Zen Buddhism, Talks on the Faith Mind of Sosan, Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book Of Nothing Chapter 3: Truth cannot be sought

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY; TO ASSERT THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY.

THE MORE YOU TALK AND THINK ABOUT IT, THE FURTHER ASTRAY YOU WANDER FROM THE TRUTH.

STOP TALKING AND THINKING, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO KNOW.

THE REALITY is always there waiting just near your heart, near your eyes, near your hands. You can touch it, you can feel it, you can live it -- but you cannot think it. Seeing is possible, feeling is possible, touching is possible -- but thinking is not possible.

Try to understand the nature of thinking. Thinking is always about, it is never direct. You can see the reality, but you will have to think ABOUT it and 'about' is the trap, because whenever you think about you have moved away. 'About' means indirect. 'About' means you will not see this flower here and now, you will think about it, and the 'about' will become a barrier. Through that 'about' you will never reach to THIS flower.

Seeing is direct, touching is direct -- thinking is indirect. That's why thinking misses. A lover can know the reality, even a dancer can know it, a singer can feel it, but a thinker goes on missing it.

I have heard about one Jewish philosopher. He was an ordinary peasant but very philosophic. His name was Yossel. He would think about everything, as philosophers do. It was very difficult for him to do anything because thinking would take all his time, and by the time he was ready the opportunity was lost.

Once he went to the market, to a nearby village, to sell his wheat. He told his wife, "As soon as I am able to sell the wheat, immediately I will send you a telegram."

He sold the wheat with much profit so he wrote a telegram, went to the post office, filled in the form -- and then started thinking about it.

He wrote: "Wheat sold profitably. Coming tomorrow. Love and kisses, Yossel."

Then he started thinking and he thought, "My wife will think I have gone mad. Why 'profitably'? Am I going to sell my wheat at a loss?" So he crossed out the word 'profitably.' Then he became more concerned, because if he could miss and write a wrong word he may have made other errors also. So he looked, started thinking about each word.

Then he said, "Why 'coming tomorrow'? Am I going to come next month? Or next year? My wife knows that I will come as soon as the wheat is sold." So he crossed out the words 'coming tomorrow.'

Then he thought, "My wife already knows that I have come to sell the wheat, so why write, 'sold wheat'?" He crossed that out too.

And then he started laughing. He said, "I am writing to my own wife. Why should I write 'love and kisses'? Am I writing to somebody else's wife? And is it her birthday or Yom Kippur or something?" He crossed out that too.

Now only his name remained: Yossel. He said to himself, "Yossel, have you gone mad? Your wife already knows your name." So he tore up the telegram, happy that he had saved much money and foolishness.

But this is how it happens: if you go on thinking 'about', you miss the whole life -- everything is crossed out by and by. In the end you are also crossed out -- not only is the word crossed out, you are also in the end crossed out. Thinking becomes smoke; everything moves into it and everything is finished.

And action becomes impossible -- even to send a telegram is not possible. Action becomes impossible because action is direct and thinking is indirect. They never meet.

This is the problem in the world. People who think, they never act; and people who don't think, they go on acting. The world is in misery. People who are fools, they go on acting because they never think, they jump in everything. Hitlers and Napoleons and Maos, they go on doing things, and wise people, the so-called thinkers -- Aristotle, or Kant, or Hegel -- they go on thinking, they never do anything.

The problem for a man who is seeking reality is how to stop the vicious circle of thinking, yet be aware. Because fools also don't think, but they are not aware. Be aware -- the energy that moves into thinking should become awareness. Consciousness that goes on in a vicious circle with thinking should be retained, purified. Thinking should stop, the whirling of consciousness should stop, but not consciousness. Consciousness should become more crystallized and action should be there, action should not stop.

Awareness plus action, and you will attain reality immediately. And not only you -- you will create a situation in which others can also attain reality. You will become a milieu, a climate around which things will start happening. That's what happened with a Buddha, with a Sosan, with a Chuang Tzu.

Remember: action is good, thinking is a vicious circle; it never leads anywhere. So thinking has to stop but not action. There are people who will go on thinking; action will stop. That's how it happens when a person renounces life, moves to the forest or the Himalayas. He renounces action, not thinking. He renounces the world where action was needed. He is renouncing reality itself, because through action you come in contact with reality. Seeing is action, moving is action, dancing is action, painting is action. Whatsoever you do, you come in contact with reality.

