listen silently, but the poem went on and on and on.

And he was holding me by the hand, so this way the whole night he tortured me. I didn't understand a single word of what he was saying, and I could not escape either.

"By the morning the police came, and now I am standing here before you with only one hope: that you will not give me the punishment to listen to this poet again. I am ready even to go to the gallows.

I had no idea that this house belongs to a poet, otherwise I would not have entered."

Poets are like that. It is very difficult for them to find audiences. They go on searching around to see if they can find somebody, and everybody goes on running away saying, "I have to do some special work. Right now I am not available." Who wants to waste time?

"Unless you are a poet," Rinzai is saying, "don't say anything to a person who is not worthy of it, because that is insulting him, that is degrading him, that is taking his dignity, that is bringing up his unworthiness. So don't ask me for a single word; you are not yet capable of receiving it. You have not understood a single thing, and you went on explaining. You are not a fish and you don't know what goes on in the mind of the fish.

"Talk about man and talk about his deceptions, and find out the reason why he gets deceived. It is his own resistance to existence, and an effort to give a mold to the whole life - which is not possible.

He is trying the impossible and goes on failing."

This failure is not just his mistake. It is not that he has not been doing rightly; whatever he does he will be a failure. Nobody can be wiser than the cosmic existence. So the wise people allow themselves to go along with the existential river, not even asking, "Where are we going?"

Existence is going nowhere. It is simply here, just playing with thousands of forms, thousands of situations, creating more and more consciousness, more and more happiness, more and more love.

If it is not happening to you, it simply means you are keeping your doors closed.

Just open your heart and relax with existence and suddenly you will see, the frog in the moon shines brightly alone. No company is needed, no richness is needed - just a poor frog. No political position is needed - and all rivers and hills are at peace. They don't have anything, but they have peace, which you cannot purchase.

The long breath of the wind is the voice of autumn in earth and sky. Just be with existence wherever it is going and you will be unworried. Your tensions will disappear. You will be as happy as a child, you will be as beautiful as a flower.

Ikkyu wrote:

When you break up a cherry tree

And look,

There are no flowers at all;

The flowers are brought by the

Spring wind.

Even though you soar boundlessly

Even beyond the clouds,

Just don't rely on

The teachings of gautama.

Two things Ikkyu is saying: one, you cannot bring the flowers, which will come in their own time. You have to wait, you have to be patient. You cannot ask, "Why are the cherry flowers not coming?" The tree is there, you are watering the tree... You can even, Ikkyu says, break up a cherry tree and look inside the tree to find where the flowers are hidden. There are no flowers at all.

The flowers are brought by the spring wind. Let the spring come, let the right moment and the climate and the right wind reach the cherry tree. It will blossom suddenly, it will explode into immense beauty.

The cherry tree is waiting; it is not in a hurry, it is not running somewhere to catch up with spring. It is simply waiting silently, joyously. Spring comes; even if it is a day or two late, what does it matter?

It has always been coming.

The second thing Ikkyu says: even though you soar boundlessly even beyond the clouds, just don't rely on the teachings of gautama. That can be said only by the Zen masters about their own originator: "Don't rely on Gautama the Buddha's teachings" - because his teachings were in a different context. He was talking to a different kind of people. You may not be that kind of person at all, and the times have changed; those teachings may be no more relevant.

Only rely on your own consciousness. Even Gautama's consciousness is not reliable. He is not saying that Gautama is wrong; he is saying that Gautama was dealing with situations fifteen hundred years before.

I have told you of an instance when just in a single day... In the morning a man asked Gautam Buddha, "Is there a God?"

And Gautama said, "No, there is no God."

In the afternoon another man asked, "What do you think about God?"

Gautama said, "Yes, God is."

You can understand the trouble Ananda, who was continuously with him, was in. He started having a migraine. What kind of man is this? In the morning he says, "There is no God," and in the afternoon he has forgotten completely, and he is saying, "There is God."

He waited for the time in the night when there would be nobody around, but before that a third person came in the evening, sat down and asked Gautama, "I have no conception either for or against God.

Just help me to understand."

And Gautam Buddha did not say anything to the man, but on the contrary simply closed his eyes, remained silent. Seeing this, the other man also closed his eyes and sat. He thought perhaps Buddha was going to say something in his silence and they both remained in silence for two hours.

The man felt so beautiful and so fresh and so young, so rejuvenated, that after two hours he opened his eyes and he was a changed man. He touched Gautam Buddha's feet, thanked him and told him, "I was not expecting that much. You have given me more than I had asked. You have given me a taste. I had come only to ask a question; you have taken me to the experience itself. I will remain grateful to you my whole life."

