What is Zen? What is Zen?
What is Zen? 
turiya
28 m
462
Zen was born in India, it grew in China, and blossomed in Japan. The whole situation is rare. Why did it happen that it was born in India, but could not grow there? It was because it had to seek a different soil. Bodhidarma, a follower of Buddha, took Buddha's teachings to China. There, it became a great tree in China, but could not blossom there, it had to again seek a new climate, a different atmosphere. From China it moved to Japan. And in Japan it blossomed like a cherry tree, into thousands of flowers. It was not coincidental, it was not accidental, it has a deeper inner history.
India is an introverted country, Japan is extrovert, and at the time, China was just in the middle of these two extremes. India and Japan are absolute opposites. So how come the seed was born in India and blossomed in Japan? They are opposites; they have no similarities; they are contradictory. And why did China come just in the middle, to give soil to it?
A seed is an introverted phenomenon, it is centripetal — the energy is moving inwards. A seed is an absolute island, isolated. It does not relate. It has a hard shell around it, there are no windows, no doors; it cannot go out and nothing can come in. Seed is natural to India. The genius of India can produce seeds of tremendous potentiality, but cannot give them soil. India has an introverted consciousness. In order for the seed to grow, it has to move outwardly.
India says the outer doesn’t exist and even if it exists it is of the same stuff that dreams are made of - maya. The whole genius of India has been trying to discover how to escape from the outer, how to move to the inner cave of the heart, how to be centered in oneself, and how to come to realize that the whole world that exists outside consciousness is just a dream — at the most beautiful, at the worst a nightmare; whether beautiful or ugly, in reality, it is a dream, and one should not bother much about it. One should awake, and forget the whole dream of the outer world. The whole effort of Buddha, Mahavir, Tilopa, Gorakh, Kabir, their whole effort through the centuries, has been how to escape from the wheel of life and death: how to enclose yourself, how to completely cut yourself from all relationships, how to be unrelated, detached, how to move in and to forget the outer. This is why Zen was born in India with Gautam Buddha.
With Buddha the seed came into existence. Many times before also, before Gautam Buddha, the seed came into existence, but it couldn’t find the right soil so it disappeared. The seed was born with Parsvanath, with Mahavir, Neminath, and others, but then it remained with the Indian consciousness. The Indian consciousness can give birth to a seed, but cannot become the right soil for it. It goes on working in the same direction and the seed becomes smaller and smaller, molecular, atomic and disappears. That’s how it happened with the Upanishads; that’s how it happened with the Vedas; that’s how it happened with Mahavir and all others. With Buddha it was also going to happen.
But then Bodhidharma came along. If the seed had been left with the Indian consciousness it would have dissolved. It would never have sprouted, because a different type of soil is needed for sprouting — a very balanced soil. Introversion is a very deep imbalance, it is an extreme. Bodhidharma escaped with the seed to China.
China was a very balanced country at the time, not like India, not like Japan. The golden mean is the path there. Confucian ideology is to remain always in the middle: neither be introvert, nor be extrovert; neither think too much of this world, nor too much of the other world — just remain in the middle. China has not given birth to a religion, just morality. No religion has been born there; the Chinese consciousness cannot give birth to a religion. It cannot create a seed. All the religions that exist in China have been imported, they have all come from the outside; Buddhism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity — they have all come from the outside. China is a good soil but it cannot originate any religion, because to originate a religion one has to move into the inner world. To give birth to a religion one has to be like a feminine body, a womb.
India is introvert, a feminine country; it is like a womb, very receptive. But if a child remains in the womb for ever and for ever and for ever, the womb will become the grave. The child has to move out from the mother’s womb, otherwise the mother will kill the child inside. He has to escape, to find the world outside, a greater world. The womb may be very comfortable — it is! Scientists say we have not yet been able to create anything more comfortable than the womb. With so much scientific progress we have not made anything more comfortable. The womb is just a heaven. But even the child has to leave that heaven and come outside the mother. Beyond a certain time the mother can become very dangerous. The womb can kill, because it will then become an imprisonment — good for a time, when the seed is growing, but then the seed has to be transplanted to the outside world.
