Beyond the Prism of the Mind

HAKUJU SERVED AS A DISTINGUISHED LECTURER AT THE TENDAI-SECT
COLLEGE. AS HE WAS LECTURING WITH HIS CUSTOMARY ZEAL ON THE
CHINESE CLASSICS ONE HOT SUMMER'S AFTERNOON, HE NOTICED THAT A
FEW OF THE STUDENTS WERE DOZING OFF. HE STOPPED HIS LECTURING IN
MIDSENTENCE AND SAID,

"IT IS A HOT AFTERNOON, ISN'T IT? CAN'T BLAME YOU FOR GOING TO SLEEP. MIND IF I JOIN YOU?"

WITH THIS, HAKUJU SHUT HIS TEXTBOOK, AND LEANING WELL BACK IN HIS
CHAIR, FELL ASLEEP.

THE CLASS WAS DUMBFOUNDED, AND THOSE WHO HAD BEEN DOZING
WERE AWAKENED BY HIS SNORES. ALL SAT UP IN THEIR SEATS AND WAITED
FOR THE MASTER TO AWAKEN.

The first principle, the principle that cannot be said -- but we can still try. The first principle is that samsara is nirvana, that the ordinary is the extraordinary, that this world is the other world, that matter is mind, that there is no distinction between the holy and the unholy, that the profane is the sacred. This is the first principle. Yes, it cannot be said, and I am not saying it, but it can be indicated.

The indivisible is the first principle. The moment we divide reality, it becomes the second principle. The second is a shadow; the first is the original.

This is one of the greatest contributions of Zen to the world. Zen says the world is God, there is no other God. The creation is the creator, there is no other creator. The very creativity is divine. It is not like a painter who is different from his painting. It is like a dancer who is one with his dance. God is one with his existence. God is his existence. In fact, to say "God is" is tautological, it is a repetition, because "God" means the same thing that "is" means. God is isness. All that is divine.

It is very difficult for the so-called religious to understand it because his whole trip depends on the distinction: this is good, this is bad, this has to be done and this has to be avoided. The marketplace has to be condemned, and one has to move into the Himalayas or into the monasteries.

The ordinary religious mind depends on condemnation, it is an ego trip, so when you become ordinarily religious, you start having the feeling of "holier than thou". Because you live in a certain way -- you eat certain things and you don't eat certain things, and you have a certain style to your life -- you start feeling you are holier than others. A Catholic monk or a Jaina monk thinks he is very holy because he is doing certain things and he is avoiding certain things. His holiness consists of doing.

The insistence of Zen is that doing is not important at all, what is important is being. You are not what you do. You are what you are. And by doing, you never change, but if your being changes, certainly your doing changes. It becomes totally different; it becomes suffused with a new light. A new quality, a new dimension opens to it. You can do the same thing without your being having gone through any transformation, and then it will be second, secondhand, then it will not be real.

For example, Mahavir became naked. His nudeness comes out of the first principle; it is a flow from his innermost core. It is an innocence that has come to his life. You can become nude -- there are thousands of Jaina monks down the centuries who have become nude -- but it is an action. For Mahavir it was not an action; basically it was a change in his being. He became so childlike that there was no need for any clothes. There was nothing to hide. He became so open, so simple. From the interiormost flowed this nudeness. Then it had a different quality: the quality of innocence, of childlike simplicity. But those who followed him, and became naked as followers, were cunning people, clever people. It was a mathematical conclusion, a logical conclusion. They pondered over it. They thought Mahavir became Mahavir by becoming nude; "If we become nude, we will become Mahavir." Action is first for them.

Mahavir became nonviolent. He became so careful about every kind of life, even the life of the trees. He would not walk on grass; it may hurt the grass. He became so loving, so compassionate, because his being changed. Then his followers have been trying the same, from the other extreme, from the other end: they have been trying it as a cultivated behavior.

They try not to kill, they try to avoid any violence, but it is just an action.

Action cannot change your being. The periphery cannot change your center. Only when the center changes, the periphery changes. Let this be one of the most fundamental rules.

The Zen people say THIS samsara, THIS world, is the other world too. There is no other world, so don't look for the hereafter; there is none. This moment is all! If you start looking for some other world, you have divided existence in two -- and existence is indivisible. It is not that there comes a boundary to the world and then comes the boundary of God. God is not a neighbor! God is in the world. He is not transcendental; he is immanent. He is one with existence. So don't divide. The moment you divide, you are falling into the shadowy world of the secondhand.

If you can look with an undivided eye you come across the first principle.

You must have heard about the third eye. You have two eyes: two eyes means duality. And all those who have looked inwards, they say there comes a moment when the third eye opens.

The third eye is one, single. There is no third eye physiologically in your body; it is a metaphor. When two eyes disappear and become one, when you don't look into existence with a dividing mind, you look into existence with absolute, undivided consciousness, then you are one.

Jesus says to his disciples, "If you become of one eye, then you will know my kingdom of God. If you attain to one eye, then all bliss will be yours and all benediction." He is talking about the third eye, and the third eye gives you the glimpse into the first principle.

The first principle is that samsara is nirvana, that the ordinary is the extraordinary. So please, don't think that something is spiritual and something is nonspiritual. You can do everything in a spiritual way and you can do everything in an unspiritual way. If you divide, you are unspiritual. If a man says this is good and that is bad, he is unspiritual. If a man says, "This has to be desired and this has to be not desired," he is spiritual no more.

Spirituality has no shoulds, no should-nots. Spirituality has a deep acceptance of whatsoever is -- that which is. Buddhists call it TATHATA, suchness -- such is the case.

Whatsoever is the case is the case: one has to accept and relax into it. In that relaxation is the dimension of the spiritual. If you can do ordinary actions in a relaxed way, with no tension in the mind, with no hankering in the mind to be successful or to be winners, then you are doing a spiritual thing. Then it can be anything.

Zen people sip tea, and they call it a tea ceremony. Sipping tea can become spiritual. How does it become spiritual? To those people who have not looked into reality in any way it looks simply absurd. Sipping tea? How can it become religious? Yes, if you are chanting God's name, maybe it is religious. If you are praying, fasting, maybe it is spiritual, but sipping tea?

