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Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment Talks given from 25/07/88 pm to 01/08/88 pm English Discourse series CHAPTER 1 To study the way ... to forget the self ... 25 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER, DOGEN WROTE: TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF. TO FORGET THE SELF IS TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS. TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS IS TO REMOVE THE BARRIERS BETWEEN ONE’S SELF AND OTHERS. THEN THERE IS NO TRACE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THOUGH ENLIGHTENMENT ITSELF CONTINUES INTO ONE’S DAILY LIFE ENDLESSLY. THE FIRST TIME WE SEEK THE LAW, WE ARE FAR AWAY FROM THE BORDER OF IT. BUT SOON AFTER THE LAW HAS BEEN CORRECTLY TRANSMITTED TO US, WE ARE ENLIGHTENED PERSONS. Maneesha, this is the first day of a new series of talks, devoted to the full moons. The moon is an ancient symbol of transforming the hot rays of the sun into cool, peaceful, beautiful rays. It has nothing of its own. When you see the moon, you are seeing only a mirror which is reflecting the rays of the sun. Those reflected rays are just like the ones you can see when the sun is reflected in a river. The moon is a mirror but not only a mirror, it is also a transforming agent. It changes the heat rays into cool, peaceful rays. That is the reason why the moon has become the most significant symbol in the East. 2 CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... This series is dedicated to the full moons. In the series itself we are going to discuss one of the most unique masters, Dogen. Before I enter into the sutras, it will be good for you to know something about Dogen. That background will help you to understand his very condensed sutras. Apparently they look contradictory. Without the background of Dogen’s life pattern they are like trees without roots, they cannot bring flowers. So first I will talk about Dogen’s life structure. DOGEN WAS BORN INTO AN ARISTOCRATIC FAMILY IN KYOTO, EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS AGO. HIS FATHER WAS A HIGH-RANKING GOVERNMENT MINISTER AND HE HIMSELF WAS AN UNIQUELY INTELLIGENT CHILD. IT IS SAID THAT HE BEGAN TO READ CHINESE POETRY AT THE AGE OF FOUR – another Mozart. Chinese is perhaps the most difficult language in the world, because it has no alphabet. It is pictorial and to read it means years of hard work to memorize those symbols. To the born Chinese it is not so difficult, because from the very birth it becomes ingrained into his mind, but anybody who is studying Chinese from the outside world ... I have been told by friends that it takes ten years at least, if one works strenuously; thirty years if one works the way any ordinary student will work. At the age of four, to understand Chinese – and not only Chinese, but Chinese poetry; that makes it even more difficult. Because to understand the prose of any language is simple, but the poetry has wings, it flies to faraway places. Prose is very marketplace, very earthly; it creeps on the earth. Poetry flies. What prose cannot say, poetry can manage to indicate. Prose is connected with your mind, poetry is more connected with your heart; it is more like love than like logic. At the age of four, Dogen’s understanding of Chinese poetry immediately showed that he was not going to be an ordinary human being. From that very age his behavior was not that of a mediocre child; he behaved like a buddha, so serene, so graceful, not interested in toys. All children are interested in toys, teddy-bears ... who cares about poetry? But, fortunately or unfortunately, his father died when he was only two years old and his mother died when he was seven. Dogen used to say later on to his disciples, when he became a fully- fledged master in his own right, that everybody thought it was a misfortune: ”What will happen to this beautiful, intelligent child?” But in his deepest heart he felt it was an opportunity; now there was no barrier. Modern psychologists will perhaps understand it: you may be grown up – fifty, sixty, seventy – your father and mother may be dead ... still they dominate you in a very psychological way. If you silently listen to the voices within you can work out that, ”This voice comes from my father, or from my mother, or from my uncle, or from my teacher, or from the priest.” Dogen used to say, ”It was a great opportunity that both the people who could have distracted me, who loved me and I loved them ... and that was the danger. They died at the right time. I am infinitely grateful to them just because they died at the right time without destroying me.” It is something very strange for a seven-year-old child to understand this. It has been discovered only now by the psychologists that man’s greatest barriers are the father, the mother. If you want Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 3 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... to be a totally free consciousness you have to drop, somewhere on the way, your teddy-bears, your toys, the teachings that have been forced upon you. They have all been of good intent, there is no question about it, but as it is said in an ancient proverb, ”The path to hell is paved with good intentions.” Just good intentions are not enough; what is needed is a conscious intention, which is very rare. To find a father and mother with a conscious meditative energy is just hoping for the hopeless. When his mother died Dogen was translating the most significant Buddhist scripture, abhidharma – ”the essence of religion” – from Chinese into Japanese. He showed every sign of a tremendous future. And at the age of seven, when his father and mother had both died, the first thing he did – which is unbelievable – was to become a sannyasin. Even the neighbors, relatives, could not believe it. And Dogen said, ”I will not miss this opportunity. Perhaps if my father and mother were alive, I might not have left the world in search of truth.” He became a sannyasin and started searching for the master. There are two kinds of seekers who become interested in truth. One starts looking for scriptures: he may become a great intellectual, he may become a giant, but inside there will be darkness. All his light is borrowed, and a borrowed light is not going to help in the real crises of life. I am reminded of a Christian priest who used to repeat in every sermon Christ’s saying, ”If somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other, too.” Everybody liked his sermons, he was quoting such great statements. But in one place a man really stood up and slapped the priest on one of his cheeks. The priest was shocked, because he had just been quoting Jesus. But anyway, to save his face, he gave his other cheek. And that man must have been a real rebellious type; he slapped the other one, too. Now this was too much! The priest jumped at the man and started beating him. And the man said, ”What are you doing?” He said, ”The scripture stops with the second cheek. Now I am here and you are here: let us decide this.” Borrowed scriptures won’t help in actual encounters. In life there are everyday realities to be faced. In death the ultimate reality has to be faced. And borrowed knowledge is not going to help at all. The second type of seeker does not go towards the scriptures, but starts searching for a master. These are two different dimensions: one is looking for knowledge, the other is looking for a source which is still alive. One is looking for dead scriptures, the other is looking for a living scripture whose heart is still beating and dancing, in whose eyes you can still see the depth, in whose presence you can see your own potential. This second type is authentically the seeker for truth. The first type is only a seeker for knowledge. You can have tons of knowledge and still you will remain ignorant. The man who has found the master may have to drop all his knowledge so that he can become open and vulnerable to the master’s presence, so that he can dance with the master’s heart. In this dance there happens a synchronicity, both the hearts slowly settle into the same rhythm. This rhythm is called the Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 4 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... transmission. Nothing visible is given – no teaching, no doctrine – but invisibly two hearts have started dancing in the same tune. All that the master knows slowly goes on this invisible track and pours into the hearts of the disciples to the point of overflowing. Dogen shows his intelligence, certainly, that he never turned to the scriptures. While his mother was alive, he was translating abhidharma, one of the most important Buddhist scriptures, from Chinese into Japanese. If his parents had lived, he might have become a great scholar. After his parents had died, he burned all that he had translated with that scripture, abhidharma. It is so unbelievable. A seven-year-old child had the great insight that, ”Words won’t quench my thirst. I have to go in search of a living source, of someone who has known not by words, but by actual experience; one who is existentially a buddha.” The search for the master is the search for the buddha. AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN DOGEN WAS FORMALLY INITIATED. It was not easy to be initiated, one had to prove one’s capacity, potentiality, possibility. One had to prove that one will not betray on the path, that one will not waste the time of the master, that one will wait infinitely. So he had to wait until the age of thirteen, and then: HE WAS FORMALLY INITIATED INTO THE MONKHOOD ON MOUNT HIEI, THE CENTER OF TENDAI BUDDHIST LEARNING IN JAPAN. FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL YEARS HE STUDIED THE SCHOOLS OF Mahayana AND Hinayana, VERSIONS OF BUDDHISM, UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF HIS TEACHER, ABBOT KOEN. BY THE TIME HE WAS FOURTEEN DOGEN HAD BECOME TROUBLED BY A DEEP DOUBT CONCERNING ONE ASPECT OF THE BUDDHIST TEACHING. This is the sutra that made him troubled to the very core of his being. IF, AS THE SUTRAS SAY, ”ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE ENDOWED WITH THE BUDDHA-NATURE,” WHY IS IT THAT ONE MUST TRAIN ONESELF SO STRENUOUSLY TO REALIZE THAT BUDDHA- NATURE, TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT? A very significant question. If everybody is a buddha, then to recognize it should be the simplest thing in the world. If you are potentially a buddha, then the barriers cannot be much; they cannot hinder you. Nothing can hinder you. A rose bush brings roses, a lotus seed brings the lotus. If every man is a seed buddha, then why so much discipline? He was only fourteen years of age, and just one year before he had been initiated, but this sutra disturbed him immensely. It is obvious that if to be a buddha is our nature, then it should be the simplest thing ... without any discipline, without any effort – just a natural phenomenon, as you breathe, as your heart beats, as your blood runs in the body. There is no need of all the nonsense that has been forced upon people to become buddhas, to achieve buddhahood. At this point he left his teacher because the teacher could not answer him. The teacher was just a teacher. He could teach the sutras, but he could not answer. He could realize the great significance Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 5 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... of the question. Either buddhahood is not everybody’s nature ... it is some faraway mountaintop, that you have to travel through all kinds of hardships to reach. But if it is your very nature, then this very moment you can realize it – there is no need even to wait for a single moment. But the teacher could not say that, because he himself had not realized buddhahood. He had been teaching Buddhist scriptures, and not a single student had ever said, ”This sutra is contradictory.” IN SEARCH OF SOMEONE WHO COULD HELP RID HIM OF HIS DOUBT, DOGEN FOUND HIMSELF WITH ANOTHER TEACHER, MYOZEN. Teachers are many. Just to graduate into a certain branch of knowledge is not anything unique or special. But to find a master is really arduous, in that they both speak the same language – the teacher, the master. And sometimes it may be that the teacher speaks more clearly, because he is not worried about his own experience. The master speaks hesitantly, because he knows whatever he is saying is not perfectly appropriate, does not express the experience itself ... that it is a little way off. The teacher can speak with full confidence because he knows nothing. The master either remains silent or, if he speaks, he speaks with a great responsibility, knowing that he is going to make statements