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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : Discourses
on Zen
From May 1988, on all discourses are on Zen. Osho comments on
anecdotes about Zen masters.
Zen is special in many ways from other traditions of the mystics.
But one thing that stands out, very unique, is these strange,
small dialogues: just reading them you cannot see how those small
dialogues can bring enlightenment to someone.
Secondly, Zen itself gives no explanations. That is one of the
reasons a living tradition of enlightenment has not overtaken
the whole world. I would like you to understand these small dialogues
which apparently mean nothing, but in a certain circumstance,
produced by other Zen methods, can bring awakening. The dialogues
are remembered down the centuries; and the people on the path
of Zen enjoy them immensely. But for outsiders they remain an
anathema, because the context is never told; in what reference
the awakening happened is never discussed.
Behind these small dialogues there is a long discipline of meditation,
understanding—maybe years and years of work. But only the
dialogue is known to the outside world. You don't know the men
who are discussing with each other; they are not ordinary people.
The awakening is possible only if they have a background which
can make the small piece of dialogue—which in itself is
nothing—of tremendous importance.
But when you read them, you cannot believe how these dialogues
can make somebody enlightened—because you are reading them
and you are not becoming enlightened! Something is missing in
your perspective.
My effort will be to give you the whole context, and to explain
not only the words of the dialogue but also the individuals who
are engaged in these small dialogues. Only then will you see that
they are not small things, they are the very optimum. Those people
have reached to the last point; these dialogues are just a little
push. They were almost ready…it can be said that even without
these dialogues they were going to become enlightened, maybe a
week later. These dialogues have cut not more than one week from
their being enlightened.
Now that Zen has become fashionable all around the world there
is so much written about it. But nobody I have come across up
to now…and I have seen almost everything that has been written
about Zen by people who don't have any enlightenment, but who
are impressed by the beauty of the people who have been following
Zen. They have picked up things which make no sense, are almost
nonsense, and they don't have the capacity to give you the background.
Remember, everything depends on the background: long years of
preparation are there, long years of waiting, longing, long years
of silent patience, meditating. This dialogue comes at the apex,
at the very end. If you can understand the whole process, then
it will be explained to you how the dialogue can bring enlightenment
to someone.
Without knowing the whole process, Zen will remain just entertainment
to the world. What is enlightenment to Zen people falls down to
a state of entertainment. These dialogues are not the whole process.
It is just like an iceberg: a small piece is showing above the
sea—one-tenth of the whole iceberg—and nine-tenths
is underneath. Unless you understand that nine tenths, this one
tenth will not give you any insight….
Zen believes in the very essentials. It has no nonsense around
it, no rituals, in which all other religions have got lost, no
chanting, no mantras, no scriptures—just small anecdotes.
If you have the right awareness, they will hit you directly in
the heart. It is a very condensed and crystallized teaching, but
it needs the person to be prepared for it. And the only preparation
is meditative awareness. tahui25
These small anecdotes are small only in size; in depth, no ocean
can compete with them. It is a miracle that in such small dialogues,
the greatest of experiences, which are inexpressible, are expressed.
cuckoo11
I hope these anecdotes will take away all the nonsense that modern
times have forced upon you and will give you a taste of eternity.
quant12
I am interested in Zen only because Zen is pure meditation. The
very word `Zen' means meditation. It has nothing else, it requires
no rituals. Just as you are, the only requirement is to go in
and discover your eternal self.
That eternal self is pure ecstasy. You can sing and you can
dance and your singing and your dancing, if they are coming from
your innermost core, become your only prayers. They are the only
authentic prayers; all others are composed by man, and a prayer
composed by man is of no JUSTIFY">That eternal self is
pure ecstasy. You can sing and you can dance and your singing
and your dancing, if they are coming from your innermost core,
become your only prayers. They are the only authentic prayers;
all others are composed by man, and a prayer composed by man is
of no value.
A prayer that arises within you, like a flame…and that
is what happens in deep meditation. Suddenly you start experiencing
a new warmth and a new flame, a new joy that you have never experienced
before. It has been dormant, it has been repressed continuously,
for millions of years. It has gone so deep that you will have
to go that deep to find it.
That's why I go on insisting: go on, deeper and deeper, and
go on throwing the garbage that the past has left in you.
These small anecdotes are all concerned with meditation in different
ways. cuckoo15
These anecdotes belong to another dimension which the world has
completely forgotten. It is a totally different language, a different
understanding, a different kind of opening of the mysteries of
existence. In these simple anecdotes you will see the world that
we have lost, and the world that we want to create again. This
is the man who has reached to the ultimate peaks of consciousness
at a time far away in the past, and this is the man who is needed
again so that this whole stupidity of the world—its politicians,
its priests—can all be dissolved and the world can again
dance with joy and rejoice in love.
I am fortunate to have the right assembly; otherwise these anecdotes
will not be of any meaning—because you are also searching
for the same door, you are all one in this search, dissolved into
a deep silence. Only this silence can understand, because out
of this silence these anecdotes have arisen—this silence
is their source. The clouds are the witness; the bamboos are the
witness; you in your silence are the witnesses. These are your
stories. So don't think that you are reading some fiction. It
is simply a hint to show you the way into your own being.
A man is utterly useless, his life has no meaning, his love
is futile, if he himself is not aware who is residing in. Of course,
the body is not you, nor the mind; there is something else which
is witnessing both the mind and the body. To provoke that witness
is the whole art of any master, and these anecdotes are about
great masters. bolt08
I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion,
but only a religiousness. It has no dogma, it does not depend
on any founder. It has no past; in fact it has nothing to teach
you. It is the strangest thing that has happened in the whole
history of mankind—strangest because it enjoys in emptiness,
it blossoms in nothingness. It is fulfilled in innocence, in not
knowing. It does not discriminate between the mundane and the
sacred. For it, all that is, is sacred.