How can it be religious or spiritual? The Zen people say if you can sip tea with an absolutely undivided mind, so that the tea and the sipper of the tea are no more divided, it becomes one energy, there is so much silence, one is relaxed -- and if you cannot be relaxed while sipping tea, where else can you be relaxed? -- a cup of tea can become a cup of prayer.

Then anything can become spiritual. Digging in the garden, looking after the trees can become spiritual. Anything whatsoever can have the spiritual quality because the whole existence is God. You just have to become aware of it. A relaxed awareness makes everything spiritual.

So this dictum that samsara is nirvana, is one of the greatest dictums ever uttered by any man on this earth. The founder of Zen, Bodhidharma, uttered it. It is a thunderbolt. It is one of the most revolutionary sayings. It destroys all distinction, and it brings to light that all other so-called religions are just philosophies, not really religions, because they go on dividing -- the devil and God, hell and heaven, and they go on dividing. Division is their work, and division is of the mind.

Mind functions like a prism. A ray of light enters into a prism and is divided into seven colors. Entering, it was of one color, it was pure white, it was undivided. Getting out of the prism, it is no more one; it is seven, seven colors, the whole rainbow. The world is divided because of the prism of the mind. That which enters in the mind is one; that which comes out of the mind is seven.

If you want to know the first principle you will have to get beyond the prism. You will have to come to that point where the ray is one.

Now, there are two ways to seek the truth. One is the goal-oriented way, and the second is the source-oriented way. The first is wrong and the second is right. When I say the first is wrong, I am not condemning it. I am not saying it is bad. What I am saying by "wrong" is not a condemnation; it is just an indication that it leads nowhere, that it leads into a cul-de-sac, that you can go into it, but you will never arrive. You can go on going and going, but you will never arrive. It is a false way. It appears like a way, but it is not a way. It has the appearance, but only the appearance.

Let us first understand the false way because if you can understand the false as the false, half the journey is over. Then it is very simple to understand the true as the true. To know the false as the false, you have already come to an understanding of what is or what can be the true. So always start by understanding the false first. False eliminated, the true remains. So first the false way.

Everybody is prone to getting into the trap of the false because it is very alluring; it functions almost like a magnet. The mind feels very much attracted to it. The mind has a tendency to be attracted to the false. Why? Because the mind itself is the false. It feeds on the false. So wherever your mind feels attracted, beware: something false, something illusory, something of the world of dreams is attracting you. Mind lives in dreams; it is made of dream stuff. In the day you call those dreams thoughts, in the night you call those thoughts dreams, but it is all the same, the same flow, the same energy. The mind goes on spinning dreams, sometimes verbally, sometimes through images, but the whole production of the mind is dream.

The mind feels very much attracted to the goal-oriented way because the mind is always attracted to the future. The mind is afraid of the present; it does not want to be in the present.

Have you ever observed a very, very significant fact that the mind cannot be in the present? -- cannot be in the present at all? When you are in the present, the mind is not. The present is so small that there is no space for thoughts to move. It is so small that thoughts cannot exist. They need a little space to play around, to jog around. The present moment cannot contain any thoughts, so mind cannot exist in the present; it exists in the future or in the past. It is an expert about the past and an expert about the future -- and both are not: the past is no more, and the future has not yet happened. So mind lives in the false: either that which is no more or that which is not yet. Both are false, both are unreal. So mind either runs backwards or forwards, but the mind is never now, never here.

And the whole art of meditation is to be herenow. To be herenow means you have slipped out of the mind. And even to slip out for a single moment is of tremendous beauty and tremendous significance because then you see what reality is. Then you see that which is.

Then you see God, or truth. Then you see existence in its authentic color, quality, sound.

The moment mind starts working, the future has entered, or the past. Either you are imagining or you are remembering. So the mind feels very happy with the goal-oriented way.

It gives enough space for the mind to fool around, to go on thinking thoughts, dreaming dreams. There is enough space. Future is an opening for the mind.

But the moment mind starts working, you are closed to the present -- and the present is all that is true. The present means the eternal. The future and past are part of time; the present is part of eternity. Through the present you slip..

into God: you slip out of the mind and into God. You slip out of the ego, and into your innermost core, which is also the innermost core of the whole existence.

Your center is not your center alone. It is my center too. It is the center of the trees too. It is the center of the stars too. We are different on the periphery; we are one at the center. On the periphery you are separate from me. At the center there is no I, there is no you; there is only we. And the "we" includes trees and rocks and stars and everything; it includes all. The "I" is a mind product. The "we" is a totally different direction, totally different dimension.

The goal-oriented seeker thinks, "What is the ultimate and of existence? To what meaning is existence moving? Where are we going?" The goal-oriented seeker thinks, "What are we going to become? What HAVE we to become?" He never looks into being; he looks into becoming: "What am I to become? A saint? What am I going to become? What is my destiny in the future? What is the goal my life is striving to attain?" He looks into the future. The future is not. It is very dark there, very silent there, so you can easily imagine whatsoever you like. And the future cannot say you are wrong, because the future is not, so whatsoever you imagine never struggles, collides with reality. There is no reality; it is simply your projection.

You can go on imagining, and there is nobody who will say you are wrong. You are always right, in the future.

In the present the reality is too much, and the reality will destroy the dream, but in the future there is no reality. You are alone. The world of the future gives you a freedom, gives you a freedom from reality -- a bondage to dreams and freedom from reality.

The goal-oriented person starts thinking. "How should I be so that the goal can be attained?" He starts changing his behaviour, his character, his style, his actions. He becomes a perfectionist. The goal-oriented person is always a perfectionist. He has some idea of perfection -- how man should be -- and he starts managing his own being according to that idea. Christians have one idea, Hindus have another, Jainas have another, but all have ideas how man should be. Christians may think man should be like Jesus; then that is the idea, and everybody has to fit with the idea. If you don't fit you are wrong; if you fit you are right.

Now the misery is: if you fit you are false. If you don't fit you are wrong, you may be real.

So reality starts becoming wrong and unreality becomes right. Let me explain it to you.

Nobody else can fit with Jesus exactly, because God never creates anybody the same way again. God does not have an assembly line; he is not making men as cars are manufactured.