You have to become more and more sensitive in your doing. Doing is not to be renounced; action should be totally there, because that is the passage through which you move into reality and the reality moves into you. Try to understand, because this is very basic -- basic to me: renounce thinking, don't renounce action.

There are people who go on thinking, and there are people who go on renouncing action. But in the Himalayas what will they do? Then the whole energy, not moving in action, will move into thinking. They will become great philosophers. But philosophy is a fool's land; you live in words, not in realities. Love disappears, only the word 'love' is retained. God disappears, because he was there in the fields, in the market, in the world, but the word 'God' is retained. Actions disappear, only concepts are carried. Your head becomes your whole being.

Avoid. Never renounce action, only renounce thinking. But if you renounce thinking there is a possibility you may become unconscious, or you may become a fool. You may start doing anything whatsoever, because now you don't know what to do, and you don't think. You may go crazy. Thinking is to be renounced, but you are not to become more unaware, more unconscious. You have to become more conscious.

This is the whole art of meditation: how to be deep in action, how to renounce thinking, and how to convert the energy that was moving into thinking to become awareness.

It is going to be very delicate and subtle, because if you miss a step you fall into infinite ignorance.

IT IS EASY to drop thinking, but then you go to sleep. Every day in deep sleep it happens: you renounce, thinking stops -- but then you are no more there, consciousness drops. Your consciousness has become too attached, associated, with thinking, so whenever thinking stops you fall into a coma.

And this is the problem. One HAS to renounce thinking and NOT fall into a coma, because the coma will not lead you to reality. If you fall unconscious you are not going into reality, you are simply fast asleep: the conscious has merged into the unconscious. Just the reverse has to be attained: the unconscious merges into the conscious. If the conscious falls into the unconscious you fall into a coma, and if the unconscious falls into the conscious and becomes conscious itself, you become enlightened, you become a Buddha, a Sosan.

And it is very easy to help the conscious fall down into the unconscious, because it is a very small fragment. One tenth of your being is conscious, nine tenths of your being is unconscious. Just a small fragment has become conscious, and that too is always wavering. Any moment it can fall, it is very easy.

That's how it happens in intoxication: you take alcohol, the conscious falls into the unconscious. Hence the appeal in all the ages and all the climates and in all the countries of alcohol. And this is what happens when you take a drug: the conscious falls into the unconscious.

It is beautiful because thinking stops. Sleep is beautiful and you have many many dreams. And if you are a good dreamer then a drug will give you beautiful dreams -- fantastic, more colorful than any dream can be, more luminous. You move into paradise, into a dreamland, but you are not moving into reality.

LSD, marijuana, mescaline, or any drug, gives you only a good sleep, and in that good sleep you dream. Those dreams are colorful, and your life is so poor and your life is such a misery that you would even like to live those dreams rather than live in this miserable life. You would choose -- if that was the only choice -- to live in a beautiful dream rather than to live in this miserable life. This life is like a nightmare. Even if a drug is only going to give you a luminous dream, colorful, three-dimensional, why not take it? Because what is there in this life? Because life is in such a mess you choose dreams.

Drugs, alcohol, or other sorts of intoxicants, they have always been used by religious people. But through them you never move into the reality. Through them you fall into a torpor, into a coma. And in that coma you can have dreams.

And if you have been thinking too much about God, you can see God, because you can project your own dreams. Dreams can be directed and guided. If you have been thinking too much of Christ, then while under the influence of a drug Christ will appear to you. This is your own mind playing games. If you have been too much attached to Krishna then he will be standing there with his flute on his lips, singing and dancing. If a Hindu, a devotee of Krishna, takes LSD he will see Krishna, and a Christian will see Jesus, and a Buddhist will see Buddha -- but these are mind projections.

Reality is miserable but don't hanker after dreams, because if you hanker after dreams then there is only one way: how to help the conscious become unconscious again.

A small part has come up out of unconsciousness, and that is the beauty of a human being. Agony and ecstasy both, but that is the beauty of a human being, that he has become an island in a vast unconscious. This island has to grow higher and higher so it becomes a continent. Through drugs it will go again underwater, you will live again the life of an animal or a tree -- beautiful in themselves but not worthy of you, because you are losing so much. And you could have attained reality; that island could have become a continent.

But not only drugs -- there are other subtle means also to help the conscious become unconscious. Through music it can be done, through chanting it can be done. If you repeat a mantra continuously you will fall asleep, because anything monotonous brings coma.