Bodhidharma found that China had the best soil; it was just a middle ground, not extreme. The climate was not extreme, so the tree could grow easily. And it had very balanced people. Bodhidharma escaped with the seed, escaped with all that India had produced. Nobody was aware of what he was doing, but it was a great experiment. And he proved right. In China, the tree grew, grew to vast proportions. But although the tree became greater and more vast, no flowers grew. Flowers did not come, because flowers need an extrovert country.
Just as a seed is introvert, so a flower is extrovert. The seed is moving inwards; the flower is moving outwards. The seed is like feminine consciousness, flower is like male consciousness. The flower opens to the outer world and releases its fragrance to this outside world. Then the fragrance moves on the wings of the wind to the farthest possible corner of the world. To all directions, the flower releases the energy contained in the seed. It is a door. Flowers would like to become butterflies and escape from the tree. In fact, that is what they are doing, in a very subtle way. They are releasing the essence of the tree, the very meaning, the significance of the tree to the world. They are great sharers. A seed is a great miser, confined to himself, and a flower is a great spendthrift.
Japan was needed. Japan is an extroverted country. The very style of life and consciousness is extrovert…Japan is totally different. With the Japanese consciousness it is as if the inner doesn’t exist, only the outer is meaningful. Look at Japanese dresses. All the colors of flowers and rainbows — as if the outer is very meaningful. Look at an Indian when he is eating, and look at the Japanese. Look at an Indian when he takes his tea — and the Japanese. A Japanese creates a celebration out of simple things. Taking tea, he makes it a celebration. It becomes an art. The outside is very important; clothes are very important, relationships are very important. You cannot find more out-going people in the world than the Japanese. Indians are the introvert people and the Japanese are the extrovert: they are opposites…Japan was the right country. And the whole tree of Zen was transplanted in Japan, and there it blossomed, in thousands of colors.
This is how Zen has to happen again. I am again talking about Zen. It has to come back to India because the tree has flowered, and the flowers have fallen and Japan cannot create the seed. Japan cannot create the seed: it is not an introvert country. So everything has become an outer ritual now. And they are extrovert people, they will continue the ritual. Every morning they will get up at five — there will be a gong — they will move to the tea-room, and they will take their tea; they will move to their meditation hall, and they will sit with closed eyes. Everything will be followed exactly as if the spirit is there, but it has disappeared. There are monasteries, there are thousands of monks, but the tree has flowered and seeds cannot be created there.
Hence I am talking so much about Zen, here — because again only India can create the seed. The whole world exists in a deep unity, in a harmony — in India the seed can again be given birth. But how many things have changed around the world. China is no longer a possibility, because it has itself become an extrovert country. It has become communistic: now matter is more important than the spirit. And now it is closed for new waves of consciousness. To me, if any country can in the future become again the soil, it is England. You will be surprised, because you may think it is America. No. Now the most balanced country in the world is England, just as in the ancient days it was China. The seed has to be taken to England and planted there; it will not flower there, but it will become a big tree. English consciousness — conservative, always following the middle way, the liberal mind, never moving to the extremes, just remaining in the middle — will be helpful. That is why I am allowing more and more English people to settle around me. It is not only for visa reasons! Because once the seed is ready, I would like them to take it to England. And from England it can go to America, and it will have flowering there, because America is the most extrovert country right now.
The Grass Grows By Itself
Talks on Zen
Talks given from 21/02/75 am to 28/02/75 am
English Discourse series
Year published: 1976
Chapter Title: The Significance of Zen
Somebody Asked The Master Bokuju: 'W... turiya
28 m
610
One has to look at what lay behind the asking of this question: It implies that the questioner is somewhat bored with the repetition of doing the same thing over & over & over again & again & again, continuously - ad nauseam.
We Have To Dress And Eat Every Day -- How Do We Get Out Of All That?