You can have as many cars similar to each other as you want. There is a mold, and the car is produced according to the mold, so you can have one Ford, another Ford, another Ford, millions of Fords, exactly similar. But God has no mold. God has no factory. He does not create according to molds. God is creativity; he never repeats. He is very innovative. Never again is the same person repeated, each is unique, so there is only one Jesus; there is never again. So the problem is if you try to fit with the idea of Jesus: how Jesus is, you should be, because that is the idea of the Christian; or the goal of the Buddhist -- Buddha -- one should fit with Buddha; or the goal of the Jaina -- one should fit with Mahavir. Now, these are all false ways to approach reality.

If you fit with Jesus you will be false because you have not been made to fit with Jesus.

You can be only yourself, nobody else, never anybody else. The only real way for you is to be yourself, whatsoever you are. And you cannot find any similar being in the past, and you cannot find any similar being in the present or in the future. You are alone, and this aloneness is beautiful. This is the way God respects you, by making you absolutely anew, unique, and alone.

If you fit with Jesus you are false, but Christians will say you are right. Now see how false becomes right! If you don't fit with Jesus you may be right, but then you are wrong. If you don't fit with Jesus you may be real, authentically yourself, but then you don't fit, so no Christian will appreciate you: you are wrong. Real becomes wrong, the false becomes right.

Whenever you have any idea, fixed idea, fixed ideology, you are creating neurosis in man.

And there is great anxiety, naturally. If you cannot fit with the idea and you have been brought up as a Christian or a Hindu, you cannot fit with the idea, great anxiety arises: you are going wrong. Your life is the life of sin. You start feeling guilty. You feel nervous, you lose confidence, you lose courage, you become very much afraid. You become a coward, because whatsoever you do seems to be wrong. k is not fitting with Jesus or Buddha or Mahavir or Krishna, so you must be wrong. How can Buddha be wrong? And when you start feeling, "I am wrong," naturally, you tremble with fear.

Soren Kierkegaard has said that man is a trembling, but I would like to say man is not a trembling, man has been FORCED to become a trembling -- forced by the so-called religions, who give you ideologies. "How you should be" -- once you start thinking in that way, you are bound to be trapped into some trouble, misery, neurosis.

The first thing to become authentically yours, authentically yourself, is to get rid of any idea whatsoever that you are carrying.

Zen has no idea how you should be. That's why Zen people say if you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately. That is just a way of saying don't allow any idea to settle into your consciousness. Kill that idea immediately. Don't be an ideologist. Don't have any ideals, and don't be a perfectionist.

A perfectionist is a person who goes on trying to make himself according to the idea. One day you can succeed. That possibility is there -- that dangerous possibility is there -- you can succeed, but then you become pseudo. That's what hypocrisy is all about. You become a hypocrite. If you really become the idea that you have been carrying, you become a hypocrite.

Go and look into your mahatmas, into your saints, and you will find them hypocrites, untrue to themselves. True to some idea, but untrue to themselves. And if you are untrue to yourself, you are untrue to God.

Then, the perfectionist has so many shoulds and should-nots. The whole life is without joy. He cannot enjoy, he cannot celebrate, he cannot be happy, he cannot delight. He cannot lose himself in any moment, he cannot abandon himself in any moment, because those shoulds and should-nots are continuously haunting him: "You should not do this, you should do this, you should not be like that, you should be like that ..." He cannot relax. How can he relax?

Now, people come to me, and they want to relax, and they say, "We cannot relax." How can you relax by being a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan? It is impossible to relax; they won't allow you to relax. They want you to be tense; they create your tensions.

Relaxation means you don't have any shoulds. You are simply living moment to moment, not according to some future idea of yourself, but according to your reality that is herenow. To live with the reality, moment to moment, is to be sane. To live with the idea is to be insane.

The whole earth has become almost a madhouse because of these perfectionists. Perfectionism is a sort of madness; only mad people try to be perfectionists. Sane people never try to be perfectionists.

Sane people are humble people. They know their limitations, they don't try the impossible, so they enjoy the possible. If you try the impossible you cannot enjoy the possible, and in trying the impossible you miss the possible too. And from the other end, sane people enjoy the possible and they don't hanker for the impossible, and enjoying the possible, one day suddenly they stumble upon the impossible too.

Their joy becomes so much by and by, moment to moment, they go on being blissful. In ordinary things they are blissful. They don't ask for great things, they don't ask for paradise, to be blissful, they don't ask for God, they don't ask for nirvana. Small things. Playing with your own child, loving your wife, eating your food, taking a shower, or going for a morning walk, is more than enough. Just running on the beach is more than enough. What more do you want to be happy? The touch of the cool sand, and the warm rays of the sun showering on you, and the wild roar of the sea playing around you ... what more do you need to be happy? Playing with a child, the laughter of the child ... what more do you need to be happy?

But there are neurotic people. They will say, "What is there? Unless we achieve God we cannot be happy." And let me tell you, these people will not be happy even if they can achieve God. They cannot be. They will find faults; they are fault finders. Even God will not be able to fit in their idea of perfection. They will find faults with God. They will not be able to see any limitations, they will not allow any frailty. These are impossible people. And these impossible people destroy their own lives and destroy many others'. These people are the very source of madness on this earth.

The goal-oriented way is an ego trip: the ego always wants to be perfect. And the search cannot be fulfilled, because it is almost a blind man's search, a blind man groping in the dark, a blind man groping in the dark night with no light for a black cat which is not there.

The future is not yet. There is no goal in existence. Let this sink into your heart. There is no goal in existence, the existence is not moving towards any purpose. There is not any purpose; it is sheer joy. It is not a business; it is a play. Of course, I understand you cannot even play without the business mind.

Just a few days before, a young man came to me, and he was very tense, and I asked him -- because I could see from his face too much goal orientation -- I asked him one thing, "Do you play anything?" He said, "Yes, I am interested in games. I play many games. I play chess."

And I asked him, "What happens when you don't win?" He said, "I feel very much frustrated; I cannot sleep. I feel good only when I am the winner." Even in play, you know it is a game, just a makebelieve -- even in play, if you are not the winner, you become tense. You have to be the winner, even in play.

Such a type of person, if you tell him, "I went to the cricket match," he will ask, "Who was the winner?" He will not ask whether the players enjoyed, whether it was a beautiful game, no; he will ask, "Who was the winner?" This is a wrong person.

If you meet a person who really knows how to enjoy, he will ask, "Did the players enjoy it?"