which appear to be contradictory, but which are not. But every teacher wants to be known as a master. For the seeker this creates a problem. Myozen also proclaimed himself a master, but time proved that he was not a master. IN SPITE OF LONG YEARS OF TRAINING UNDER MYOZEN, DOGEN STILL FELT UNFULFILLED. AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE HE DECIDED TO MAKE THE JOURNEY TO CHINA WITH MYOZEN, IN ORDER TO STUDY ZEN BUDDHISM FURTHER. LEAVING THE SHIP, DOGEN FOUND HIS WAY TO T’IEN-T’UNG MONASTERY, WHERE HE TRAINED UNDER MASTER WU-CHI. STILL UNSATISFIED, FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS HE VISITED NUMEROUS MONASTERIES. JUST AS HE WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP HIS SEARCH AND RETURN TO JAPAN, HE HAPPENED TO HEAR THAT THE FORMER ABBOT OF T’IEN-T’UNG HAD DIED, AND THAT HIS SUCCESSOR, JU-CHING, WAS SAID TO BE ONE OF CHINA’S FINEST ZEN MASTERS. He changed his plan to go back to Japan and went again to the same monastery where he had been. The old master, who was just a teacher, was dead, and he had been succeeded by Ju-ching – a man who had soared high and touched the peaks of consciousness, who had dived deep and touched the depths of his being, who had moved vertically upwards and downwards, who had traveled through all his conscious territory. This man Ju-ching proved to be a man who answered doubts, settled them, because Dogen was still carrying the same question: that if buddhahood is your nature, then why is any discipline needed? It was Ju-ching who said, ”No discipline is needed. No discipline, nowhere to go, no way to be traveled ... just be, silent, settled, at the very center of your being, and you are a buddha. You are missing it because you are looking and trying everywhere else except within you. You will never Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 6 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... find your buddhahood by changing this monastery for another monastery, this master for another master. Go in!” Ju-ching is known as one of the finest masters, a very fine sword that cuts things immediately. His presence, his fragrance, his grace ... Dogen remained with him, never asking a question, just drinking the very presence of the master, the very atmosphere, the very climate – getting drowned. And a moment always comes ... An ancient Tibetan proverb says, ”If the disciple is ready, the master appears.” The whole question is of the disciple being ready. But the disciple can be ready only if he comes across a man of consciousness – not a man only of words, but a man of the experience – who has been to the highest peaks, to the lowest depths. And just being close to him one can feel the vibe, the coolness. He radiates the truth; and if you are ready, suddenly something clicks. All doubts disappear, you know you have found the master. Now there is nothing to be asked. Whatever is needed, the master will give it. In fact, it is only because of the poverty of language that we say, ”The master will give it.” The truth is, when you are ready it simply showers on you – the master cannot even prevent it. The master is already radiating, just the doors of your being are closed. So those vibrations, and they are simply vibrations, return back. If the doors are open, nothing is said and everything is understood. When Dogen became a master in his own right, when Ju-ching declared to him, ”Now, no more play the role of being a disciple,” at that moment he hit Dogen and said, ”You have come to understand; now be compassionate on the blind humanity. Now don’t go on sitting by my side. You are a buddha. Just because you were wandering here and there, you could not understand. Then sitting by my side, silently ... I have not given you anything. You have simply become centered, and in this centering is the inner revolution.” DOGEN WROTE: TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. Now these are tremendously valuable statements. He is saying, ”Don’t ask about the way – there is no way.” TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. The way leads away, and the further you go in search, the more you are lost. Drop all going and remain at home, just doing nothing. As Basho has said: ANCIENT POND. A FROG JUMPS, AND GREAT SILENCE. And Basho was just sitting there, so he wrote a small poem, sitting silently, doing nothing: A frog jumps in the ancient pond. A little sound and then great silence. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 7 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... We are little sounds in a great silence. Between us and the universe there is not much more difference than between a sound and silence. In every temple in the East we have used different kinds of bells. Even today they are used without any understanding. The reason is to give you a message – you ring the bell, a sound is created from nowhere. It echoes in the empty temple, it re-echoes, and every echo becomes more silent, more silent, and finally it disappears. Our existence is nothing but a sound in an immense ocean of silence. TO STUDY THE WAY IS TO STUDY THE SELF. Don’t bother about the way, just study yourself. TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF. Who is going to study the self? The one who is going to study the self has already dropped the self. The one who is studying the self is the witness – your real self. TO STUDY THE SELF IS TO FORGET THE SELF. TO FORGET THE SELF IS TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS. Then it does not matter in what situation you are – any situation will make you enlightened. People have become enlightened in every kind of situation you can imagine. The question is, if the self is dropped – then you may be chopping wood or carrying water from the well, it does not matter. The moment there is no self – only a witnessing, a silent watchfulness – you are enlightened by all things. TO BE ENLIGHTENED BY ALL THINGS IS TO REMOVE THE BARRIERS BETWEEN ONE’S SELF AND OTHERS. To be enlightened simply means: neither I exist nor you exist. What exists is something transcendental to I and thou, something more, something bigger and higher. THEN THERE IS NO TRACE OF ENLIGHTENMENT .... In such a small passage he has condensed so much. Each sentence could have become a scripture. THEN THERE IS NO TRACE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THOUGH ENLIGHTENMENT ITSELF CONTINUES INTO ONE’S DAILY LIFE ENDLESSLY. Once you have become enlightened, it is not that every day you have to remember that you are enlightened; that every morning, shaving before the mirror, you have to remember that you are enlightened; or going to the market, you have to remember not to behave against enlightenment. Once you have become enlightened your every act is automatically of awareness, of consciousness. Soon you forget all about enlightenment because it has become your very body, your very bones, your very blood, your marrow – it has become your very being. Now there is no need to remember it. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 8 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... There have been masters who have forgotten completely that they are enlightened because there is no need to remember it. Their masters have hit them on their heads. The Zen stick came into existence for very certain purposes. One of the purposes was that somebody who has become enlightened and is still sitting silently has to be hit to be made aware, ”Now go away! Get on! Pick up your rented bicycle! What are you doing here?” Enlightenment does not happen twice – once is enough. The master hits as a reward, to remind you, ”Now there is no need to be near me.” There are beautiful stories ... Mahakashyapa became enlightened, and he would not even come near Buddha. He used to sit far away, under a tree; for years he had been meditating there. He became enlightened ... now he was afraid to come close to Buddha because he would recognize. Buddha himself had to walk towards Mahakashyapa and say, ”Mahakashyapa, don’t try to deceive me. Now there is no need to sit under this tree. Get on and move! There are millions of people who are still groping in darkness, and you are sitting here enlightened. Take this fire of your enlightenment and make as many people aflame as possible.” Mahakashyapa had tears in his eyes. He said, ”I have been hiding, who told you? I know that now this has happened a difficulty ... I am enlightened, and I cannot go near to you. I want to touch your feet, but I touch your feet, make the gesture of touching your feet, just from far away under the tree. Because I know, once one is enlightened he will be sent away.” Another disciple of Gautam Buddha, Sariputta, made it a condition. When he took initiation he was already a very famous scholar of his time. He made it a condition, ”If by chance I become enlightened, please don’t send me away. I want to remain always by your side. If enlightenment means that I will have to go away, I will not become enlightened, so it is up to you.” Buddha said, ”Don’t be worried. First become enlightened, then we will see.” He said, ”No, I want it as a promise. Enlightenment is certain by your side. And if you don’t give me a promise, you will be the barrier to my enlightenment.” Buddha said, ”You are putting me into difficulty. If everybody starts saying, ‘Don’t send us away,’ how I am going to manage?” – already ten thousand sannyasins were moving with him from one village to another village. He said, ”Sariputta, you are such a great scholar, you should understand. Because enlightenment is not only enlightenment, it is also a great responsibility. You have come to realize the ultimate peace, the joy, the blissfulness.” Now it is your responsibility to share it, go as far away as possible. Now there is no point in sitting by the side of the master. THEN THERE IS NO TRACE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THOUGH ENLIGHTENMENT ITSELF CONTINUES INTO ONE’S DAILY LIFE ENDLESSLY. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 9 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... THE FIRST TIME WE SEEK THE LAW – by law is meant the ultimate law of existence – WE ARE FAR AWAY FROM THE BORDER OF IT. BUT SOON AFTER THE LAW HAS BEEN CORRECTLY TRANSMITTED TO US ... I have explained to you what transmission is: it is not through words, it is through the presence. It is through being close, in trust, in love, that something jumps from the master’s inner being and makes you aflame. It is a quantum leap of consciousness. It is almost like two candles: one is lit, another is unlit. If you bring both the candles closer, there will come a moment when the flame of the lit candle will take a jump – you can see the jump – and the unlit candle also becomes lit. And the lit candle does not lose anything. The unlit candle was carrying the possibility, the potentiality; it just needed an opportunity. The master is the opportunity. THE FIRST TIME WE SEEK THE LAW WE ARE FAR AWAY FROM THE BORDER OF IT. BUT SOON AFTER THE LAW HAS BEEN CORRECTLY TRANSMITTED TO US, WE ARE ENLIGHTENED PERSONS. Everybody is a buddha, either awake or asleep. Only this small distinction exists; otherwise there is no lower or higher. There is nothing wrong in being a sleeping buddha – it is your choice. A little more sleep is not going to harm anybody – just don’t snore, because that will create a disturbance in other people’s sleep. A Catholic priest was in great difficulty. An old man, the richest man of his congregation, used to sit in front of him, and he used to come with his small grandchild. And the old man, as the sermon would start, would start snoring. It was such a disturbance to the priest, but the man was rich and he was donating so much to the church that he could not be interfered with. But somehow it had to be stopped; otherwise sooner or later everybody would be sleeping, snoring, and he would be preaching to them. This disease had to be stopped. He tried to find a way. He pulled the little child aside when they were leaving and asked him, ”Can you do something, for God’s sake?” He said, ”I never do anything without money. I don’t know God or God’s sake – just money.” A real businessman’s son. The Catholic priest said, ”Okay. I will give you a quarter dollar if you keep the old man awake. Whenever he snores wake him up – just hit him with your knee.” He said, ”In advance, because I don’t do anything without the money in advance. And if the old man comes to know, there is going to be trouble. So better give me the advance first, I am taking a risky job.” The priest had to give him a quarter dollar. The next Sunday morning, when the old man started snoring, the little boy hit him again and again to wake him up. The old man said, ”What has happened to you? You used to sit silently. You have been coming with me always.” He said, ”It is a business matter.