Only idiots and sages are never bored, otherwise intelligent people are bound to get fed up. What is going on? Every day you go to sleep, just to get up again in the morning. And then the breakfast, and then the going to the office, and the this and the that. And you know you are doing all this to go to sleep again, and you know well that in the morning again the same routine will start. One starts feeling robot-like.
And if you become aware, as in India where people have become aware in the past, that this has been going on for millions of lives, you are bound to feel completely bored to death.
That's why the question: "How Do We Get Out Of All That?" This wheel of life and death goes on, grinding and grinding and grinding, and, just like a broken gramophone record, the same line goes on repeating. This has happened to you millions of times. You fell in love, you got married, you worked hard, you gave birth to children, you struggled, you died. Again, and again, and again, and it goes on ad nauseum. That's why, becoming aware of this phenomenon of continuous rebirth, India became bored; the whole consciousness became so fed up that the whole effort became 'how to get out of it?'
That's what that man had come to ask Bokuju: Help me get out of it. It is too much and I don't know from where to escape. Getting dressed, and eating every day -- how to get out of this dead routine, this rut?
Says Bokuju: We dress, we eat. He says many things. He says that there is nobody to get out, so, if there is nobody, how can you get bored? Who will get bored?
What Bokuju is saying is this: It is better not to create a problem because we have not known anybody to solve any problems, ever. Once created, problems cannot be solved. Don't create them, that is the only way to solve them. Because once created, in the very creation you have taken a false step. Now, whatsoever you do, that false step won't allow you to solve it. If you ask how to drop the ego you have created a problem which cannot be solved.
Thousands of teachers exist who go on teaching you how to solve it, how to be humble and how not to be an egoist. Nothing happens -- in your humility also, you remain egoists; in your egolessness also, you carry a subtle ego. No. Those who know will not help you to solve any problems. They will simply ask where the ego is. They will ask where, in fact, the problem is. They will help you to understand the problem, not to solve it, because the problem is false.
The answer cannot be right if the question is wrong. If the very question is rooted in something wrong, then all answers given will be futile and they will lead you to more false questions. It will become a vicious circle -- that's how philosophers become mad. Not looking at the wrongness of the question they create an answer; and then the answer creates more questions. No answer solves anything.
Then what is to be done? What does Zen say? Zen says: Look at the problem itself, there the answer is hidden. Look at the question deeply, and if the look is perfect, the question disappears. No question is ever answered, it simply disappears; and, when it disappears, it disappears without a trace.
He is saying: Where is the problem? We also eat, we also dress, but we simply eat and dress. Why create a problem? Bokuju is saying: Accept life as it is. Don't create problems.
Had the questioner asked the same thing to Buddha, the answer would not have been the same. The answer would have come from the seed-mind. Buddha would have said: All is illusory -- eating, dressing, everything is illusory. Become more aware. See the illusoriness and dreaminess of the world. All is MAYA. Become more aware and don't try to find how to get out of it, because how can one get out of a dream? One simply becomes aware and one is out.
Have you seen anybody ever getting out of a dream? A dream is unreal, how can you get out of it? The miracle is that you have entered it in the first place -- because it is not there and you entered it! And now you are creating more trouble for yourself by asking how to get out of it.
How did you enter the dream? By believing that it was real. That is the way one enters a dream -- by believing that it is real. So simply drop the belief, and see that it is not real, then you are out of the dream -- drop out of believing that it is real. So simply drop the belief, and see that it is not real, then you are out of the dream. There are no steps to get out, no techniques to get out, no methods. Buddha would have said: "Look, your whole life is a dream -- and you would have been out of it."
If the Chinese genius Confucius had been asked -- the balanced mind which is neither extrovert nor introvert -- he would have said: There is no need to get out of it. Follow these rules and you will be able to enjoy it. Confucius would have given a few rules: those rules have to be followed, that's all. One need not get out of it. One simply has to plan his life in a right way. One even has to plan the life of dream in a right way! Confucius says that even if in your dream you commit something wrong, you have to ponder over it -- somewhere in your waking hours you are not following the right path. Otherwise, how can you go wrong in the dream? Settle something, balance something -- that's why he had 3,300 rules.