If you are playing chess and you enjoy it, it does not matter who wins and who is defeated, because that is secondary, that is not the purpose of the game. The purpose is to enjoy. The goal is not the purpose; the purpose is the way. If you can enjoy the way, the trees and the birds singing on the way, who bothers about the goal? In fact, the existence has no goal. It is just a way.

That is the beauty of the Chinese word TAO; it means the "way". They don't talk about God, because the moment you talk about God, it appears as if God is the goal. They say, "There is no God. There is TAO, the way."

You must have heard about one Japanese religion Shinto. The original was not Shinto; the original was SHINTAO. That is very beautiful; it means "the way of the gods". SHIN means gods, and TAO means the way. Shintao: the way of the gods. Everything is a god, and existence is the way. Gods moving on the way. You are not going to become gods. You are.

The goal-oriented idea is driving you mad. Drop that idea, and suddenly you will see sanity explodes into your being. You start laughing again. You start dancing again. You start singing again. You start playing again. And you have become religious. That is the idea of real religion, that you start dancing again, that you start loving again, that your life energy starts flowing, that your juice is stuck no more, is not stale, again flows, that you start sharing.

We are not going anywhere! We are here! And we have been here for the whole of eternity and we are going to be here for the whole of eternity. Now it is up to you to enjoy or not to enjoy. We are here and we are going to be here. There is no way to escape. Now it is for you to choose whether to enjoy or just to cry and weep for the goal.

The goal is not; there is no goal. The world is not moving towards some goal so that once achieved, it is finished. Then what will you do? Have you ever thought about it? Once the goal is achieved, what will you do? You will have to commit suicide. What will you do? If the whole existence achieves the goal, then? Then there is nowhere to go, nowhere to move; the goal has been achieved. Then the whole existence will dry up, will become dead, the juice will flow no more, the love will not be there, and the laughter will not be there, and trees will not bloom and birds will not sing and rivers will not flow. All has stopped. No, the world has no goal.

If the world has any goal, it would have achieved it by now. How long it has existed! The very fact that it has not achieved it yet is proof enough that it has no goal to achieve. It simply goes on; it is an ongoing affair. It is not a film that comes to an end, it is not a novel that comes to an end. We are always in the middle, never in the beginning and never at the end.

We are always in the middle. And that is the way things are.

So the goal-oriented person misses all that is beautiful in life. The goal he cannot achieve because there is no goal, and on the way he misses all things. Have you watched? Sometimes you are rushing towards the market, to your shop or to your office, you pass through the same street where you go for a morning walk, or sometimes in the moonlit night you go for a stroll -- the same road, the same trees -- but when you are going to the office you have a goal in mind; then you don't see the greenery and then you don't listen to the birds. You are not interested in the way; you are interested in the goal. You want to finish it any way. The faster you can go, the better. You will not like to walk to the office. You go in a car or in a bus.

And if someday science manages to materialize and dematerialize man, you will simply stand in a machine in your house and dematerialize there and materialize in the office -- so no need for the way. One day it is going to happen. There is no need to go. Immediately, from one place to another place you can have a quantum leap, a quantum jump. In the middle you will not be. Speed. Because you are not interested in the way.

But, the same way, in the morning when you go for a walk, has a totally different quality.

You enjoy it. Each breeze passing through the trees and each bird flying around. You enjoy it because you are not going anywhere in particular. You are just going for a morning walk. It is playful. You can turn back from any point. There is no goal in your mind. You are nontense, you are relaxed. There is joy, there is poetry. You start singing a song.

You can treat yourself on the way of life in these two ways. If you are goal-oriented -- God, heaven, MOKSHA, nirvana, whatsoever you call it -- then you cannot enjoy, you cannot celebrate on the way. Zen says the way is the goal. That is the meaning when they say the samsara is nirvana. The way is the goal, so don't miss anything. Enjoy. Each moment has to be tasted; each moment is delicious. Each moment brings something to you, a blessing, a benediction. Don't miss it.

This is the first way, the false way, that is very attractive to the mind.

On this false way masochists feel very good, masochists become mahatmas. A masochist is a person who likes to torture himself. The greater the self-torture, the greater the mahatma.

If somebody fasts for months, the crowd of worshipers will become bigger and bigger. And who are these worshipers? These are sadists. They enjoy. This foolish man torturing himself, and they enjoy -- and they bring flowers in respect. What are they saying? They are saying, "We would like to torture you, but we cannot do so because of the law and a thousand and one things, and you are so kind that you save us the trouble and you are doing it on your own, and we are really happy." Masochists become mahatmas and sadists become followers, worshipers. They say, "Look at our mahatma. For three months he has not eaten anything," or "For years he has lived only on fruit juice," or "For years he has not slept," or "He is sleeping on a bed of thorns. Look at our mahatma. He has lived a life of celibacy; he has never enjoyed any relationship with anybody. He has never loved a woman. He has never tasted love; he has denied himself all the beauty that love can give."

These deniers, these life-negative people are worshiped tremendously. Who are these worshipers? And why should they worship these people?

I went to one town, and a few people came to me, and they said, "In our town there is a great mahatma. For ten years he has been standing, and people come from faraway places for his DARSHAN. " SO I said, "But what else has he done?" They said, "What else? He is just standing." I insisted, "But still something?" They were puzzled; they said, "Why do you insist?

He has done such a great thing. What else is needed? He is just standing for ten years."

I went to see the man because I wanted to see -- that man must be mad. And he was mad!

He was standing ... his feet, his legs had become so thick. His whole body's blood had gone into the legs. Ten years of just standing, he had become just legs. The whole body had shrunk.

He had elephant legs. Now even if he wanted to sit he could not. The flexibility of the body is there no more; the elasticity is lost. And I looked into his eyes; I have never seen such an idiotic person. Such dull eyes. And bound to be, doing such an idiotic thing, just standing. He was holding himself on crutches, he was holding ropes with his hands; and the whole night disciples would do KIRTAN and singing so he kept awake. Or if sometimes he would fall asleep standing, then a few people would support him so he didn't fall. These are sadists.

Hmm? They should have helped him to go to sleep, but they were helping him not to fall.

Now, these people have killed this man's whole life.

And why is he standing? He is enjoying in a way. Thousands of people come to see him.

He has nothing. His ego is feeling very much fulfilled; he thinks he is a great mahatma.

Money is being poured at his feet. Flowers and respect.