They are subtle means, on the surface not like drugs. In every temple, church it is going on -- and temples and churches are against drugs, and they don't know what they are doing. They are also using subtle drugs, not so crude as LSD or marijuana but still drugs -- because when you chant a certain word continuously it gives you sleep, it cannot give you anything else.

You relax. The very chanting gives you a deep boredom. The same word -- RAM, RAM, RAM -- you go on, you go on, you go on... What will you do? Because mind remains alert only if something new is happening, otherwise mind goes to sleep. If something new is happening then mind is alert. If nothing new is happening, only RAM, RAM, RAM, a chanting, and you know again and again it will happen, infinitely, the mind starts feeling sleepy.

Every mother knows this. Whenever a child is not going to sleep she will repeat a line of a song, very simple, two, three words, and she will repeat the same again and again -- a lullaby. It becomes a mantra and the child goes to sleep. And the mind is the same -- whether you are a child or an old man makes no difference -- the mind goes into sleep through lullabies, but the process is the same.

Thinking has to be stopped, but not by becoming unconscious. Thinking has to be stopped by becoming more conscious, alert, aware, so the energy that is moving in thinking moves into consciousness, and a witnessing arises in you. So remember, thinking has to be stopped not through chanting, but through becoming a witness to the thought process -- looking at it, watching it, a watcher on the hills, looking, seeing...

If you deeply see and penetrate the words, they start disappearing. A gap comes, an interval. Clouds disappear and the blue sky is seen. You are alert, sensitive -- not in a coma. More unconsciousness has been drawn into consciousness; your flame is bigger, more vital, and you can see more, you can touch more, you can smell more. And your action takes on a new quality, the quality of divineness.

Whenever a Buddha touches you, the touch is different. You also touch, you also feel sometimes differences. You touch a man just casually, and then you don't move through the hand. Then the hand is dead, closed; you simply say hello with a dead hand. You can feel it, that the hand has been given but yet not given. It was diplomatic. The hand was not alive, not warm, not meeting and merging with you. Sometimes when in love the hand is given, it is a metger, energy flows through it, it is an opening. Through the hand the being comes to meet you. It is warm, it is alive, it trusts you.

When a Buddha touches you, it is absolutely different, the quality has changed. Because whenever the consciousness is total, absolute, every action becomes total. When he touches, he becomes just the touch. He is nothing any more. His whole being is the touch, he flows into it. He is nowhere else, he is in the touch.

At THAT moment he is no more eyes, he is no more ears; at that moment his whole being is transformed into touch. He becomes a total touch, and you will feel that you are illuminated through his touch -- an energy has moved into you. If you were not ready you may even be shocked. If you were ready then you will rejoice, you will be delighted in it.

When a Buddha looks at you he becomes just the eyes; otherwise is not possible, because he is not divided within. When you look, you look and you do many other things also. Thinking goes on, you go on divided. Your eyes are not total.

When a Buddha looks at you his eyes are total. They will be like a burning sun. They will penetrate you, they will make a hole within your being, they will go directly to your heart. You will never be the same again -- if you allow. Otherwise you can remain closed and he cannot penetrate you. Even if he touches, he touches a dead corpse; you can remain closed.

Whenever consciousness is there, and action, consciousness and action become a totality.

Now try to follow these words, they are very beautiful.

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY; TO ASSERT THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY AGAIN.

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS...

THERE HAVE BEEN PHILOSOPHERS who have been denying the reality of the things. Look, we can do the same thing in two ways.

There is a beautiful story. Once it happened:

Akbar, the great Moghul emperor, drew a line on the wall, and he told his wise men not to touch it and yet make it smaller. They were puzzled and they thought, "It is impossible!"

Then one of his wise men, Birbal, drew another line near it, a bigger one, without touching the first line. When the bigger line was drawn the first line became smaller.

If you draw a small line then the first line will become bigger. So there are two ways. Either you make your being bigger -- then the world becomes smaller, smaller, smaller smaller... a moment comes when your being becomes the total, the BRAHMA, the world disappears. then there is no more world. Then there is another way, and the other is just a trick. You go on saying the world is illusory, MAYA, it is not there. You go on denying the reality of the world and go on convincing yourself it is not, it is not, it is unreal it is a dream thing. So you convince yourself the world is a dream -- you feel that now you are real, but that feeling is not true. It is a deception.

Philosophy always does this; it goes on saying the world is not real. Go to the Vedantins. It happened differently to Shankara. Shankara realized his being: he became the infinite, then the world disappeared because there cannot be two infinites. If you become infinite, the world disappears, it is absorbed! because two infinites are not possible, only one infinite is possible.