But in Japan there would have been a totally different answer: with Buddha the answer would have come from the seed, with Confucius from the tree -- from Bokuju it comes from the flower. Of course these are different answers -- rooted in the same truth, but not using the same symbols, they cannot. What Bokuju says is simply flower-like, it is the most perfect possibility.
BOKUJU ANSWERED:
We Dress, We Eat.
Such a simple answer -- and there is every possibility to miss. You may think: What is he saying? It looks like gibberish, nonsense. The man asked: "We have to dress and eat everyday -- how do we get out of all that?" And Bokuju answered: "We dress, we eat."
What is Bokuju saying, what is he indicating? A very subtle indication. He is saying:
"We also do it -- we eat, we dress -- but we eat so totally that the eater doesn't exist, there is only eating.
We dress so totally that the dresser doesn't come into being, but only dressing. We walk, but there is no walker,
just the walking. So who is this asking to get out of it?
We eat, and we dress, and we have never found any problem, and we have never found anybody who can come out.
There is nobody that is there inside. Eating exists, dressing exists, ego does not.
Look at the vast difference. Buddha would have said that all this is a dream, your eating, your dressing, your walking -- and Bokuju says that you are a dream. Tremendous difference.
Bokuju is saying: Do not bring yourself in, simply eat and walk and sleep. Who is this asking to get out of it? Drop this ego; it is non-existential, and when you are not, how can you come out of it? Not that walking is a dream, but the walker is the dream. Not that eating is a dream, but the eater.
And watch minutely -- if you really are walking, is there any walker inside? Walking happens, it is a process. Legs move, hands move, you breathe more, the wind blows in your face, you enjoy; the faster you go, the more vitality you feel -- everything is beautiful. But is there really a walker? Is there somebody sitting inside, or does just the process exist? If you become aware, you will find only the process exists. The ego is illusory: it is just a mind-creation. You eat, and you think there must be somebody who eats, because logic says: How can you walk without a walker inside? How can you eat without an eater being there?
You meditate, but is there any meditator? And when meditation comes to a flowering, and all thoughts cease, who is there inside? Is there somebody who says that all thoughts have ceased? If that is there, then still the meditation has not flowered; at least one thought is still there. When meditation flowers there is simply nobody to take note of it, nobody to give it recognition, nobody to say: Yes, it has happened. The moment you say: Yes, it has happened -- it is already lost.
When there is really meditation, a silence pervades; without any bounds a bliss throbs; without any boundaries there is a harmony; there is nobody to take note. There is nobody to say: "Yes, this has happened." That's why the Upanishads say that when a person says: "I have realized!" Know well that he has not. That's why all the Buddhas have said that whenever somebody claims, the very claim shows that he has not reached the final peak because at the final peak the claimer disappears. In fact, it has never been there. Eating is not a dream -- the eater is the dream.
The Grass Grows By Itself
Talks on Zen
Talks given from 21/02/75 am to 28/02/75 am
English Discourse series
Year published: 1976
Chapter Title: The Significance of Zen
Master and Disciple turiya
28 m
370
The greatest art in the world is to be a disciple. It cannot be compared to anything. It is unique and incomparable. Nothing like it exists in any other relationship, nothing like it can exist.
To be a disciple, to be with a master, is to move into the unknown. You cannot be very aggressive there. If you are aggressive, the unknown will never be revealed to you. It cannot be revealed to an aggressive mind. The very nature of it is such that you have to be receptive, not aggressive.
The search for truth is not an active search, it is a deep passivity -- in your deep passivity you will receive. But if you become too active and concerned, you will miss. It is like being a womb, it is feminine, you receive the truth as a woman receives a pregnancy.
Remember this... then many things will become easier to understand.