But nothing of the creative. He has not written a poem. If you respect a man who has written a beautiful poem, it seems meaningful. He has made the world a little more beautiful.

If somebody has painted a picture or somebody has danced a beautiful dance, he has made the world a little more beautiful. He has to be appreciated. But nobody will appreciate him.

A man standing just doing nothing -- dying. It is a long, slow suicide. And the man must be really interested in selftorture. This is great torture, but people call it TAPASCHARYA, they call it austerity, asceticism. Asceticism is part of the goal-oriented mind.

And the world is divided between masochists and sadists. Masochists become leaders, mahatmas. And sadists become followers; they say, "We cannot do it; we want to do these things to people, but we cannot do them." But there are a few people who are doing it on their own, so they appreciate.

Avoid this false way. Know it is false.

And on this false way many illusions exist. Now, a man standing for ten years will become hallucinatory, he will have hallucinations. Whenever he will close his eyes he will have dreams. And those dreams will become very, very real because he has deprived himself of sleep. You just try it for a few days. Don't eat, don't sleep. Within three weeks your hallucination will be perfect. You may start talking to God, you may start seeing God. Deprive yourself of your ordinary necessities, and the mind starts becoming hallucinatory. The mind goes berserk, and you can start seeing things which are not.

I have heard, a real story:

Fred P. Shields, 73, spotted a nest of copperheads one day in the eighty-foot well on his farm in Cheshire, Ohio, so he enlisted his forty-two-year-old son Fred D. and his eighteen-year-old grandson James to help kill them ...

Now the son and the grandson didn't bother about whether those snakes were there or not.

... They attached a hose to the exhaust pipe of their pickup truck, stuck the hose into the well, and filled it with carbon monoxide. After a while, Shields lowered himself into the well to see if the snakes were really dead. When he failed to come out again, his son went in after him. When the second man failed to come out, the grandson went in. Rescuers from the sheriff's office retrieved the three men, all dead, apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning, but they found no sign of any snakes in the well.

You can see things which are not. Always remember that the mind is capable of seeing things which are not. And by seeing things which are not, you will miss seeing things which are. So the hallucinatory effort has to be avoided. Don't deprive -- don't deprive your body either of food or of sleep or of rest. Don't deprive your body of anything. Let your body function as healthily as possible, as normally as possible. Don't torture the body, because your mind is part of the body. If you torture the body, the mind goes berserk and starts seeing things.

And once you start seeing things you are trapped. Then you want to avoid them or kill them, or, if they are beautiful things, you want to attain more of them.

That which is needs no deprivation. You need not lie down on a thorn bed and you need not go on a fast and you need not torture your body by not sleeping. In fact, the more healthy and normal you are, the more is the possibility for the truth to be seen.

The people who are goal-oriented, they don't look into life. They look in books, because they can find the goal only in books. In life there is no goal. If you look around there is no goal. Life is there, every part of existence is full of joy, celebrating, the children are turning and dancing, and the birds are dancing, and the peacocks are dancing, and the stars are turning and dancing. The whole existence is turning in a dance. If you look into life there is dance, but there is no God. Where to find the God? Where to find the perfection? You have to look in the books. It exists only in the books, in the imaginations of those people who have written books.

I have heard:

A Japanese academic who wished to understand Zen more fully went to a monastery to submit himself to the koans. He was asked, "What is mu?" -- to define, that is, a word which has no meaning in Japanese ...

It is just like "hoo". "Hoo" is a Sufi word; it means nothing; it is just a sound. Exactly is the word "mu"; it means nothing; it is just a sound. In English there is one word coined by a new logician; that word is "po". Yes means yes, no means no. Po is just between the two; it neither means yes nor means no. Learn this word; it is a very significant word. If somebody asks, "Is there a God?" say "Po", because if you say yes, it is wrong -- you don't know; if you say no, it is wrong, because you don't know. So po. Po does not make you committed to any ideology. It makes no sense; it is simply a nonsense sound. So is mu. If you ask a Zen Master, "Has a dog buddha nature?" he will say, "Mu". It means neither no nor yes. If you ask, "Do Buddhas exist after they have left the body?" he will say, "Mu". Or my disciples can use the word "hoo". This word "mu" has no meaning.

... As a good scholar, he proceeded to look up the syllable in Japanese and other Oriental dictionaries to determine a potential root meaning and habitual usage ...

When the Master gave him mu to meditate on, he went to the dictionary. Naturally, a scholar goes that way. He must have gone to the library. The Master has said, "Meditate on mu": the Master has said, "Meditate on something nonsensical, so that you can get out of your mind." The mind can manage the sensible, the mind can manage the rational, but the mind cannot manage the nonsensical. The nonsensical takes you out of the mind.

So if you meditate on mu, what will happen? Nothing can happen, because mu means nothing. If I say, "Meditate on 'dog'." much will happen. You may start thinking about a dog you had in your childhood, you may start thinking about dogs that you were always afraid of, the neighbors' dogs, or you may start thinking of a dog your girlfriend had, and then about the girlfriend and then all the girlfriends that you had, and so on and so forth. You can move from "dog" and the mind can function, the law of association. And infinite are the possibilities. You may think about "dog", you may read it in the reverse order; it becomes "god", and you may start thinking about theologies and religions ...

The word "mu" means nothing; you cannot go anywhere with it. You have to remain stuck: mu. Now where to go? It does not remind you of anything; it makes no sense, so there is no association with it. If you go on meditating on mu, there will come a point of frustration, boredom. Exhausted, your mind will start rebelling. Your mind will say, "Drop this. Enough of it! And I cannot think anything about it." The mind is ready to think, but what to think about mu? There is no door opening anywhere, it leads nowhere, so one time comes, one moment comes, when the mind simply, fed up with the whole thing, drops itself, disappears.

And in that moment there is a vision of reality.

That is the way of a koan. A koan is a nonsensical thing, you cannot figure it out; but the scholar went to the library.

... he proceeded to look up the syllable in Japanese and other oriental dictionaries to determine a potential root meaning and habitual usage. He presented his findings to the Master, who repulsed him and immediately sent him away. Our scholar next thought the question to be more subtle and tried to analyze the tonal component of the syllable in every language of the Chinese group. He again presented his findings and research to the Master, who now thought it was time to convince this poor scholar of the seriousness of his situation, that it was not a question of another academic excursion. "I will give you one more chance," he said, "and if you do not solve the riddle, I will cut off your leg."