Life is sacred whatever form, whatever shape.
Wherever there is something living and alive it is sacred. livzen01
Zen comes closer to science than any other religion for the simple
reason that it does not require any faith. It requires of you
only an intense inquiry into yourself, a deepening of consciousness,
not concentration—a settling, a relaxing of consciousness,
so that you can find your own source. That very source is the
source of the whole existence. orig06
Zen is the very principle of existence. Whether there is anyone
who teaches it or not, whether there is anyone who learns it or
not, it is there. Zen is the very heartbeat of existence. It is
not dependent on any teaching, not dependent on any masters, not
dependent on disciples. Masters come and go, disciples come and
disappear; Zen remains. Just as it is. It is always just as it
is.
I have made my comment….
I know Zen—not from any scripture. I do not belong to
the tradition of Zen; I belong to these clouds. I belong to existence
on my own accord. I have found Zen—not through the scriptures.
That's why I can say, even in Japan there are only teachers and
followers, no Zen. I am almost a stranger to the tradition; but
I have found Zen on my own accord. It is my discovery, it is not
an inheritance from the tradition, an inheritance from Mahakashyapa,
Bodhidharma, Obaku. I don't have anything from these people—I
don't owe anything to anybody….
I am not a man who follows anybody; I am nobody's disciple. I
have tasted existence and I have declared that I have known it.
Anything that goes against my experience is wrong. livzen05
These evenings have been very special and those who are present
are very fortunate. The silences, the laughter, my eyes and your
eyes meeting, my hands being understood…and we have created
a golden age which has disappeared from the world. We have brought
back the times of Mahakashyapa, Bodhidharma…. This assembly
would have made any enlightened person rejoice.
It is true that when communication happens, the communicators
disappear—you can feel it immediately. Here you are as if
one consciousness, undivided. In your silence you are one, in
your laughter you are one. This oneness is the door to the ultimate
awakening of your consciousness.
We have been one in silence, let us also be one in our laughter.
To me a silence that cannot laugh is dead and a laughter that
has no silence in it is superficial. When silence and laughter
meet they create a dance, and our effort here is to join in this
cosmic dance.
Just relax into the whole…
Don't keep yourself as a spectator.
Don't remain separate…. livzen06
Master Shui Lao asked Ma Tzu…Ma Tzu is one of the strangest
masters in the assembly of strange masters of Zen. Shui Lao is
asking a simple question: "Why did Bodhidharma come to China?
What special transmission was there that he had to deliver?"
Ma Tzu then knocked him down with a kick to the chest: Shui Lao
was greatly enlightened.
Now incidents like this make intellectuals confused. What has
happened? Ma Tzu has shown him that Bodhidharma has come to kill
your ego, to release you from the fear of death. He kicked him
in the chest, knocked him down. It was so strange and so sudden,
it was not expected. He had asked a simple routine question; any
intellectual could have explained why Bodhidharma had come to
China—to spread Buddhism, to spread the message of the great
master.
But nobody could have thought that Ma Tzu would do this to the
poor questioner and it was so sudden and so unpredictable…But
it is only sudden and unpredictable to us; Ma Tzu could have seen
the ripeness of the man, the maturity…that he needs just
a small push, that this moment should not be missed. His kicking
him on the chest and knocking him down may have completely stopped
the functioning of his mind, because it was so unexpected and
so strange. In that stopping of the mind is the release. Suddenly
the goose is out! Shui Lao became enlightened.
He got up, clapping his hands and laughing loudly, and said,
"How extraordinary! How wonderful! Instantly, on the tip
of a hair, I have understood the root source of myriad states
of concentration, and countless subtle meanings." Then he
bowed—in deep respect—and withdrew. Afterwards, he
would tell the assembly—he became himself a great master—"From
the time I took Ma Tzu's kick, up until now, I have not stopped
laughing. How can one stop laughing? This great affair is so ridiculous!…
Naturally, people who have not been accustomed to the tradition
of Zen will be shocked by such behavior. If I suddenly knock Maneesha
here and now, although she is not yet ripe—but if I knock,
will you understand? You will think, "This man has gone mad."
You will think, "We already knew that he was mad; now he
has crossed all the boundaries." And from tomorrow, those
who sit in front will remain alert: at any moment…
And this is going to happen, because I am not going to leave
this world unless I make more people enlightened than Gautam Buddha.
I am watching who is growing wings, who is becoming ready to be
knocked—so don't be surprised. And when somebody gets knocked,
rejoice in the happening! The man has become enlightened.
But people who are not in a deep resonance with Zen will not
be able to understand it—Hindus or Mohammedans or Christians
or Jews—because there is nothing like that in their whole
history. Their whole history is more or less just intellectual
gymnastics.
Zen is absolutely existential. The master is there not only
to teach you certain doctrines; he has to release you from the
prison that you yourself have made. Whatever arbitrary, expedient
methods are needed, he is not going to be worried about what people
will think of them; he will use them.
There have never been more compassionate beings than Zen masters….
Get ready and be prepared. It is a totally different world from
the days of Ma Tzu, but I would like to make that beautiful time
and those beautiful incidents contemporary again. But it all depends
on you. If you are gradually dropping all your garbage, becoming
more alert, not forgetting for a single moment—walking,
sitting, working, lying down, a constant undercurrent of remembrance—then
the day is not far away when I will start knocking people down.
There is no necessity to actually knock somebody down, because
between me and Ma Tzu much time has passed, and I have got more
refined methods! He is, in a way,primitive.
I do my own kind of kicking and knocking, so don't wait for
me to actually hit you on your chest. There is no need…I
have developed more subtle methods—but you have to be ready
anyway. tahui31
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