To be near a master is to be just a passivity, absorbing whatsoever the master gives or whatsoever the master is -- not asking. The moment you start asking you have become aggressive, the receptivity is lost, you have become active. The passive, the feminine, is no longer there. Nobody has ever reached the truth as a male -- aggressive, violent. That's not possible. You reach very silently. In fact, you wait and truth reaches you. The truth seeks you, like water seeks some hollow ground, moves downwards, finds a place, and becomes a lake.
An active mind is too filled with itself; an active mind thinks that it knows what truth is. One has only to ask, at least the question is known; only for the answer does one have to seek and search.
But when you become passive, even the question is not known. How to ask? What to ask? For what to ask? There is no question, one cannot do anything else but wait. This is patience -- and this is infinite patience -- because it is not a question of time, it is not a question of you waiting for a few months, or a few years. If you have patience for a few years, that won't help, because a mind that thinks that it has to wait for three years is not, in fact, waiting. He is looking actively, to when the three years are over, then he can jump, be aggressive, and ask; then he can demand that the period of waiting be over, that now he is entitled to know. There is nothing like that. Nobody is ever entitled to know the truth.
Suddenly the moment comes when you are ready, and your patience has become not of time, but of eternity; you are not waiting for something, but simply waiting, because the waiting is so beautiful; the waiting itself is such a deep meditation, the waiting itself is such a tremendous achievement -- who bothers about anything else? When the waiting has become so total, so intense, so whole, that time disappears and the waiting takes the quality of eternity, then immediately you are ready. You are not entitled, remember -- you cannot ask. You are simply ready and you are not even aware that you are ready. Because the very awareness will be a hindrance to your readiness; the very awareness will show that the ego is there, watching in the corner, hiding somewhere.
And the ego is always aggressive, whether hiding or not hiding, apparent or not apparent. Even hiding in the deepest corner of the unconscious, the ego is aggressive. And when I say that to become totally passive is the art of being a disciple, I mean -- dissolve the ego. Then there is nobody who is asking, demanding, then there is simply nobody -- you are a vacant house, a deep emptiness, simply waiting. And suddenly, all that you could have asked for is given to you, without you asking for it.
Jesus says: Ask, and it shall be given to you. But that is not the highest teaching. Jesus could not give the highest teaching to the people who were around him because they did not know how to be disciples. In the Jewish tradition teachers have existed, and students, but a disciple and a master is basically an Eastern phenomenon. Teachers have existed -- who have taught many things; and students have existed, sincere students -- who have learnt much.
But Jesus couldn't find disciples there, he couldn't give the highest teaching. He says: Ask and it shall be given to you. Knock, and doors shall be opened unto you. But I tell you, if you ask, you will miss; if you knock, you will be rejected. Because the very knocking is aggressive, the very asking is of the ego. In the very asking you are too much, and the doors cannot be opened for you.
In the knocking, what are you doing? You are being violent. No. At the doors of the temples knocking is not allowed. You have to come to the doors so silently that even the sound of your feet is not heard. You come as a nothing, as if nobody has come. You wait at the door and whenever the door opens you will enter. You are not in a hurry. You can sit and relax at the door, because the door knows better than you when to open, and the master inside knows better than you when it should be given.
Knocking at the door of the temple is vulgar; asking the master is unmannerly -- because he is not going to teach you anything, he is not a teacher. He is going to toss something to you from his innermost being -- a treasure -- and unless you are ready, it cannot be done. The pearls cannot be thrown before the swine. The master has to wait until your swine has disappeared, until you have awakened and you have become really human and the animal is no longer there -- the aggressive, the vulgar, the violent. The relationship between a master and a disciple is not of a rape: it is of deepest love.
That is the difference between science and religion. Science is like rape; there is aggression towards nature to know its secrets. Science is a violent effort to force nature to reveal its secrets. Religion is love, it is a persuasion, it is a silent waiting. It is making oneself ready, prepared, so that whenever the moment of your inner readiness comes, suddenly there is a tuning, everything falls into line and nature is revealed to you. And this revelation is totally different. Science may force nature to give a few facts -- but the truth? No. Science will never be able to know the truth. At the most, robbers, aggressive, violent people, can snatch away a few facts. That's all. And those facts will be of the surface. The innermost center will remain veiled for them because to reach the innermost, violence is not to be used -- cannot be used. The innermost center must invite you, only then can you enter there. Uninvited, there is no way. As a guest, invited, you enter into the inner shrine.