Now, even in the most extreme arguments or thesis examinations of the academic world, things usually don't become this tough and this rough ...

The scholar could not believe what type of Master he is. "He will cut off my leg! At the most you can fail, you can say that 'You have failed', but cutting off the leg? This is too much, this is too rude."

... But the threat did frighten the scholar out of his wits, so to speak. He completely concentrated upon the syllable itself, NOW ...

Because it was dangerous. This man can do something, and he looked dangerous. Zen Masters look dangerous.

I have heard about one Zen seeker who was working and working upon his koan and was not able to solve it and was becoming very much afraid to go to his Master because the Master would beat him, throw him, jump upon him, and would do anything, whatsoever happened in that moment. So he was becoming so afraid, so much afraid that he was avoiding going to him. And that night he received a message that "Tomorrow morning you have to come," so he was very much afraid. He tried hard on his koan so that some answer would come that appealed to him, to this madman, "... otherwise he will beat me again." He could not sleep. He meditated, meditated, and he was feeling very tired and exhausted.

So, sitting in meditation, just for a moment he fell asleep, and in sleep, it is said, he saw in a dream Bodhidharma, the archpriest, the patriarch, the original patriarch, the Master of all Zen Masters. And Bodhidharma is really dangerous looking; his eyes are so big. And Bodhidharma looked into the face of this young seeker, and he became so afraid of Bodhidharma's eyes that, the story says, he awoke out of fear -- and not only out of the ordinary sleep, but from the sleep of lives together. He awoke. Out of fear he became enlightened. The face of Bodhidharma and his eyes!

So this scholar was very much frightened; out of his wits he was.

... He completely concentrated upon the syllable itself, trying to puzzle out the meaning, and in the process of concentration itself achieved the result. The question had a nonanalytic effect, and a nonverbal result as well.

Those who are not privy to the extreme concentration brought about by the Zen Master's exercise, or the scholar's reply, might not realize that many of the most important and compelling questions that face us cannot be looked up in an encyclopedia or dictionary. There is no place where the meaning of one's life is written up.

There is no book, no scripture, no bible which has the answer for your life. There is nobody who can give you the answer. In fact there is no answer; there is only an understanding. By understanding, the question disappears. There is no answer.

And the goal-oriented man seeks the answer, so he will come upon many answers and will hang around one answer for a few days, few months, few years, sometimes a few lives, and then will get fed up and will move to another answer. But that is a long procession; one can go on ad infinitum, from one answer to another answer.

The real path is not of finding an answer, but of finding an understanding. In the light of understanding, the question disappears. And suddenly YOU are the answer! Suddenly life itself is the answer! The way is the goal, the samsara is nirvana.

I have heard a very beautiful anecdote. You may have heard it. It has many versions, but this version I don't think you will have heard before:

Six blind medical students sat by the gate of a great city as an elephant was led slowly past. Inspired by scientific curiosity of the highest degree, the six blind students rushed forward to palpate the great beast and to determine the nature of his being. The first man's hands fell upon the elephant's tusks. "Ah," said he, "this creature is a thing of bones; they even protrude through his skin." Later on, years having past, this man became an orthopedist.

At the same time the second blind medical student seized the elephant's trunk and identified its function. "What a nose!" he exclaimed. "Surely this is the most important part of the animal." Accordingly, he became a rhinologist.

The third man chanced upon the elephant's great flapping ear and came to a similar conclusion: for him the ear was everything, so he, in time, became an otologist.

The fourth rested his hands on the huge chest and abdomen of the elephant. "The contents of this barrel must be enormous," he thought, "and the pathological derangements infinite in number and variety." Nothing would do but that he would become an internist.

One of the blind men caught hold of the elephant's tail. "This," he said, "would appear to be a useless appendage. It might even be a source of trouble. Better take it off." The blind man became a surgeon.

But the last of the six did not depend upon the sense of touch. Instead he only listened. He had heard the elephant approaching, the rattle of the chains, and the shouts of the keepers. It may be that he heard the elephant heaving a great sigh as he trudged along. "Where is the creature going?" he asked. No one answered. "Where did he come from?" he asked. No one knew. Then this man fell into a deep reverie. What was in the elephant's mind, he wondered, in having left wherever he was and having come to this great city? Why does he submit to the indignities of our curiosity and the slavery of chains? And while he was wondering how to find out the answers to these questions the elephant was gone.

This man became a psychiatrist.

The other students were disgusted at this impracticality. They turned their backs upon their visionary companion. What difference does it make, said they, what the elephant's purpose may be? And his chains -- they constitute a legal not a medical problem. The important thing is to recognize the animal's structure.

Then they fell to quarreling among themselves as to whether the elephant's structure was primarily that of a nose or that of an ear or that of a tail. And although they all differed flatly from one another on these points, they all agreed that the psychiatrist was a fool.

People look into books, find out fragments, make philosophies out of fragments. That's how all the religions have evolved, and all the theologies and all the philosophies. They are all fragmentary.

The whole vision cannot be contained in any book, and the whole vision cannot be contained in any creed. Then where to find the whole vision? The whole vision can be found only when you drop the mind and look into the reality of things without thinking about them.

It is not a question of contemplation, not a question of thinking, not a question of logical thinking. It is not a question of any syllogism. You have to just look silently, innocently, into that which is already herenow. That is revelation.

And not that you come upon a truth. Suddenly you find the seeker is the sought and the observer is the observed, that the objective and the subjective are not two, that they were looking like two because the mind was standing in between and was making a boundary. Now the mind has disappeared, the boundary has disappeared; there is only oneness, one whole.

Now the second way. The second way is the way I call source-oriented. The source is already here, the goal is not. The source is within you, the goal is without. The goal will be somewhere in the future, the source is already nourishing you. It is hidden in you; otherwise you would not be alive. It is flowing in you. The source is present, the goal is absent. To look for the absent is to look in a wrong way. To look into the present and for the present is to look in the right way.

The source-oriented person is never a perfectionist, cannot be. The source-oriented person is a holist, a totalist. He has no idea of perfection. He simply lives moment to moment in its totality. He lives a very unpredictable life. He lives a life of wonder and surprise. You cannot predict him. Even he himself cannot predict what he is going to do the next moment. Who knows? The next moment will come and we will see. The next moment will bring its own reality, and the next moment will create its own response. He lives responsively, responding.