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 10 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... The old man said, ”What do you mean?” He said, ”I am getting a quarter dollar to keep you awake.” The old man said, ”That’s simple – I will give you half a dollar to let me sleep.” He said, ”Okay – in advance.” The old man gave him half a dollar and the boy stopped waking him up. The preacher made many signs to the boy, ”Just do something!” But the boy closed his eyes, as if he was in great meditation. After the church, the priest caught hold of the boy saying, ”You are very cunning. You took the money in advance, and for half of the sermon you were doing perfectly well. Then why did you start behaving in such a way – as if you were meditating? For years I have been seeing you; you have never closed your eyes.” He said, ”You don’t understand: business is business.” The priest said, ”What do you mean?” He said, ”The old man has given me half a dollar. Naturally, I had to stop. Now, if you are ready for one dollar next Sunday ... But it is always a risk; the old man may give me two dollars.” The priest thought, ”This is a difficult thing for a poor priest. The rise of the price will go on, because that old man is rich, he can give anything.” He thought, ”It is better to talk to the old man.” He said to him, ”I don’t object to your sleep because sleep is not – according to the holy scriptures – a sin. You can sleep. But snoring ... that too is not sin according to any holy scripture, but it interferes with other sleepers. And to interfere in somebody else’s life is certainly immoral. There are many others who are sleeping, I know. But who comes to the church? People who are utterly tired come to the church to have at least a good morning sleep. You are disturbing them. And this boy is going to prove a great businessman. He has already managed ... he asked for payment in advance.” The old man said, ”There is no point in getting into competition because, whatever price has to be given, I will give. But for God’s sake let me sleep – and I am going to snore. It is my birthright.” This much is the difference between your essential buddhahood and your snoring buddhahood. Just give a good shake ... You will be surprised to know that there used to be two groups of Christians: one was called ”Quakers” and the other was called ”Shakers.” In their church the Quakers quake just to keep themselves awake, and the Shakers shake just to keep themselves awake. I think those two groups, which have almost disappeared, represent the most essential part of any religion. Christianity is poorer because of the decline of those two groups. It is perfectly right if you can help to wake up your buddha by shaking. What is wrong with it? What are you doing in the Dynamic Meditation? It is just a mix of shaking and quaking. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 11 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... Soon you will be entering into our every evening’s meditation and you will see that nobody ever has disturbed the sleep so much – not only their own, but for miles around nobody can sleep. We are determined to make everybody a buddha. Question 1 Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, TO FORGET THE SELF – TO REMEMBER THE SELF: ARE THESE TWO DIFFERENT PATHS OR, IN SOME WAY, ARE THEY THE SAME? They are the same, just different expressions. One can say something positively; one can say the same thing negatively. But they both are saying the same. Remembering the self, the self will disappear. The more you remember, the more you will find it is not there. Forgetting the self is the same. You are beyond yourself; don’t cling to your ”I”, to your ego, to your personality. Just drop clinging to this cage, move out of the cage, and the whole sky is yours. Open your wings and fly across the sun like an eagle. In the inner sky, in the inner world, freedom is the highest value – everything else is secondary, even blissfulness, ecstasy. There are thousands of flowers, uncountable, but they all become possible in the climate of freedom. Before we enter into our meditation, I have to wake up all those who have fallen asleep by now. Dodoski and Nerdski are sitting in the local jail charged with disturbing the peace and being drunk and disorderly. That afternoon, Sergeant Crapski takes the boys to a big field to do some civic duty work while they serve their time. ”Okay,” says the cop. ”Like I told you guys before, you can start digging that trench.” The officer gives a shovel to each of them, points vaguely out at the ten-acre lot, and then walks away. Nerdski looks around for a while, then turning to Dodoski says, ”Dig what trench? I don’t see any trench.” ... Do any of you see? Nerdski is out of work so he goes up to Beverly Hills. He goes around from mansion to mansion, offering to do odd jobs. Finally, at one huge estate, Nerdski knocks on the door. ”Got any work you need doing?” he asks. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 12 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... ”What can you do?” asks the owner. ”I’m a really good painter,” replies Nerdski. ”Great!” says the man, handing him a can of green paint. ”You can go round the back and paint the porch green. It is pretty big, so it will probably take you all day.” But two hours later, Nerdski knocks again at the front door. ”I’ve finished that porch,” he tells the owner. ”Wow,” says the man. ”That was really fast.” ”No problem for me,” says Nerdski proudly. ”I’m a professional.” ”Okay,” says the man. ”Here is your money.” ”Thanks,” says Nerdski and turns to leave. ”By the way,” he adds. ”That’s not a porch, it’s a Ferrari!” Kowalski is on holiday in a small town in the Italian Alps. After a few lonely nights he begins to feel the need for a woman. So he asks the local bartender how to find the ladies of the town. ”We gotta no prostitutes,” replies the bartender. ”The priest-a would never allow it. But the thing-a you want is-a kept out of sight.” ”What have I got to do?” asks Kowalski. The bartender explains that up in the mountains there are caves. ”Go there after dark-a,” he says. ”And shout-a ‘Yoo-Hoo!’ into the cave. And if the lady calls back, ‘Yoo-Hoo,’ you work out-a the price. If she is busy, you get no answer.” So that night, Kowalski ”Yoo-Hoo’s” his way from cave to cave, but with no luck. Finally he decides to go back to town to get drunk, but at the bottom of the mountain he finds a cave that he has not seen before. ”Yoo-Hoo, Yoo-Hoo!” he shouts. ”Yoo-Hoo, Yoo-Hoo!” comes back the clear reply. So Kowalski rushes into the cave – and is knocked flat by a train! Jimmy is lost in the desert with two friends, Billy and Sammy. They wander around for two days, almost dying of thirst, until they come to a nunnery. They knock on the door and the Mother Superior answers. ”Water, water, please give us water!” they groan. ”Oh, no,” says the nun. ”We had a man in here before. If you want to come in here for water, you have to let us cut off your pricks.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 13 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... The three guys run back out into the desert. But two days later they figure that they will die anyway, so what the hell. They go back to the nunnery and say that they accept the condition. They are brought in and the head nun takes Billy into another room. There is a short scream and then the nun comes back for Sammy. She takes him into another room and there is another, longer drawn-out, scream. But when she comes back for Jimmy, he is terrified. ”Just a minute!” he cries. ”How did you cut their pricks off?” ”Simple,” says the nun. ”We ask them what their profession is. The first guy is a butcher, so we cut it off with a knife. The second guy is a carpenter, so we sawed it off.” At this point, Jimmy starts laughing hysterically with tears rolling down his cheeks. ”What’s so funny?” asks the nun. ”You’re gonna have trouble with me,” laughs Jimmy. ”I work for Kwality Ice Cream!” Now ... everybody is awake. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Be silent ... close your eyes ... Feel as if you are frozen. Enter in. The deeper you can, the more you will experience your buddha-nature. At the deepest point, you are the ultimate reality – Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 14 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... immortal, eternal, with all the blessings that you can ever conceive of. Don’t miss the opportunity. It is the simplest thing in the world to go in ... because it is your own home. You need not even knock on the doors. In fact there are no doors inside. It is an open space, an open sky. But to know this open sky is to realize the deathless principle of your existence. Deeper, deeper, and deeper ... Drink this life juice to your heart’s content. And remember this peace, this silence, this blissfulness. Around the day, whatever you are doing, don’t forget it. Like an undercurrent, let it remain there. And slowly, slowly it will change your whole life structure. To make it more clear – sharply clear, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 15 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... You relax ... let go ... as if you have died. One day you will. This is just a rehearsal. Leave the body, forget the mind ... and move as deep as you can, like an arrow ... fast, hitting the very center. This is the buddha. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Come back. But come back as buddhas, knowing perfectly your eternal being. Just sit down for a few seconds to recall the memory of the territory that you have traveled, of the center that you have touched. Let it become your breathing, let it become your heartbeat. To be a buddha is so simple, you don’t have to go anywhere. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 16 Osho CHAPTER 1. TO STUDY THE WAY ... TO FORGET THE SELF ... You have to just stop going anywhere, and just be within yourself. Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master. Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 17 Osho CHAPTER 2 Firewood and ash 26 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER, DOGEN CONTINUES: WHEN WE LOOK BACK AT THE SHORE FROM OUR BOAT, WE MISTAKENLY FEEL AS IF THE SHORE WERE MOVING. BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR BOAT WITH CARE, WE FIND THAT IT IS OUR BOAT THAT IS ACTUALLY MOVING. SIMILARLY, WHEN WE SEE ALL THINGS WITH THE DELUDED IDEA THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER, WE MISTAKENLY THINK INNATE MIND AND NATURE ARE ETERNAL. BUT WHEN WE REALIZE THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE INSEPARABLE, WE SEE CLEARLY THAT ALL THINGS ARE NOT SUBSTANTIAL. FIREWOOD, WHEN BURNED, BECOMES ASH; THE ASH NEVER AGAIN REVERTS TO BEING FIREWOOD. STILL, WE SHOULD NOT REGARD FIREWOOD AS A BEFORE, AND ASH AS AN AFTER. WE MUST REALIZE THAT FIREWOOD IS IN THE POSITION OF FIREWOOD WITH OR WITHOUT BEFORE AND AFTER. ASH IS IN THE POSITION OF ASH WITH OR WITHOUT BEFORE AND AFTER. WE CAN NO MORE COME BACK TO LIFE AFTER OUR DEATH THAN FIREWOOD CAN BECOME FIREWOOD AGAIN AFTER HAVING BECOME ASH. IN BUDDHISM, THEREFORE, IT IS SAID THAT LIFE NEVER BECOMES DEATH; LIFE IS BEYOND THE CONCEPTION OF LIFE. IT SAYS THAT DEATH DOES NOT BECOME LIFE; DEATH IS BEYOND THAT OF DEATH. LIFE AND DEATH ARE BOTH ONLY ONE STAGE OF TIME, JUST LIKE WINTER AND SPRING. 