The relationship between a master and a disciple is the highest possibility of love -- because it is not a relationship of two bodies, it is not a relationship of any pleasure, or any gratification, it is not a relationship of two minds, two friends, in subtle, psychic harmony. No. It is neither bodily, nor sexual; it is neither mental nor emotional. It is two totals, coming together and merging into each other.
And how can you be a total if you ask a question? If you are aggressive, you cannot be total. A totality is always silent; there is no conflict within. That's why you cannot be in conflict without. Totality is serene and tranquil and collected. It is a deep togetherness. Waiting near a master, one learns how to be together, with no movement. A simple unmoving center simply waits; thirsty of course, hungry of course, feeling the thirst in every fiber of the body, in every cell of the being -- but waiting, because the master knows better when the right moment comes. Not knocking... the temptation will be there, and, when the master is available, the temptation becomes very, very deep and intense. Why not ask him? He can give, then why wait, why waste time? No, it is not a question of wasting time. Really, waiting patiently is the best use of time. All else may be wasted but waiting is not, because waiting is prayer, waiting is meditation, waiting is all. Everything happens through it.
And I call it the greatest art. Why? Because between a master and disciple the greatest mystery is lived, the deepest is lived, the highest flows. It is a relationship between the known and the unknown, between the finite and infinite, between time and eternity, between the seed and the flower, between the actual and the potential, between past and future. A disciple is only the past; the master is only the future. And here, this moment, in their deep love and waiting, they meet. The disciple is time, the master is eternity. The disciple is mind and the master is no-mind. The disciple is all that he knows, and a master is all that cannot be known. When the bridge happens between a master and a disciple, it is a miracle. To bridge the known with the unknown, and time with eternity, is a miracle.
Doing is on the part of the master, because he knows what to do. The doing is not on your part, should not be on your part, because, by your very doing, you will disturb the whole thing. You don't know what you are -- how can you do anything? A disciple waits, knowing well that he cannot do. He does not know the direction, he does not know what is good and what is bad, he does not know himself. How can he do anything? The doing is of the master; but when I say that the doing is of the master, don't misunderstand me.
The Grass Grows By Itself
Chapter #2 (In part.)
Chapter title: Master and Disciple
22 February 1975 am in Buddha Hall
The Retired Burglar and His Son... turiya
27 m
335
Chapter #1
Chapter title: A Zen Story
21 February 1976 am in Buddha Hall
Search for Venerable Guru... turiya
20 m
240
I have heard...
Some years ago a successful American had a serious identity crisis. He sought help from psychiatrists but nothing came of it, for there were none who could tell him the meaning of life - which is what he wanted to know. By and by he learned of a venerable and incredibly wise guru who lived in a mysterious and most inaccessible region of the Himalayas.
Only that guru, he came to believe, would tell him what life meant and what his role in it ought to be. So he sold all his worldly possessions and began his search for the all-knowing guru. He spent eight years wandering from village to village throughout the Himalayas in an effort to find him. And then one day he chanced upon a shepherd who told him where the guru lived and how to reach the place.
It took him almost a year to find him, but he eventually did. There he came upon his guru, who was indeed venerable, in fact well over one hundred years old. The guru consented to help him, especially when he learned of all the sacrifices the man had made towards this end.
'What can I do for you, my son?' asked the guru. 'I need to know the meaning of life,' said the man.
To this the guru replied, without hesitation, 'Life,' he said, 'is a river without end.'
'A river without end?' said the man in a startled surprise. 'After coming all this way to find you, all you have to tell me is that life is a river without end?'
The guru was shaken, shocked. He became angry and he said, 'You mean it isn't?'
Edited 4 minutes ago by turiya
fetched in 0.0781 sec, IP =18.222.21.218, y=1