He is always alert to respond to every situation, whatsoever, but he has no prefixed idea how to react, how to respond, what to do. He is alert. The situation arises; he responds. He responds out of his alertness, but he never responds out of any answers that he has gathered in the past. His each moment is total.

Remember, I am not saying "perfect". His each moment is TOTAL. What is the difference? A perfect man, maybe, will never be angry. That is the idea of a perfect man: he will never be angry. But a total man can be angry. You can only be promised one thing, that he will be totally angry. It cannot be said he will not be angry. Only one thing can be said, that he will be totally angry; if ever he is angry he will be totally angry.

It happened a scholar came to Raman Maharshi, and he was arguing and arguing and arguing; and nobody had seen Raman Maharshi ever being angry. Raman was saying again and again, "I am not a philosopher, and I don't believe in proofs and arguments, and I don't know any logic. I say 'God is' because I have experienced it so." But the scholar wouldn't listen. Then suddenly the disciples saw something they could not believe. Raman Maharshi jumped, with his staff in his hand, and rushed after that scholar. And the scholar ran away; he also could not believe that this man would do such a thing. He chased him out, came back laughing, sat on his couch, and forgot all about it.

Now, this is a whole man. He is not perfect according to your idea of perfection, but he is whole. Yes, sometimes anger may be needed: that may be the right response. So one never knows. Even he himself would have been surprised by it. When he came back after chasing the man out he must have been laughing at himself too. "So this is possible," he must have laughed. He must have enjoyed the whole thing; he must have chuckled.

A whole man lives moment to moment, not knowing what is going to happen. His life has no script. His life is not a drama; he has no script. Nothing is decided beforehand. Each moment opens a door, and he responds accordingly. He responds with the totality of his being.

I can see Raman TOTALLY angry in that moment. And that is the beauty of it, that is the innocence of it.

The whole man is spontaneous, natural. He is not a hypocrite, he is not pretending anything. He is open, vulnerable, available. He is childlike, simple, and tremendously beautiful.

This is the way of Zen. It is the most unique phenomenon in the whole world of religions.

Zen is the highest peak that religion has attained yet. It is the sanest religion.

Now this beautiful anecdote. It is simple, but now you will be able to understand.

HAKUJU SERVED AS A DISTINGUISHED LECTURER AT THE TENDAI-SECT COLLEGE.

Hakuju was a great Zen Master, but a Zen Master continues to live his ordinary life.

Somebody once asked Bokuju, another great Zen Master, "What did you use to do before you became enlightened?" He said, "I used to cut wood for my Master, and carry water from the well." Now he himself had become the Master. And the inquirer asked, "And now? Now what do you do?" He said, "I chop wood, and carry water for myself." And the man asked, "Then what is the difference? Before also you used to chop wood and carry water, and now also you do the same, so what is the difference?" Bokuju said, "Before, I used to do it unconsciously.

Now I do it consciously." The quality of being has changed; action remains the same.

HAKUJU SERVED AS A DISTINGUISHED LECTURER AT THE TENDAI-SECT COLLEGE. And remember that Bokuju was in a simple situation. To chop wood is easy, even after enlightenment it is easy, but to lecture in a college is more difficult. It is more difficult than chopping wood. But Hakuju continued; he became enlightened, but he continued the way he was doing. He became famous all over the country, but he continued, he remained a lecturer.

Zen believes that the ordinary life has not to be renounced. The ordinary life has to be transformed by your inner understanding.

Another great Zen saying. Another great Zen Master has said, "Before I came to my Master, rivers were rivers and mountains were mountains. Then my Master confused me utterly; then rivers were no more rivers and mountains were no more mountains. Then living in the presence of my Master, by and by the confusion disappeared, the smoke disappeared, and one day again rivers were rivers and mountains were mountains."

Now, what is the difference, because rivers were rivers before and mountains were mountains before? Now they are mountains and they are rivers again, so what is the difference? The difference is not in the outside. The difference is in the inside. Before, they were just ordinary mountains, rivers; now they have an extraordinary quality. That quality YOU give to them, you pour into them. Your luminosity makes your whole existence luminous.

A man is not what he does; a man is what he is. So the emphasis of Zen is never to change your actions; just transform your understanding, transform your consciousness. Bring a new consciousness into existence.

AS BE WAS LECTURING WITH HIS CUSTOMARY ZEAL ON THE CHINESE
CLASSICS ONE HOT SUMMERS AFTERNOON, BE NOTICED THAT A FEW OF THE
STUDENTS WERE DOZING OFF HE STOPPED LECTURING IN MIDSENTENCE AND
SAID, "IT IS A HOT AFTERNOON, ISN'T IT? CAN'T BLAME YOU FOR GOING TO
SLEEP. MIND IF I JOIN YOU?"

Now, a perfectionist will not be able to do it at all. How can a perfectionist fall asleep before his students? Howsoever hot the summer is, and he may be feeling sleepy, because the body is the body ... Whether it belongs to an enlightened person or to an unenlightened person doesn't make any difference: the body follows its own laws. He must have been feeling sleepy; it was really hot. But a perfectionist will try to pretend. A holist, a totalist will not pretend.

The moment he felt sleep was coming to him he stopped in midsentence. He would not complete even the sentence; he lives moment to moment. Even to wait to complete the sentence is false. Why wait? He stopped in midsentence and asked the students, "IT IS A HOT AFTERNOON, ISN'T IT? CAN'T BLAME YOU FOR GOING TO SLEEP."

And see the point. A perfectionist will always be blaming everybody, that "You are wrong," that "You are not doing this," that "This should be done this way." A perfectionist is continuously condemning everybody; that is his joy. He is trying to put everything right in the world.

It is said a man, must have been a perfectionist, came to a Zen Master, Rinzai, and the man, who was a Christian, said to Rinzai, "In our scripture it is written that God created the world in six days, and then on the seventh day he rested. But what sort of world? I have been asking my Christian missionaries, but they can't answer, so I have come to you, Master. What sort of world? Such an ugly world, so full of pain and misery. Full of imperfections! What a world God created. And he took six days!" Rinzai looked at the man, and he said, "Do you think you can improve upon it?" The man was a little puzzled, but still he said, "Yes, I think I can." So Rinzai shouted, "Then what are you doing here? Why are you waiting and wasting time? Improve! How many days will you take?"