18 CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH LIKEWISE, WE MUST NOT THINK THAT WINTER BECOMES SPRING, OR SAY THAT SPRING BECOMES SUMMER. Maneesha, Dogen is basically concerned about the idea of reincarnation. Christianity does not accept it, Mohammedanism does not accept it, nor does Judaism accept it; it is only accepted by the religions that have been born in India. They may differ on every aspect of life, but on one point they are absolutely in agreement. And it is not an agreement of one day – for thousands of years they have agreed on the idea of reincarnation. In Christianity or Mohammedanism or Judaism your life span is very short, just between the cradle and the grave – maybe seventy years or eighty years. With death you are finished. But in the Eastern experience, with death you only change your form. You are not finished, you continue. Your continuity is eternal. You will take many forms ... many experiences, many ways of being. This whole universe is conceived of in the East as a teaching period. The trees are learning to be trees, the birds are learning to be birds. This whole universe is exactly a great university, an opportunity to learn one form and also to learn that behind the form is hidden your formless being. Thousands of times you have lived in different forms, experiencing different ways. Certainly to be a tree is a totally different experience than to be a bird or to be a lion. But the essential life is one. Out of this experience of essential life, the theory of reincarnation arose. And if you go deeper into your interiority ... you can move so deeply that you will start touching not only your birth, your nine months in the womb, but also the death of the previous form. It is a tremendous experience to know that you have been here before, because that gives another dimension to your consciousness; if you have been here in the past, you will be here in the future. The past and future both are in balance – the present moment is just the balancing moment. And if you can dig deep into the present moment, you can experience not only your past lives; there is a possibility – if your effort is really total – that you may start having glimpses of your future possibilities. Gautam Buddha is reported to have said that we never begin our journey – it is eternal. You cannot reach to the point, exploring within yourself, where you started the journey. That bus stop you cannot find. You have always been moving, traveling. So the beginning cannot be found, it is not there. But the end can be found. You will be surprised to think about it – that the ordinary death is not a death because the consciousness moves into another form. A bird becomes a tree, a tree becomes an animal, an animal becomes a human being. But if your experience of all your past lives suddenly flashes you to the idea that you are eternal, that very moment you are disidentified with the body-mind structure. And this disidentification is the real death. Now you will not take another form, you will enter into the formless. It is called the great death. But to have a great death you need to have a great life. Ordinary living is so lukewarm that ordinary death cannot change much; it can only change the outer garb, the paper bag in which you have been living. To burst forth out of all form – a tremendous awareness, intensity, totality ... you pull all of yourself to a single point – and suddenly all forms disappear. Just like a breeze, invisible, you enter Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 19 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH into the formless. This has to be remembered before I talk about Dogen, because that is exactly the background of what he is trying to say in the Zen way. DOGEN CONTINUES: WHEN WE LOOK BACK AT THE SHORE FROM OUR BOAT, WE MISTAKENLY FEEL AS IF THE SHORE WERE MOVING. BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR BOAT WITH CARE, WE FIND THAT IT IS OUR BOAT THAT IS ACTUALLY MOVING. Now very few people have the experience of boats. Dogen was talking to people who were traveling in boats continuously, because Japan is not one island; it is many islands together, and people are continuously moving in boats from one island to another. But in your experience you may have ... sitting in a train, suddenly you see that another train which was sitting on the side track has started moving. But your experience is so clear that you are moving. Then you look to the other side – the station is still there. Then certainly, the other train is moving. But the station is gone, then the movement of that train was an illusion; your train is moving. Movement is relative, just as in geometry two parallel lines never meet. Albert Einstein, the man who introduced the idea of relativity into the world of science, says that if two rockets are moving in the sky at the same speed, none of the passengers in either of the rockets will feel that there is any movement. Because to experience movement you need something stationary by the side; it is a relative experience. Both the rockets are moving in a silent, open sky at the same speed; naturally, you see there is no movement in the other rocket. And how can there be movement in your rocket? If there were, you would have passed the other rocket. None of the passengers in either of the rockets will even dream about movement, because there is nothing stable around; on both the sides, just pure sky. They can live in the illusion as long as they go on moving at the same speed. According to Albert Einstein, a very strange conclusion ... of course, it has not yet been tested, but it seems possible. If the passengers of both the rockets don’t feel any movement, they will become very still and very silent. Not only in their minds, but even in their body cells the silence of no- movement will penetrate. It will be so enormous, so overwhelming, that when they return – you will be surprised – all their friends, their old colleagues, will have grown ten years older and they will not have aged at all. Those ten years they have missed. They have not moved a single inch, either in their body or in their mind, because movement has stopped being their experience. Einstein was absolutely certain – and I agree with him. It seems absurd that a traveler will come back and find that his own generation is finished and a new generation has taken over, because he has been long away, traveling in the sky. But when there is no movement around you, slowly, slowly that non-movement stops everything moving within you: the mind, the body – everything. Even he was shocked when he proposed the theory. It will still take a few years for us to be absolutely certain of what he was saying, because even to reach to the nearest star takes four years; and the return journey means eight years – and this is the nearest star. We don’t have yet any vehicle to move – without continuous fuel stations on the way – for four years. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 20 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH Secondly, the moment you are out of the grip of gravitation .... You don’t feel gravitation because you are born in gravitation. Otherwise the earth is pulling you down so forcibly ... most of your aging is because of the pull of the earth. The area of gravitation is two hundred miles around the earth. Once you are out of the gravitation area, there is nothing to pull you down; you simply remain the same. The same gravitation that is killing you also keeps you rooted, because without gravitation you will be simply gone – just saying good-bye to each other and moving into the eternal, never to meet again. It is so vast ... and the speed will be such that you will be burned by the speed. There are practical problems; that’s why Albert Einstein could not persuade anybody to take the risk. The speed has to be exactly the speed of light – that is the ultimate speed. One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second – at that speed everything stops. You can go around the universe for thousands of years and you will come back to the earth the same, as young as you had left. But it is just theoretical and hypothetical; it is difficult, for the simple, pragmatic reason that at the speed of light no metal can remain unmelted. The heat is so much that the vehicle in which you are moving will melt down, burning you with it. You look ... almost three thousand stones fall every day on the earth, all over the earth. You think they are stars falling. Stars are very big, but these are just small stones which have been caught in the gravitational area of the earth, and the earth has pulled them. But the force of the pull is such that even the stones burn up. Most of these three thousand stones never reach to the earth; they are burned before reaching it. A few stones have reached the earth and they have become great sacred places. For example, the Kaaba – the holy place of the Mohammedans; the stone there is an asteroid, it is not of the earth. Just because people saw that big stone coming from the sky ... the primitive mind thought it must be from God. And it was coming, burning bright like a sun, so big that it reached to the earth. In many museums you will find those stones, which are called meteorites. These stones burn up because of the speed. So if we make a vehicle we have to find something which will not burn up at the speed of light. Up to now, there is no indication that we can create a vehicle or any material that can move with the speed of light. And unless we move with the speed of light we cannot reach the nearest star. With that speed in mind, the nearest star is four light years away. It is such a long distance, and our small boats and our airplanes and our rockets are still, in terms of the future, just toys. But consciousness needs no form to travel, hence it can move with the speed of light. That is the Eastern way of looking at things: you have been around on many planets in many different lives, not only on this earth. Scientists accept that there are at least five hundred planets with life, but there is no communication. All kinds of efforts are being made to have some kind of dialogue or to find some way to know exactly who is there. But that is a limitation of the body. For a man of consciousness, for a man who is a buddha, there is no limitation. No gravitation prevents him, no heat can burn him. He can travel around in different forms, taking birth on different planets. The idea of reincarnation is a very great challenge. It is not a question of arguing; it is a question of experiencing in yourself that which cannot be burned, that which remembers having been in other bodies. And if it can move from one body to another body, there is no difficulty for it to move from one planet to another planet. And ultimately it has to move from all forms and disperse itself into the universal being. That is nirvana. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 21 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH Nirvana is one of the most beautiful words; I don’t think there is any other word in any language which has so much significance and meaning. Ordinarily it simply means blowing out the flame. You have a candle, and the flame is dancing, and you blow it out. Can you answer where the flame has gone? It must have gone somewhere. Nirvana means: your life is just like a flame – when it becomes difficult to live in one body, one form, it simply moves into another form. The other form is determined by its desires, its longings. Be very conscious about your desires and your longings because they are creating the seed of a new form already, without your knowing. I have experienced, with many people, taking them back to their old forms. And I was surprised – because there is no mention of this fact in any Eastern scripture – that somebody who is a man, when he remembers, he remembers himself as a woman in his past life. If he goes deeper he again remembers himself as a man. At first I was puzzled, because it is not mentioned anywhere. But then I could see the point that every woman is desiring to be a man. She thinks, ”I am confined in the home, and the man is enjoying everything.” And every man thinks, once in a while, ”The beauty, the mystery of a woman ...” So it is very natural that you are creating your other form already without doing it consciously. If you are man you will be born as woman. And this is a vicious circle, because when you die, you die unconsciously; when you are born you are born unconsciously. So you don’t know from where you are coming, or what was the reason for your taking this form. The whole foundation of meditation is to make you so alert that you can see the forming of seeds and desires and drop them. If you can die without a seed ... If you die in a half-hearted way, not totally, with something incomplete, with something you wanted to do and death has come in between – then you cannot expect to disappear into the universal. Then the flame will take another home, according to your desires, your reincarnations. Meditation simply means to drop, slowly slowly, all your desires. And when death comes, celebrate it; celebrate it because everything is complete and you are ready. This readiness and completeness will give you the ultimate freedom of formlessness. That formlessness is nirvana. All these buddhas, like Dogen, are pointing towards that formlessness. First, he is talking about relativity: WHEN WE LOOK BACK AT THE SHORE FROM OUR BOAT, WE MISTAKENLY FEEL AS IF THE SHORE WERE MOVING. BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR BOAT WITH CARE, WE FIND THAT IT IS OUR BOAT THAT IS ACTUALLY MOVING. SIMILARLY, WHEN WE SEE ALL THINGS WITH THE DELUDED IDEA THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER, WE MISTAKENLY THINK INNATE MIND AND NATURE ARE ETERNAL. BUT WHEN WE REALIZE THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE INSEPARABLE, WE SEE CLEARLY THAT ALL THINGS ARE NOT SUBSTANTIAL. The body has a substantiality. When someone dies all