Shankara became the infinite, the BRAHMA, the absolute; then he could say the world IS illusory, and he was right. But this was not a philosophic statement, it was a religious feeling. He felt it, that the world is not. But then the followers took the song and they have been singing it for one thousand years. They say the world is illusory, it is MAYA, it is not there, it only appears.

You can come to a belief through philosophy that, yes... you can go on crossing out, you can convince yourself that it is not there, you can try to find proofs and arguments that it is illusory. And if you can convince your mind that it is illusory, you will have a feeling, false feeling, that you have become BRAHMA.

You MUST become BRAHMA, then the world becomes illusory, not the other way. How will you become a BRAHMA if the world becomes illusory? And it cannot become illusory because it is only a conception, you think.

Vedantins go on saying the world is illusory, but look at them. Throw a stone at them and they will get angry, they will start fighting with you. The world is not illusory; only they have a concept, a philosophy. And philosophers can be very cunning.

It happened once:

A follower of Nagarjuna... Nagarjuna was one of the greatest mystics India has given birth to. He realized his infinite being, the world dissolved. Then followers came, and followers are always carbon copies, bound to be unless they try to penetrate the reality themselves and don't take their Master's word on trust.

The Master's word simply inspires, provokes, helps, but it should not be taken on trust, otherwise it will become a philosophy. YOU have to realize it. And when YOU realize, only then can you say, "Yes, the Master was true." How could you say before it? But it is easy to nod your head philosophically: "Yes."

Followers came and one of the followers, who was a great philosopher, a very argumentative man, he proved in many ways that the world is not.

The king of the country called him, because his name reached to the court, and the king said, "Really, you think that the world is unreal? Think twice, because I am a dangerous man. And I am not a man of words, I am a man of action. I will do something which will prove that the world is not unreal. So think twice."

The man said, "There is no question of thinking twice. I have thought millions of times and I have every proof that the world is unreal."

But even the philosopher was not aware of what the king was going to do. He had a mad elephant. So the mad elephant was brought into the courtyard, and this philosopher was also thrown into the courtyard. He started screaming and running, with the mad elephant behind him. The mad elephant caught hold of him. At that moment he started saying to the king, "Save me! The elephant is real. I withdraw my statement!"

He was saved. Again the king called him, when he came to his senses -- otherwise he was trembling and perspiring and bruised all over and bleeding in many places. The king said, "Now what do you say?"

He replied, "The world is unreal."

The king said, "What do you mean? At the moment when the elephant was just going to kill you, then you said that the world is real. Now you change again?"

The philosopher said, "The elephant, the man, the assertion, all are unreal. The elephant, the madness of the elephant, the man you are seeing before you, the man who asserted that the world is real -- all are unreal."

The king said, "Then I will call that mad elephant again."

And the philosopher said, "Then the same will happen again: I will say it is real. But again, what can I do?"

Philosophy can be very cunning. You can go on playing games with yourself and you can convince yourself that the world is unreal. But what is the need to prove and to convince? The need comes because you don't know. When you know, there is no question of convincing, of proving, of arguing. Philosophy is a substitute for knowledge. If you know, then there is no need for philosophy. If you don't know, then there is a need, because knowledge gained through philosophy appears like real knowledge.

It is not a question of proving that the world is unreal. This sutra says:

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY...

And their reality is God, their reality is truth. The tree is there. If you deny the reality of the tree you have denied the divine within it, the truth within it. Tree is just a fact; a fact is just a covering of the truth. The bird is another fact, but the truth is the same. Sometimes the truth appears as a bird, sometimes as a tree, sometimes as a rock, sometimes as a man. These are all forms.

Facts are forms, but in every fact, if you go deeper, is the truth. If you deny all forms you have denied the formless within. If you say nothing is real, then how can the divine, how can God be real? If you say this world is illusory, then how can the creator of an illusory world be real? And how can a real God create an unreal world?

It is impossible, because out of reality comes reality; out of unreality comes unreality. A real God cannot create an unreal world. And if the world is unreal, the creator is also unreal. If you deny the facticity, then you deny the truth.

Says the sutra of Sosan:

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY...

And that reality is truth.

... TO ASSERT THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY again.

If you say things are but they are empty, that too is a philosophical standpoint -- a little better than the first. The first says the whole world is unreal, it is not, is is non-existential; it is only in your mind, it is nowhere else; it is a mind-projection, it is a thought, it is like a dream.