In the night Ananda said, "You should at least think of me. The whole day I have been in such a trouble. What kind of man are you? In the morning you say no, in the afternoon you say yes, in the evening you don't say anything, but just remain silent - and that fellow gets the answer and you have not said anything."

Buddha said, "The first man, to whom I said, 'There is no God,' was an atheist, and he had come to get a confirmation of his atheism, that if Gautam Buddha also is an atheist, then there is no problem.

Atheism is certainly the right approach. There is no God.

"The second man had also come for confirmation of his own prejudice. He was a theist and he wanted support. They were not seekers, they were only asking for consolation. They had already got the idea; they were simply asking me to support their ideas. They were satisfied with their ideas without ever moving into any new space.

"But the third man was really a seeker. He plainly said, 'I don't have any idea for or against.' For such a man only silence is the answer. And because he had no prejudice, seeing me closing my eyes and becoming silent, he immediately understood the hint. He closed his eyes and he went deep into silence. Although I had not said anything to him, he went away immensely richer than he had come.

"And Ananda," Buddha said, "you should not be disturbed, because none of these questions were yours. It is not your problem."

Ananda said, "It is not my problem, but I have ears and I am always close to you."

Buddha said, "You will have to learn that I don't have any fixed philosophy so that I can hand over immediately ready-made answers. I have to see the person, his capacity. I don't want to insult anybody. I don't want to give something which they cannot understand, which is going to be over their heads."

If this was the situation in Buddha's own time, Ikkyu is right: just don't rely on the teachings of gautama. Find out your own sources. Go deeper into your own being. You will find there the affirmation of Gautam Buddha.

But don't rely on the teachings. Just don't sit with the scriptures, reading them for years, studying them for years. That is not going to help. Gautam Buddha had not read those scriptures before he became enlightened, so it is absolutely certain that they cannot be the cause of anybody's enlightenment. Just do what he did; don't be too much concerned what he said. Whatever he said was meant for his contemporaries, for his time, for the people he was talking to.

Do what Buddha did. He became a no-mind, and becoming a no-mind, you will have to throw even Buddha and his scriptures out of your being. Only in this emptiness is there a possibility of the cherry blossoms of your being coming from the potential to the actual. You can bring the spring by bringing the no-mind.

As no-mind comes, thousands of miracles follow. But don't desire those miracles; if you start desiring them, you will never have the no-mind, because those desires will not allow the mind to be empty.

So remember, it is one of the most significant things for a seeker that he should not become too much concerned about the search. He should remain playful. "If there is a truth in existence, some day, somewhere I am going to encounter it."

But don't be serious, just be playful. In playfulness you are relaxed, and in relaxation, utter relaxation, you will find Gautam Buddha himself, so why bother about his teachings? When you can find Gautam Buddha himself, then why bother about dead scriptures? Ikkyu is right, absolutely right.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked a question:

Our beloved master,

Is the witness a presence or simply an absence - the absence of identification with body and mind?

Maneesha, it is a difficult question - difficult only because your mind never accepts contradictions, and existence absolutely is in favor of contradictions. In fact, existence is made of contradictions.

So these two words, presence and absence, are both right.

In the witness there is absence, certainly, of your personality, of your mind, of your thoughts, feelings - anything that you are carrying within your mind is absent. If you look from this side, it appears that no-mind is empty mind.

But the moment all these things are emptied out, the potential of your being starts growing - a new presence which was hindered from growing by all the furniture that you have been carrying in the mind. Now that all that furniture and all those stones are thrown and the soil is ready, there comes a new presence.

So both are there as far as your mind is concerned. Meditation is an effort of creating absence. But when the mind is really absent, in that silence, in that unlimited space, your potential starts glowing, radiating, flowering. Suddenly you are full of cherry blossoms, a new presence, a new fragrance.

So absence and presence are both together in your meditation. On the one hand you are emptying, on the other hand the empty space is being filled with your potential. Before there was no space for it to blossom.

Meditation is simply creating a space for your potential to come to flower. A man of meditation has such a presence that you can feel it.

In my dining room I have got a small statue of Buddha. It is only a statue, but when Jayesh came for the first time and saw it, he said, "This statue has a great presence." I have loved that statue and carried it from India to America, from America to India, because it has a presence. It is only a statue, but a statue of a meditating buddha. Something of meditation in that very posture radiates a very alive aura.

I have brought another statue for your Buddha Auditorium, to be placed just at the gate, so you can see that even a statue, because it is in a meditative posture, radiates something. Just sitting by the side of the statue you will find something flowing from the statue towards you. It is not a worship, it is just being silently close and watching the posture. Because the posture is of meditation, something of meditativeness radiates even from the stone.