the elements of the body dissolve into their sources: water into water and air into air and earth into earth. Only one invisible bird, weightless .... There have been experiments where a man was weighed while he was alive, and weighed again after he has died. The weight does not differ; he is the same weight both times. To the Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 22 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH objective mind, it means that nothing has moved out, because if there is a soul which moves out of the body, then certainly it would have weight. Experiments have even been done putting the dying man in a glass case, so that they can see if something moves out .... It will have to break the glass somewhere. But the glass remains intact as the man dies. These things have supported the atheists, who say that there is no such thing as a soul. These conclusions are absolutely rational but stupid. There is no contradiction in being both stupid and rational. Of course the intellectual person will be more profoundly stupid than ordinary idiots; ordinary idiots are simple people. But there are extraordinary idiots, and because of their rationality they have turned almost the whole world’s mind toward being materialistic. Half of the world is communist, which does not believe that there is anything in the body; it is just a combination of materials. The remaining half of the world, which thinks it is spiritual, only thinks; it never experiments. The experiment is not to be done in a scientific lab. It has to be done within yourself. That’s what we are doing here – to find something immaterial, invisible to the eyes, untouchable by the hands, but still the very heart of our being, the very throb of our being. Once you have known it all fear of death disappears. And a new courage – so fresh like a morning rose, still with dewdrops shining on it in the sun – a new courage to rebel against all that is traditionally accepted, that may be rationally accepted but is not based on the actual experience of meditation ... Other than meditation, there is no way to decide whether you are just matter or there is something immaterial. Without that immaterial part you lose all your splendor. Only that immaterial part of your being gives you dignity; it makes you not only a man, but makes you capable of touching the highest peak of being a buddha. FIREWOOD, WHEN BURNED, BECOMES ASH; THE ASH NEVER REVERTS TO BEING FIREWOOD. STILL, WE SHOULD NOT REGARD FIREWOOD AS A BEFORE, AND ASH AS AN AFTER. WE MUST REALIZE THAT FIREWOOD IS IN THE POSITION OF FIREWOOD WITH OR WITHOUT BEFORE AND AFTER. ASH IS IN THE POSITION OF ASH WITH OR WITHOUT BEFORE AND AFTER. What Dogen is trying to say is that when firewood disappears into a heap of ash you should not think that something in existence has changed – only the form has changed. The ash was present in the firewood, unmanifest. The fire has helped the ash to become manifest and visible. These are ways of saying some things which are more difficult to say directly. But I can say them directly to you; this is not an assembly of kindergarten seekers. What you are, you have been the same before, whatever the form, and if you can discover yourself then it does not matter in what form you will move. And if you can penetrate your self to its very center – because your self has a circumference and a center .... If you remain at the circumference then you will move into another form – but if your arrow reaches to the very center you have graduated from forms. Now you are capable of being one with the universe; now you can sing with the birds, dance with the flowers, shine with the stars. From a small dewdrop, you have become the very ocean. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 23 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH In America, which has produced very few men who are worth quoting, one man is certainly significant, but seems to be almost forgotten. He is William James. He introduced this beautiful word ‘oceanic’. People have forgotten him and his word because very few people reach to that experience. But here everybody has to reach to the experience ... from the dewdrop to the ocean. Unless you experience ‘oceanic’ yourself, spreading in all ten directions, in absolute freedom, you have not used the great opportunity of life. Dogen is saying, WE CAN NO MORE COME BACK TO LIFE AFTER OUR DEATH THAN FIREWOOD CAN BECOME FIREWOOD AGAIN AFTER HAVING BECOME ASH. IN BUDDHISM, THEREFORE, IT IS SAID THAT LIFE NEVER BECOMES DEATH; LIFE IS BEYOND THE CONCEPTION OF LIFE. IT SAYS THAT DEATH DOES NOT BECOME LIFE; DEATH IS BEYOND THAT OF DEATH. LIFE AND DEATH ARE BOTH ONLY ONE STAGE OF TIME, JUST LIKE WINTER AND SPRING. LIKEWISE, WE MUST NOT THINK THAT WINTER BECOMES SPRING, OR SAY THAT SPRING BECOMES SUMMER. Dogen is saying that forms don’t change into other forms. Winter remains winter, summer remains summer, but something inner moves on from one climate to another climate ... which is beyond birth and beyond death, which is beyond life, which simply is. You can give it any shape, any form, but you cannot take away its isness. This isness is the greatest discovery of the East, the West has missed it completely. A haiku by Hokushi runs: THE MOON ON THE PINE; I KEEP HANGING IT – TAKING IT OFF AND GAZING EACH TIME. I have told you the moon is one of the great symbols in the mystery school of Zen ... you will come across the moon many times from different aspects. THE MOON ON THE PINE; I KEEP HANGING IT ... Just try to understand the poetry. I KEEP HANGING IT – TAKING IT OFF AND GAZING EACH TIME. Certainly you cannot hang the moon and take it off; but what you can do, you can open your eyes and you can close your eyes. When you close your eyes you have taken the moon away. When you open your eyes you bring the moon again. And gazing at it every time – it never fulfills the desire, the longing for beautitude. Another haiku runs, Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 24 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH ONE FULL MOON; STARS NUMBERLESS; THE SKY DARK GREEN. These are not ordinary poetries, these are expressions of deep meditation. Night, and particularly moonlit nights, have been found to be very supportive to meditation. Now even science suspects that the moon has a certain effect on the mind; because most of the people who go mad, go mad on a full moon night, hence the word ‘lunatic’. It comes from luna, the moon. Another word is ‘moonstruck’ .... More people commit suicide on the full moon than at any other time and more people have become enlightened on the full moon than at any other time. Science has its own reasons .... The moon is really a part of the earth. Some four billion years ago a great chunk of the earth separated from the earth. All our great oceans are because of that chunk; deep valleys were left for rain to fill and they became the oceans. The moon has one sixth the gravitation of the earth, because it is one sixth the size. That means that gazing at the moon, you slowly, slowly become more light, the gravitation is less on your being. That is the scientist’s explanation. And you can see the effect on the seas, because they are holding the place of the moon ... where the moon used to be once. That’s why on the full moon there are great tides. In the human body there is eighty percent water, ocean water with the same chemicals. Just as tides arise in the ocean, something arises in the human being. If he is on the right track perhaps he may become enlightened. And if he is on the wrong track he can commit suicide or commit a murder or go mad ... there are thousands of ways. But there is only one way that reaches to your ultimate sensitivity, the way of meditation, the way of closing all outgoing doors and being in. And once in a while these Zen meditators have opened their eyes and they have seen the moon or a sunset or a lotus, and out of their meditation a certain expression has arisen. Only through meditation will you be able to understand it – it is not poetry, it is not written with the mind, it is a heartfelt feeling. ONE FULL MOON; STARS NUMBERLESS; THE SKY DARK GREEN. If you are in deep meditation and you see this dark sky with so many stars and one single moon, immediately your silence will become immensely deeper. These haikus are not meaningful for those who have not experienced anything of meditation. A haiku by Shiki: Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 25 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH EVENING MOON: PLUM BLOSSOMS START TO FALL UPON THE LUTE. These are pictures seen by a deeply meditative consciousness. They don’t mean anything, they are not supposed to have any meaning, they are pictorial. Once Picasso was asked .... A man was watching him painting continuously for hours; finally he said, ”I cannot resist asking, because I have been watching you paint for hours, but I can’t make any sense out of what you are painting. What is it? What is the meaning of it?” Picasso looked at the man and said, ”I don’t know. You can ask the picture yourself.” The man said, ”Are you insane or something?” Picasso said, ”Perhaps, but nobody asks the rose, ‘Why are you so beautiful? Why are you here in the first place?’ Nobody asks a sunset, nobody asks a full moon, but everybody goes on harassing me, ‘What is the meaning of your painting?’ There is no meaning, it is a statement. I have enjoyed it tremendously, just the colors, flowing into each other, creating strange patterns.” Meaning is no more relevant in the world of beauty. And what to say about the world of meditation? – no meaning, only significance. That’s why those who have experienced have remained silent, or have spoken only to indicate to you the path to be silent. Question 1 Maneesha has asked, OUR BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS OUR INVESTMENT IN REPRESSING OUR MEMORY OF PREVIOUS DEATHS? IS IT NOT TRUE TO SAY THAT IF WE COULD RECALL OUR DEATHS WE MIGHT LOSE OUR FEAR OF DEATH AND THUS BE ABLE TO LIVE A FEARLESS LIFE? Maneesha, this is certainly one of our great investments in forgetting the past, the previous life. Because if you remember it, you will not be able to be so foolish as to repeat the same game again. You have done it so many times; you have fallen in love, you have fallen out of love, so many times ... so many romances! Our great investment is that each time we go to see the same film we forget that we have seen it before. Otherwise you will not go to see the movie, only once is enough. But in life you don’t complete the work in one time, in one lifetime. Your real work remains postponed and you go on playing games which are simply childish. The great investment is that you should not remember your whole past, otherwise you will feel yourself to be so much an idiot that enjoying life will become impossible. Only suicide will seem to be the right thing to do. But suicide leads Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 26 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH nowhere, it simply enters your consciousness into another womb of a lower kind, because you could not manage to live on a higher level. The investment also includes forgetting that you have ever died. It is always somebody else who dies, you never die. Obviously – you see every day, you hear every day that somebody has died; but you never hear that you have died. Except in this Buddha Hall where you hear every day, ”Now die and don’t hold anything back, die completely.” People from the outside will think, ”This is a madhouse. People who are fully alive suddenly die and then don’t wait much ... as they are called back, immediately they are back, sitting like buddhas!” We are making it clear through our meditations that this is how it has been happening, you have been dying many times and again coming back. Whether you come after nine months ... an unnecessary wastage of time, of a woman’s life ... then growing up and again playing the same role which you have played before .... In the East the world is called sansara. Sansara means the great wheel of life and death. It goes on moving, the same wheel, and you are clinging to the wheel and you go on moving with the wheel from one death to another, from one life to another. The investment is that unless you learn the lesson, you cannot come out of this vicious circle of life and death. But you can come out. Every night we try; you jump a little ... it is old habit; when you come back you just try to find out where the wheel is. Soon you have forgotten about the center which was beyond life and death – suddenly you remember, ”Where is the canteen?” One naturally feels hungry after such a strenuous experience of dying and coming back, becoming a buddha ... knowing perfectly