The perfectionist will find fault even with God. "Why did he create this world? Why did he create tuberculosis and cancer? And why did he create poverty and richness, and why did he create this and that? Why?" A perfectionist continuously condemns; that is his joy.

If this Master Hakuju was a perfectionist, he would have shouted at the students, "What are you doing? For what have you come here? You are falling asleep? This is not the way of a seeker, not the way of a disciple, not the way of a student." But rather than saying this, he says, "IT IS A HOT AFTERNOON, ISN'T IT? CAN'T BLAME YOU FOR GOING TO SLEEP." He understands. The total man understands. He understands his limitations; he understands everybody else's limitations. He never asks the impossible.

"MIND IF I JOIN YOU?" Really beautiful. Just superb, a master stroke. "MIND IF I JOIN YOU?" He is asking their permission, because a few of them may be perfectionists! And they were.

WITH THIS, HAKUJU SHUT HIS TEXTBOOK, AND LEANING WELL BACK IN HIS
CHAIR, FELL ASLEEP.

And not only that, when a really total man falls asleep, he snores too:

THE CLASS WAS DUMBFOUNDED, AND THOSE WHO BAD BEEN DOZING
WERE AWAKENED BY HIS SNORES.

Must have been a man of childlike qualities. It is very difficult to fall asleep so easily, and to snore. And to snore before one's own students? Must have been a very egoless person.

THE CLASS WAS DUMBFOUNDED ... They could not believe it, because the man was known as an enlightened Master, all over the country. Even the emperor used to come to see him. And this enlightened man has fallen asleep, cannot keep himself awake, is as ordinary as any ordinary person? They were dumbfounded.

And when they heard him snoring, it was unbelievable. Who has ever heard of a Buddha snoring? But a real Buddha will not be worried. If he wants to snore, he will snore. If he feels like snoring, he will snore. He will not bother what you say about him.

... AND THOSE WHO BAD BEEN DOZING WERE AWAKENED BY HIS SNORES.

ALL SAT UP IN THEIR SEATS ...

Now their sleep disappeared.

... AND WAITED FOR THE MASTER TO AWAKEN.

This you can find only in the Zen literature, this possibility of being so human, of being so imperfect and yet unworried about it. A tremendous acceptance of all that is, of sleep, of snoring. No effort to hide yourself behind any facade.

Once there was a famous Buddhist layman named Busol. He was a deeply enlightened man; his wife too was enlightened, and so were his son and daughter. A man came up to Busol one day and asked, "Is Zen difficult or not?" Busol said, "Oh, it is very difficult. It is like taking a stick and trying to hit the moon."

The man was puzzled and began to think. "If Zen is so difficult, how did Busol's wife attain enlightenment?" So he went and asked her the same question. She said, "It is the easiest thing in the world. It is just like touching your nose when you wash your face in the morning."

By now the man was thoroughly confused. "I don't understand. Is Zen easy? Is it difficult?

Who is right?" So he asked their son. The son said, "Zen is not difficult and not easy. On the tips of a hundred blades of grass is the Buddha's meaning."

"Not difficult? Not easy? What is it then?" So the man went to the daughter and asked her.

"Your father, your mother, and your brother all gave me different answers. Who is right?" She said, "If you make it difficult, it is difficult. If you make it easy, it is easy. But if you don't think, the truth is just as it is."

If you make it difficult, it is difficult. If you make it easy, it is easy. But if you don't think, the truth is just as it is. THE TRUTH IS JUST AS IT is. This suchness, this total acceptance, this total surrender to truth -- no pretensions, no hypocrisies, no effort to hide yourself behind screens, no effort to show yourself as more than the life-size -- this authenticity is Zen. And this authenticity is the door to the first principle.

Be spontaneous, be natural, and you have already arrived.

I was reading a few lines of Ogden Nash:

The centipede was happy quite, Until a toad in fun Said: "Pray, which leg goes after which?" This worked his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run.

If you ask a centipede ... A centipede has a hundred legs.

The centipede was happy quite, Until a toad in fun Said: Pray, which leg goes after which?" This worked his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run.

Now it becomes impossible. The moment you think, things become impossible. If you don't think, the truth is as it is.

The last parable:

The Buddha sprang from the right side of his mother and took seven steps in each of the four directions. He then looked once each way, pointed one finger to the sky, and touched the ground with his other hand. He said, "In the sky above and the sky below, only I am holy."

This is a very beautiful story. When Buddha was born, the mother was standing under a tree. He was born while the mother was standing, and he was born in a very miraculous way.

He suddenly sprang from his mother's side, stood on the ground, walked seven feet, put one hand towards the sky and touched the earth with the other hand, and said, "In the sky above and the sky below, only I am holy."

Zen people have laughed about this story very much. If they were Christian they would have tried to prove it, that it has to be real, historical. But they don't take things seriously.

One Zen Master, Un-mun, said ...

Somebody asked Un-mun, "What do you say about this nonsense story?" He said, "On the Buddha's birthday, I was there, present." Un-mun present? The inquirer was surprised.

Un-mun said, "As he sprang from the side of his mother, I hit him and killed him, and fed him to a hungry dog. The whole world was at peace."

The inquirer was very much puzzled, so he went to another Master, saying, "What do you say? The story is nonsense, and Un-mun's answer is even more nonsense; he says, 'I was present. Not only present, I killed Buddha then and there, and fed him to a hungry dog, and the whole world has been at peace since then.'" Otherwise Buddha would have created trouble for people. Zen Masters say, "Buddha, why were you born? You created so much trouble for people, because everybody is trying to meditate since you came. Had you not come, the world would have been at peace. Nobody would have been meditating, nobody would have been into this trip of nirvana. Why did you come?" That is the meaning of Un-mun when he says, "I killed him and fed him to a hungry dog, and since then the world has been at peace."

The inquirer went to another Master, Lin-chi.

"What the Buddha said on his birthday is wrong," said Lin-chi, "so I will hit him thirty times. And what Zen Master Un-mun said is also wrong, so I will hit him thirty times. And what I just said is wrong, so I will hit myself thirty times."

In fact, the moment you say something about the first principle, you go wrong. Nothing can be said about the first principle. Yes, it can be experienced. Drop the mind, and experience it.