So when you are meditating, you are doing both the things: on one hand you are throwing away all that is garbage, and on the other hand you are helping roses to blossom. You will have an absence and you will have a great presence, together: absence of all that was ugly in you, and presence of all that is beautiful.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. I hope he is still in his rainbow-colored turban. That turban has a special presence!

It is the farewell party at the White House for Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Everybody gets pretty drunk and Nancy Reagan offers to give George Bush, the president-elect, a private tour of the presidential bedroom.

When they get back to the party, George Bush looks for Ronald Reagan and finds him slumped on a couch, fast asleep.

"Hey, Ronald," says Bush, shaking Reagan roughly. "Do you have any pictures of Nancy in the nude?"

"What?" mumbles Reagan, in shock. "You idiot! Of course I don't!"

"Okay," says Bush, holding up his camera. "Wanna buy some?"

Doris and Jeff Dull have been married for six years and have three kids. But Jeff has a strange habit - he will only make love with the lights off.

Doris puts up with this for as long as she can, but one night her curiosity gets the better of her. She and Jeff are making love in the usual way when suddenly she snaps the light on, and to her horror, she sees that Jeff is making love to her using a cucumber.

"You impotent wimp!" shouts Doris. "So this is why you never wanted the lights on! It's disgusting - explain yourself!"

"Okay, dear," says Jeff, calmly. "I can explain the cucumber, if you can explain our three kids!"

Adolf Hitler pushes the doorbell at the Pearly Gates of Heaven and demands to be admitted. He kicks up such a fuss that Saint Peter calls Jesus to come and deal with the situation.

"I want to come in," cries the Fuhrer, "and I will reward you highly if you let me stay."

"What do you mean?" asks Jesus. "You cannot possibly come in. Just look at what you did on earth!"

"Look," says Hitler, taking Jesus to one side, "if you let me in, I will personally present you with Germany's highest award for bravery, the Iron Cross."

"Really?" says Jesus. "That's a very tempting offer. Just let me make one phone call."

So Jesus calls up God the Father. "Dad," says Jesus, "I've got Adolf Hitler here at the Pearly Gates, and he wants to come in. What do you think?"

"Jesus Christ!" shouts God. "Are you kidding? The guy is a psychopath!"

"I know, Dad," says Jesus, "but you see, he has made me this terrific offer. He wants to give me the Iron Cross!"

"The Iron Cross?" shouts God, in amazement. "You idiot! Look what happened when you got that wooden one!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards with your total life energy, with your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this is going to be the last moment of your life.

Only with urgency can you reach to the center of your being, and at the center of your being you are the buddha. To realize this is to create the right space for all kinds of transformations in your life. Let this experience sink into every fiber of your being.

The buddha has only one quality, and that quality is witnessing. The buddha is made of witnessing, of watching. Just watch, and in your very watching your buddhahood deepens.

This evening, this moment you are the most fortunate ones on the earth, because to be a buddha is to be a Himalayan Everest of consciousness. Then you don't have to follow any discipline, any morality. All that is good comes behind you like a shadow.

Just remain a witness around the clock. Whatever you are doing, do it with full awareness and with a grace that shows that you have recognized the buddha in the deepest core of your being.

To make it more clear, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Just watch, be a witness.

You are not the body, you are not the mind; you are simply the witnessing, and this witnessing is the buddha.

The spring has come and the cherry tree has blossomed into thousands of flowers. Collect as many flowers and as much of witnessing...

Persuade the buddha to come from the hidden secrets of your life into the circumference, into your day-to-day life. He always has come, just the right persuasion is needed, and showing him your worthiness by witnessing.

Collect as much of this relaxed moment, of this let-go, before Nivedano calls you back.

This moment the Buddha Auditorium is no more the gathering of ten thousand buddhas. It has become a lake of tremendous consciousness without any ripples. You are the fish in the ocean.

Don't ask where the ocean is.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, and bring your buddha with you. Silently and gracefully, sit for a few moments just to remember where you have been, what golden path you have followed, what your center is like.

The silence, the beauty, the blissfulness - you have to spread it on your circumference in every action, in every gesture, in every word, in every silence. You should remain a buddha in spite of any situation.

Being with me, you have got an opportunity which is no more available anywhere on the earth. It used to be available in many, many places. Those golden days have passed.

My effort is to give you a glimpse of those golden days when thousands of people in different places were trying to reach to the ultimate consciousness, to immortality, to eternity.

Without reaching to your center you are a cherry tree which will never find its spring. The moment you reach to your center you allow the spring to come to you. Your whole life becomes a dance, a poetry, a song.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.