well that anybody may be a buddha, ”But I am not; I have my wife, I have my children to look after. Just for a moment is okay, but twenty-four hours a buddha will not only be boring, it will be also a torture to others.” From my very childhood I was interested just to sit and not to do anything. I have never done any homework; my teachers were angry, ”What do you go on doing at home?” I said, ”I simply sit and enjoy.” My family, and whoever would be passing by used to say, ”What are you doing?” I said, ”There is no need to do anything – to be is enough!” And they would look at me and say, ”You are crazy! Do something, otherwise you will end up in being nothing.” And they were right, I have ended in being nothing. But I am immensely happy that I started very early to see that the greatest joy is inside, nobody can give it to me. I have never participated in any game, I have never bothered about any work the family needed. Slowly, slowly my family started taking for granted that I was no more – my being or not being made no difference. I have enjoyed the faces of my family when they looked at me as if they were looking at an insane person; I still enjoy to remember it. Naturally if you are not doing something people think you are Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 27 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH wasting your life. The reality is that when you are not doing anything, when you are just being, you are finding the path towards your ultimate destiny. Before we die and become buddhas ... one time more, because one never knows about tomorrow, so better become tonight .... Just a few small laughs, because Sardar Gurudayal Singh is waiting very silently. And Avirbhava .... When Gozo the gorilla dies his female companion, Gertie, gets very horny. After a few months she begins to get violent, as her need for sex increases. Finally the zookeepers decide to get a man to make love to her. They go downtown and pick up Jose, a big Mexican, and offer him twenty dollars to do the job. They put a muzzle on Gertie’s mouth, tie her arms to the bars, and then let the Mexican into the cage. When Gertie sees that Jose has an erection, she goes wild. She rips her arms loose from the bars and begins crushing him in her embrace. ”Help!” shouts Jose. ”For Christ’s sake, help!” ”Don’t worry,” shouts the keeper. ”We’ll get the elephant gun and shoot her!” ”No! No!” cries Jose. ”Don’t shoot her! Just get her muzzle off – I want to kiss her!” Dodoski has fallen on hard times, so he turns to crime. He kidnaps the six-year-old son of the richest man in Warsaw. Dodoski writes the ransom note, asks for half a million dollars, and signs his name. But he has forgotten the rich man’s address. So he gives the note to the boy, and tells him to take it to his dad. The boy does, and when he comes back with the money, he is carrying a note from his father. It reads: ”Here, take the filthy money, you rat. It’s guys like you that give us Polacks a bad name!” After a wild Saturday night of partying, Swami Deva Coconut is hauled off to a Sunday morning Mass by his Catholic girlfriend, Beverly. Since he is totally ignorant of the various rituals involved, Beverly is constantly coaching him. ”Bless yourself,” she whispers. ”Now kneel down – sit down – stand up – sit down again – cross yourself ...” – and so on. Perspiring from all this activity, Coconut takes out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his face. Then he lays it on his lap to dry. Seeing this, Beverly leans over and whispers, ”Is your zipper open?” ”No,” replies Coconut hastily, ”should it be?” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 28 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH Donald Dickstein walks into an optician’s office, carrying a cardboard box. He hands it to the optician who opens it and exclaims, ”Wow! That’s the biggest turd I’ve ever seen!” ”Isn’t it a beauty?” says Donald. ”I did it myself.” The optician is very impressed and says, ”It must be at least two feet long.” ”Twenty-five and a half inches, to be exact,” boasts Donald. ”And three inches in diameter.” ”Incredible,” says the optician. ”How much does it weigh?” ”Two and a half pounds,” is the proud reply. ”That is simply amazing!” exclaims the optician, unable to take his eyes off the magnificent specimen. ”But why bring it to me? I’m an optician.” ”Well, you see,” says Donald, ”I have this problem. Every time I do one of these monsters, my eyes water!” Now, Nivedano, do a real good job because skinhead Niskriya is back .... Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Be silent ... Close your eyes ... No movement of the body. Let your whole consciousness gather inwards. Deeper and deeper ... You are entering into your buddhahood. Without any fear go in, it is your own home. Except knowing this, all knowledge is useless. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 29 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH Except experiencing this you have wasted your very life in mundane things. This is the sacred moment, drink it as deeply as possible. Be soaked through and through. Buddhahood is not an achievement, it is only a discovery, it is only going within your paper bag. You are not your bones, you are not your head, you are not even your heart, you are this beyondness, this silence. Even if for a single moment you can experience it your whole life will have a transformation. To make it more clear, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Relax..let go ... die. Die to the world, die to the body, die to the mind, so that only the eternal remains in you. This formless eternal brings you a new birth. You have entered as a human being, you can come out of this womb of the beyond Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 30 Osho CHAPTER 2. FIREWOOD AND ASH as a buddha. This bliss, this silence, these roses blossoming within you, they are your birthright. One can remain ignorant, but one cannot be anything else than a buddha ... awakened, enlightened, that is our very destiny. Nivedano .... (Drumbeat) Come back without forgetting the experience, sit down for a while, just for a few moments drop the doubt that you cannot be a buddha. You are. In spite of yourself, you are. If this becomes an undercurrent twenty-four hours, waking or sleeping, your life will know what this existence is all about. You will know the freedom, the ultimate freedom which you have been longing for for many, many lives. Don’t miss it this time. Okay, Maneesha? Yes, Beloved Master. Can we celebrate ten thousand buddhas together? Yes, Beloved Master. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 31 Osho CHAPTER 3 The mountainless ocean 27 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium OUR BELOVED MASTER, DOGEN CONTINUES: WHEN WE LOOK AROUND OUR BOAT ON THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN, WE SEE NOTHING BUT THE CIRCULAR SHAPE OF THE OCEAN. BUT THIS LARGE OCEAN IS NOT CIRCULAR OR SQUARE; ITS OTHER SHAPES AND MOVEMENTS ARE INNUMERABLE. TO FISH IT IS LIKE A PALACE. TO CELESTIAL BEINGS IT IS LIKE A NECKLACE. ONLY AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN REACH, DOES IT TEMPORARILY APPEAR CIRCULAR. THIS IS ALSO THE CASE WITH ALL THINGS. ALL THINGS WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY HAVE VARIOUS ASPECTS, BUT WE CAN SEE AND REALIZE THEM ONLY THROUGH PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING .... HOWEVER FAR FISH SAIL IN THE WATER, THERE IS NO END TO THE WATER. HOWEVER FAR BIRDS FLY IN THE SKY, THERE IS NO END TO THE SKY. BUT NEITHER OF THEM HAS EVER LEFT THE WATER OR THE SKY. WHEN THEIR NEED IS GREAT, THERE IS GREAT ACTIVITY; WHEN THEIR NEED IS SMALL, THERE IS LITTLE ACTIVITY. THUS THEY NEVER FAIL TO EXPRESS THEIR FULL ABILITY IN EACH THING, AND EXERT THEIR FREE ACTIVITY IN EACH PLACE. BUT AS SOON AS A BIRD LEAVES THE SKY, IT DIES. THIS IS ALSO THE CASE WHEN A FISH LEAVES THE WATER. WE CAN REALIZE THAT THE WATER IS LIFE TO THE FISH; THAT THE 32 CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN SKY IS LIFE TO THE BIRD; THAT THE BIRD IS LIFE TO THE SKY; THE FISH IS LIFE TO THE WATER; THAT LIFE IS A BIRD, OR THAT LIFE IS THE FISH. ABOUT THIS THERE MAY BE MANY OTHER EXPRESSIONS. IN THE HUMAN WORLD THERE ARE PRACTICE AND ENLIGHTENMENT, OR LONG LIFE AND SHORT LIFE. THIS IS ALSO THE REAL STATE OF THINGS. NEVERTHELESS, IF A BIRD OR FISH TRIES TO GO THROUGH THE SKY OR THE WATER AFTER KNOWING IT COMPLETELY, IT WILL FIND NO WAY TO GO ALONG OR NO PLACE TO ATTAIN. Maneesha, Eastern mysticism has accepted layers of reality. Western science knows only one reality – that of matter. It is poor, it lacks variety. The Eastern mysticism, of which Zen is just the ultimate peak, accepts the reality of your inner self which you cannot see, cannot understand, but which you are. You can be awakened to it or you can remain asleep, it makes no difference to the inner quality of your being. That is your ultimate reality. Then there is the body, which is only an appearance – an appearance in the sense that it is changing constantly. You see a beautiful woman or a beautiful man and they are already becoming old. The moment you rejoice in the beauty of a rose, the time for it to disappear back into the earth is not far away. This kind of reality has also its place in the Eastern vision. They call it appearance, moment to moment changing. There is a time to be born and there is a time to die. The seasons will come again, and the flowers will blossom again. It is the round trip of existence in which – except your being, your center – everything goes on changing. This changing world is a relative reality. And then there are other realities – like dreams. You know they are not, but still you see them. Not only do you see them, they affect you. If you have a nightmare and you wake up, you will see your heart is beating harder, your breath is changed by the nightmare. You may be even perspiring out of fear. You cannot say that the nightmare is not there; otherwise from where has this perspiration come, and this changed heartbeat and breathing? Eastern mysticism accepts this third layer of reality: the dream, the horizon that you see all around, which exists nowhere ... but you can see it from anywhere. Before I explain Dogen to you, let this be the introduction, because this is what he is trying to say: that everything passes and yet there is something that never passes; that everything is born and dies and yet there is something that is never born and never dies. And unless you get centered into that eternal source you will not find peace, you will not find serenity, you will not find blissfulness, you will not find contentment. You will not feel at home, at ease in the universe. You will remain just an accident, you will never become essential. And the whole effort of Zen, or any meditative method, is to bring you closer to that which never changes, that which is always. It knows no time .... If there is no change, how can there be past, future, present? The world that knows past, future and present can only be relatively real – today it is there, tomorrow it is gone. The body you had believed in so much one day dies. The mind you had believed in so much does not follow you, it dies with the body. It has been a part of the body mechanism. That which flies out of the body in death is an invisible bird flying into an invisible sky. But if you are aware you will be dancing, because for the first time you will have known what freedom is. It is Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 33 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN not a political freedom or an economic freedom; it is a more fundamental, existential freedom. And anything that grows out of this freedom is beautiful, graceful. Your eyes are the same, but their vision has changed. Your love is there but it is no more lust, it is no more possessiveness. It transforms itself into compassion. You still share your joy in your songs, in your dances, in your poetry, in your music – but just for their sheer joy. It has been a centuries-long debate: What is art for? There have been pragmatic utilitarians who say that art should serve some purpose, otherwise it is useless. But these people don’t know art. Art can only be for its own sake. It is the sheer joy of a solitary cuckoo, of the bamboos standing in silence, of a bird flying into the sky. Just the very flight, the very feel of freedom, is enough unto itself. It need not serve anything else. But that is possible only if you have known your fundamental existence. You are acquainted with the mind, which is borrowed, which is nurtured, educated. You are acquainted with your body very superficially. You don’t know how it functions, although it is your body. You don’t know how it turns food into blood, how it distributes oxygen to different parts of the body. The body has its own wisdom. Nature has not left it to you to remember breathing, because you can forget. You are so sleepy, nature cannot take the risk. If you had to remember breathing, I don’t think you would have been here. You would have been forgotten long before. But whether you remember or not, whether you are awake or asleep, the breathing continues on its own, the heart goes on working on its own, the stomach goes on digesting on its own. It does not ask your advice, nor does it need any medical education, nor does it need any advice. It has simply an intrinsic wisdom of its own. But it is just your house – you are not it. This house is going to become, one day, old. One day its walls will start dropping away, its doors falling. One day there will not be even a trace of the house – all will be gone. But what happened to the man who used to live in the house? You have to understand that principle. You can call it awareness, enlightenment, consciousness, buddhahood – it doesn’t matter what name you give to it. But it is the absolute responsibility of every human being not to waste time in mundane affairs. First things first! And the first thing is to be and to know what this being is. Don’t go on running after butterflies. Don’t go on looking at the horizon which only appears to be but is not. I am reminded ... Twenty-three centuries ago, Alexander the Great came to India. His teacher was a great philosopher, the father of logic, Aristotle. And when he was coming towards India, Aristotle asked him, ”Can you bring something for me as a gift?” Alexander said, ”Anything – just say it.” Aristotle said, ”It is not so easy, but I will wait. Please bring me a sannyasin when you come back, a man who has realized himself. Because we don’t know what this means ... what it means to be a buddha. Get hold of a buddha and bring him with you.” Alexander was not aware of what he was promising. He said, ”Don’t be worried. If Alexander wants to move the Himalayas, they will have to move. And you are asking only about a human being. Just wait – within a few months I will be back.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 34 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN And there was so much to do that he remembered only at the last moment that he had forgotten to catch hold of a buddha, of one who knows the innermost reality. He inquired on the borders of India as he was returning. People laughed at the very idea. They said, ”In the first place, it is very difficult to recognize that somebody is a buddha. In the second place, if by chance you are open enough to receive the radiance of a buddha, you will fall down at his feet. You will forget all about taking him with you. We hope that you don’t find a buddha – just go back home.” Alexander could not understand .... What kind of human being is a buddha, that he cannot be taken away by force? Finally, he said: ”Send messengers all over the place, find out if there is somebody who proclaims that he has arrived home.” And people came, and they said, ”Yes, one naked sannyasin standing by the side of the river says, ‘Where else can I be? – I am here. And who else I can be? – I am the buddha.’” Alexander went himself to meet the man. The dialogue was tremendously beautiful, but very shocking to Alexander the Great. He had never come across such a man because before he said a single word – he was holding a naked sword in his hand – the old man, naked, poor, said, ”Put your sword back into its sheath, it will not be needed here. A man of intelligence carrying a sword? I will hit you! Just put the sword back into its sheath.” Alexander for the first time found somebody who could order him, and he had to follow. In spite of himself he had to follow. And he said, ”I have come with a prayer: Just come with me, to my land. My teacher wants to see a buddha. In the West we don’t know anything about what this inner self means.” The old man laughed. He said, ”This is hilarious. If your teacher does not know, he is not even a teacher. And if he wants to see a buddha, he will have to come to a buddha; a buddha cannot be carried to him. Just tell your teacher, ‘If you are thirsty, come to the well; the well is not going to come to you.’” ”And as for you, Alexander,” the old man said, ”learn at least to be human. You introduced yourself as Alexander the Great. This is the ego that is preventing you from knowing your buddha. You are carrying it within yourself, but this ‘greatness’, this desire to conquer the world ... What will you do with conquering the world? Soon death will take everything away. You will die naked, you will be buried in the earth. Nobody will bother not to tread over you, and you will not be even able to object, ‘Keep away. I am Alexander the Great.’ Please drop this idea of greatness. And also remember that the word ‘Alexander’ is not your name.” Alexander said, ”My God! It is my name – how can I convince you?” He said, ”There is no question of convincing me. Nobody comes into the world with a name. All kinds of names are given – labels stuck, glued – and you become the label. You forget completely that you had come without any name, without any fame. And you will die in the same way. ”Tell your teacher to come here to face the lion. If he has the capacity to move inwards, only then can he know what it means to be a buddha; what it means to be enlightened. By somebody else becoming enlightened you cannot understand it – it is just like when somebody else drinks water it cannot quench your thirst.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 35 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN Alexander touched the feet of the old man and said, ”I am sorry to disturb you. Perhaps we don’t understand each other’s language at all.” And it is even today true: the Western mind and the Western educated mind – it may have been born in the East – has forgotten the language which Dogen is going to use. You have to be very conscious, very alert, that you don’t misunderstand. A different world, a different climate which used to be here, which had made this world a beautiful searching and seeking pilgrimage .... Now it is only a marketplace for purchasing arms, and fighting and killing and wars. Who bothers about meditation? It seems to be a very faraway echo. It does not seem to be related with us in any way. But unless you are open to this faraway echo, you will not understand what Dogen is saying. Dogen says: WHEN WE LOOK AROUND OUR BOAT ON THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN, WE SEE NOTHING BUT THE CIRCULAR SHAPE OF THE OCEAN. BUT THIS LARGE OCEAN IS NOT CIRCULAR OR SQUARE; ITS OTHER SHAPES AND MOVEMENTS ARE INNUMERABLE. TO FISH IT IS LIKE A PALACE. TO CELESTIAL BEINGS IT IS LIKE A NECKLACE. ONLY AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN REACH, DOES IT TEMPORARILY APPEAR CIRCULAR. Its circularness is only an appearance. Although when you see it, it is there, you know that it is not a reality. If you go towards it you will never reach it; it will go on receding ... it is the horizon. But it has a certain reality of its own, although it is not the ultimate reality. Our body is our circumference, our horizon. It appears, it lives, it breathes, yet it is not our very self. THIS IS ALSO THE CASE WITH ALL THINGS. ALL THINGS WORLDLY AND UNWORLDLY HAVE VARIOUS ASPECTS, BUT WE CAN SEE AND REALIZE THEM ONLY THROUGH PRACTICAL UNDERSTANDING. For a blind man there is no light. It happened ... A very learned scholar was blind, in the times of Gautam Buddha. And he was so articulate in argumentation that the whole village was tortured by him, because everybody tried, ”You are blind, that’s why light is not within your reach.” But he said, ”Then make it available through other sources. I can hear – beat it like a drum. ” You cannot beat light like a drum. And the blind man said, ”I can touch, at least let me touch light. My hand is open – where is your light? I can smell ...” But all these senses are not capable of sensing the reality of light. The whole village was tortured: ”What to do with this man? He is so argumentative ... we all know what light is, but he denies it. And he has valid reasons – we cannot offer any proof.” They heard that Gautam Buddha was coming to their village. They thought, ”This is a good opportunity to take this blind man to Gautam Buddha. If Gautam Buddha cannot convince him then perhaps it is not possible. And either way it will be very crucial; we can see how far Gautam Buddha can argue with this man.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 36 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN But they were wrong. Gautam Buddha did not argue with the man. He simply said, ”Don’t harass him, it is ugly of you to tell him there is light. If you were compassionate enough you should have tried to find some physician to cure his eyes. Light is not an argument; you need eyes to see it and then there is no question of any doubt.” Gautam Buddha had his own personal physician. He told his physician, ”You remain in this village until this man’s eyes are cured. I will be moving with my caravan.” After six months the physician and the blind man came, but he was no more blind. He came dancing! He fell to the feet of Gautam Buddha and he said, ”I am so grateful to you that you were not philosophical with me, that you did not humiliate me. That rather than making a great argumentation, you simply made a simple point: that it is not a question of light, it is a question of eyes.” The same is true about the inner self – it is not a question of your intelligence, not a question of your rationality, not a question of your logic, of your scientific knowledge, of your scriptures. It is a question of direct penetration with closed eyes into your own being, hidden behind your bones. Once that is known, a tremendous relaxation follows. Life for the first time becomes a dance. Even death is no more a disturbance. HOWEVER FAR FISH SAIL IN THE WATER, THERE IS NO END TO THE WATER. HOWEVER FAR BIRDS FLY IN THE SKY, THERE IS NO END TO THE SKY. BUT NEITHER OF THEM HAS EVER LEFT THE WATER OR THE SKY. It is an ancient story ... about a very curious young fish inquiring, ”I have heard so much about the ocean but I don’t see where it is.” An old fish said to the young philosopher, ”Don’t be an idiot – we are in the ocean, and we are the ocean. We come out of it and we disappear into it. We are nothing but waves in the ocean.” The same is true about the birds. Do you think they can find the sky? Although they are flying all the day – faraway places – they cannot find the sky. Because they are born out of the sky and one day they will disappear into the sky. These are symbolic statements. They are in fact saying that you are part of the universe. You arise like a wave in the universe and you disappear one day back into the universe. This universe is not something objective, it is something subjective. It is something that is connected with your innermost core. If you have found yourself you have found the whole ocean, the whole sky, with all its stars, with all its flowers, with all its birds. To find oneself is to find everything. And to miss oneself ... you may have palaces and empires and great riches – all is futile. WHEN THEIR NEED IS GREAT, THERE IS GREAT ACTIVITY; WHEN THEIR NEED IS SMALL, THERE IS LITTLE ACTIVITY. The fish and the birds are spontaneous beings. Except man, in this whole universe nobody has gone insane. You go on working even though there is no need to work – keep busy, without any business, otherwise somebody will point out to you, ”What are you doing?” And you don’t have the courage to say, ”I am just being.” Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 37 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN People will laugh and they will suggest, ”Do something, just being will not help. Get a job! Earn money.” But a fish will not work more than is absolutely needed. Henry Ford, before his death, was asked, ”You have long before passed the line, broken all records of richness. Now there is no competitor against you. Why do you go on working continuously?” And you will be surprised to know that he used to come to his office at seven o’clock every morning. The peons used to come at ten o’clock, the clerks at eleven, the manager at twelve. The manager would be gone by four, the clerks would be gone by five, the peons would be gone by six, but Henry Ford was still working. And he was the richest man of his times. The questioner was right to ask him, ”Why do you go on and on and on? It is unnecessary activity. You have earned so much, you could do anything you wanted.” And his answer is that of a wise man; unenlightened, but certainly life had made him wise. He said, ”It just became a habit. I could not stop myself becoming more and more rich. I knew it was not needed any more, but it is very difficult to drop an old habit, a whole-life-long habit.” Except man ... no trees have any habits, nor birds, nor fish. The whole nature is spontaneous. It simply functions when it is needed, it stops functioning and remains simply silent when it is not needed. In fact, according to me this is sanity: to do only that much as is needed. Even to go a single inch further and you have moved beyond sanity, you have become insane. And there is no end to insanity. WHEN THEIR NEED IS GREAT, THERE IS GREAT ACTIVITY. This can be understood from many aspects. Except man, no animal is interested in sex all the year round. There is a season, a mating season; once that season is gone ... for the remainder of the year nobody bothers about sex. You will not find sex maniacs amongst birds, nor will you find celibates. You will not find, even in their mating season, that they are greatly happy. I have been watching birds, animals, and I am amazed that their sexual activity seems to be a thing forced on them. They don’t look happy. Just look at a dog making love. He is doing it under some compulsion, some biological compulsion, otherwise he is not interested. And once the season is gone there is no interest at all. That’s why marriage has not appeared in the animal world. What will you do with a marriage? Once the mating season ends – good-bye to each other! But with man it is a habit. He has turned even a biological necessity into a habit. You will be surprised to know that, according to psychologists and their surveys, every man is thinking about women at least once every four minutes, and every woman is thinking of men at least once every seven minutes. This disparity is the cause of tremendous misery. That’s why every night, when the husband comes home ... the wife was perfectly okay, and suddenly she starts having a British face, she is suffering from a headache. Brilliant husbands bring super- strong Greek aspirins home with them. But there are very rarely brilliant husbands, because if you are brilliant you will never be a husband. That kind of thing is for the retarded, the brilliant remain absolutely free. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 38 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN If you watch humanity, you will not believe that it is not a madhouse. Somebody is smoking a cigarette ... even though on the packet it is written it is dangerous to your life. And just the other day, my ear was having a little ache. Anando was there. I asked her, ”Can you bring a cotton-tip?” She said, ”No.” Now even on cotton-tips the same statement has been written, ”It is dangerous to your health. Don’t use them.” And Anando said to me, ”Poor Hasya was saying that this was her only enjoyment, now even that is gone.” Sitting silently and enjoying ... It was not any harm to anybody. There are people who are chewing gum. One cannot think of a more idiotic thing. Chewing gum? Gum is made for chewing? People are doing all kinds of things that, if they watch and note them down, they will find .... ”My God, these things I am doing, and people still think me sane.” But everybody is keeping a mask and trying to hide every insanity behind it. You will see soon, when we meditate ... because in meditation you have to put your mask away and let all the insanity of centuries come out. Don’t hold it back, because it is a tremendous cleansing. And once you are a clean, clear consciousness your realization of buddhahood is not far away – perhaps just one step more. Dogen goes on: THUS THEY NEVER FAIL TO EXPRESS THEIR FULL ABILITY IN EACH THING, AND EXERT THEIR FREE ACTIVITY IN EACH PLACE. BUT AS SOON AS A BIRD LEAVES THE SKY, IT DIES. THIS IS ALSO THE CASE WHEN A FISH LEAVES THE WATER. What about man? He has left his ocean long before. His oceanic relationship with existence is completely broken, there is no bridge left. And this is what is making him do all kinds of stupid things. In three thousand years, five thousand wars. One cannot believe that we are here just to kill each other. Isn’t there anything more important than nuclear weapons? Seventy percent of the whole humanity’s income goes into war efforts. Even the poor countries, where they cannot afford food twice a day for their people, where they are living under the poverty line, still they are wasting seventy percent of their income in creating bombs, in purchasing weapons. Do you think anything can be more insane than war? A country like Germany, one of the most cultured, fell into the hands of a madman, Adolf Hitler. Nobody thinks about why it happened. Even a man like Martin Heidegger, perhaps the greatest philosopher in Germany, was a follower of Adolf Hitler. And Adolf Hitler was absolutely insane. He needed to be hospitalized. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 39 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN But there must be something in every man to which he appealed. The whole Germany – with all its intelligence – became a victim. And you can see the stupidity. He said, ”It is because of the Jews that Germany is not rising as a world power, otherwise it is our birthright to rule over the world. It is because of the Jews.” I have heard a small anecdote. The head rabbi of Berlin, on a morning walk, came across Adolf Hitler. It was a strange meeting, accidental; both had gone for a morning walk. Adolf Hitler recognized the head rabbi and he said, ”Do you agree with me or not? What do you think is the cause that the German Nordic Aryans are not ruling all over the world?” The rabbi said, ”It is the bicycles. Destroy all bicycles and you will rule all over the world.” Adolf Hitler said, ”Are you sane?” He said, ”As sane as you are. You have killed six million Jews on a pretext, without any reason.” Why did people become convinced that he was right about such a stupid thing, that the Jews were preventing Germany from becoming a great power? The Jews contributed wealth, intelligence, everything to Germany. You will be surprised to know that forty percent of Nobel Prizes go to the Jews. But why did all the remaining Germans become convinced? It was out of jealousy. The Jews were rich, the Jews were intelligent, the Jews were always on top in everything. It is very dangerous to be successful in an insane world because everybody wants to kill you – on any grounds; right or wrong, it does not matter. The whole of Germany became convinced, not because there was any argument or reason in Adolf Hitler’s statements; but because every German was jealous of the Jewish intelligence, their success, their wealth, their lifestyle. Because of this jealousy, Adolf Hitler managed for even the most intelligent Germans to act like animals. Adolf Hitler alone killed thirty million people. And now the weapons Adolf Hitler used are just toys for children. Within these last forty years war technology has grown so much ... and it is still in the hands of people like Ronald Reagan. It is in the hands of all kinds of politicians, and politicians are people who are psychologically sick. Just the very desire for power is sickness. A healthy man wants to love – not to possess, not to dominate. A healthy man rejoices in life – does not go begging for votes. It is the people who are suffering from deep inferiority who want to have some power, to prove to themselves and to others that they are superior. The really superior person does not care a thing about power. He knows his superiority, he lives his superiority. In his songs, in his dances, in his poetry, in his paintings, in his music he lives his superiority. Only the inferior ones are left for politics. What Dogen is saying is, ”Don’t leave your sky, don’t leave your water, don’t leave your nature. Don’t leave the existential. Because once you leave it you are just corpses moving around.” IN THE HUMAN WORLD THERE ARE PRACTICE AND ENLIGHTENMENT, OR LONG LIFE AND SHORT LIFE. THIS IS ALSO THE REAL STATE OF THINGS. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 40 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN Don’t be worried that you are not enlightened. Dogen is a very unique genius. He is saying, ”You may be aware of your buddhahood or not aware of your buddhahood – don’t be worried. When the right time and the right season come you will blossom into a buddha.” Just wait ... wait intelligently, wait without desire; enjoy waiting, make waiting itself a blissful silence, and whatever is your birthright is bound to flower. Nobody can prevent a bird from flying, nobody can prevent a cuckoo from singing, nobody can prevent a rose from blossoming. Who is preventing you from becoming buddhas? Except you, nobody is responsible for it. NEVERTHELESS, IF A BIRD OR FISH TRIES TO GO THROUGH THE SKY OR THE WATER AFTER KNOWING IT COMPLETELY, IT WILL FIND NO WAY TO GO ALONG OR NO PLACE TO ATTAIN. If you go into your inner world and into your inner sky you will not find any way or any end. You will find an eternal eternity, a pilgrimage without any beginning and without any end ... an immortality, a deathlessness which suddenly transforms you totally without any effort, without any austerity, without torturing yourself. You are already what you want to be, just a small thing is missing – very small. Wake up! In your waking you are a buddha. In your sleep you remain a buddha, but you are not aware of it. When one person becomes a buddha he knows that everybody else is a buddha. Somebody is sleeping, somebody is snoring, somebody is running after a woman, somebody is doing some other kind of stupidity – but buddhas are buddhas. Even if you are smoking a cigarette, it does not mean that you have lost your essentiality; it only shows your sleep and nothing else. A poet has written: TAKING HOLD, ONE IS ASTRAY IN NOTHINGNESS; LETTING GO, THE ORIGIN IS REGAINED. Letting go, relaxing, settling into yourself, the origin is regained. SINCE THE MUSIC STOPPED, NO SHADOW’S TOUCHED MY DOOR: AGAIN THE VILLAGE MOON IS ABOVE THE RIVER. Even if you become enlightened, only your vision changes, otherwise everything remains the same. Of course, the rose is more beautiful than it used to be. Just because all the dust from your mirror is missing, the world becomes a paradise. ... MY DOOR: AGAIN THE VILLAGE MOON IS ABOVE THE RIVER ... reflecting in the river. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 41 Osho CHAPTER 3. THE MOUNTAINLESS OCEAN The more you become clean of your thoughts which are just dust, the more you become reflective. And the day you can reflect the whole existence in its purity you have arrived home. Another poem: SCOOP UP THE WATER, AND THE MOON IS IN YOUR HANDS; HOLD THE FLOWERS, AND YOUR CLOTHES ARE SCENTED WITH THEM. This is something tremendously beautiful. Zen speaks the language of poetry. What the poet is trying to say is that if you come across a buddha – you may know it or not – some fragrance of the buddha and his presence will be caught by your being. It was a usual practice in Zen that seekers continued moving from one master to another master until the moment they found a man whose very presence fulfilled them; in whose presence all their masks and defenses fell down; in whose presence they became suddenly naked, just-born, innocent. Then this was the sign that you had found your master. Basho wrote: SKYLARK SING ALL DAY, AND DAY NOT LONG ENOUGH. He is saying that you work the whole day, your whole life, never knowing the splendor of your being because your work – your so-called mundane activities – takes all your time. Life is so short, seventy years pass so quickly ... You don’t know even when your childhood becomes your youth, you don’t know when your youth disappears and you become old, you don’t know that you are moving continuously towards the grave. Whatever you do, the grave is coming closer. Remember, life is short, but it has become too short because of your unnecessary activity. I am surprised at people who are playing cards or chess, or going to the movie. And if you ask them, ”What are you doing?” they say they are killing time. As if too much time, superfluous, has been given to them and they are killing it by playing cards. Just look at people leaning on the chess board as if it is their life, standing in a line before a movie house ... I used to know a man ... he was the father of one of my friends. In my village there was only one movie hall. I saw that old man going every day, at exactly the same time, to the movie hall. And a film was shown at least for five or seven days, or more than that. It was not a big place. But he would see it every day for seven days. Dogen, the Zen Master: A Search and a Fulfillment 42 Osho