The other philosophy, which is a little better, says things ate, but they are empty. They don't carry any self within them, they are not substantial. They are dead, empty within. They are nothing but combinations; no self is there. The tree is there, but only as a combination; the tree has got no self, no ATMAN. If you take the combinations apart then there will be no one left. It is just like a mechanism: if you take all the parts of the machine apart, nothing is left behind.

That too is not true, because a tree exists not as a compound but as a being. Even a rock has its own being; when you become sensitive and alert you will see that even a rock has its moods. Sometimes it is happy and then you can feel the happiness of the rock; sometimes it is unhappy and then you can feel the unhappiness of the rock; and sometimes it is singing and you can hear the song.

But YOU need so much sensitivity, because right now you cannot hear the song of a Buddha -- how can you hear the song of a rock? You are deaf and blind, you are insensitive and dull.

You are not conscious -- your consciousness is such a small fragment that it is exhausted in day-to-day affairs, in day-to-day routine. You are conscious enough to reach to the office and come back home without any accident on the way; that much conscious you are. But you cannot feel the rock, you cannot feel the tree.

Now scientists are discovering that the trees have so much sensitivity that you cannot imagine. Trees welcome people if they are friendly, and they become closed if they are inimical. If the gardener comes, goes on pruning and cutting, the tree becomes closed. Even before the gardener has come... he enters the compound and the whole garden is closed, because the enemy is coming.

One scientist who was working very deeply became alert that not only actions, even your thoughts trees become aware of. He was doing one experiment on a plant: the plant was wired to subtle instruments to make sure what was happening inside it. And he thought, "If at this moment I suddenly cut the plant in half, what will happen?" And the needle on the instrument started wavering fast; the plant had received the thought.

Then he tried many experiments. He had not cut the plant, he had not harmed it -- just the idea! And whenever the idea was there, the needle would show that the plant was very much worried and angry. And not only this: if you cut a plant, the neighboring plants will also show sadness, worry, anger, anxiety. Now there are instruments which can show what is happening inside the plant, and sooner or later there will be instruments which will show what is happening inside a rock.

Everything is alive, no thing is empty. Everything is filled with consciousness, different types of consciousness -- that's why you cannot penetrate. It is difficult because of different languages of consciousness. A tree has a different type of consciousness, a rock altogether different. It is difficult to communicate with them because languages differ, but if you become more alert, aware, and you are not filled with thoughts in the mind, then you can even approach a rock. Nothing is empty; everything has a self of its own.

Hindus have always been aware that everything has a god within. That's why they can worship a river, they can worship a tree, because they say this god of the tree, god of the river, god of the rock... Everything in the world is full of God; nothing is empty.

Once you say that things are empty, you again miss their reality. But why do philosophers try to prove that things are not, or things are empty? They are trying, because if it can be proved that things are empty, then you are full -- relatively you will become fuller. Emptiness all around, you become full.

But this is a false way. Become full! This relative trick won't help. When you become full with love, awareness, meditation, then you will not see that the world is empty. In fact, because YOU are empty, everything looks empty. Because you look with empty eyes, everything becomes empty -- you bring yourself to the things.

If you have no love, then you will see that there is no love in the world. If you have a heart which beats with love, you will feel the beat everywhere, all around -- in the breeze passing through the trees, in the river flowing towards the ocean. You will feel love everywhere! You will be ABLE to feel it. You can feel only that which you have; nothing else can be felt.

Philosophy is a trick to feel relatively. And we all become victims of this, because we are all experts in that trick. That's why if somebody says that your neighbor is an evil man, immoral, you immediately believe it -- because if he is evil and immoral you become suddenly moral and good. If somebody says your neighbor is a very moral, saintly, sagely man, you can't believe it. You say, "Bring proofs! What proofs have you got? On what grounds are you saying that? I know him well, he is my neighbor. He is nothing like that." Why?

Whenever somebody says something against somebody you believe it immediately, you never question it. That's why gossips go so much. But whenever somebody says something in favor of somebody, you immediately are on guard. Why? Because if he is so good, you suddenly become bad. If there is a sage then who are you? You are a fool. And if there is a saint you are a sinner. You may not be conscious of the trick, but this is how the game goes on.

There are two ways: either you become a saint or you prove that everybody is a sinner. Philosophy goes on doing that trick. Whatsoever you want to be, you deny to the world. But that won't help. You are deceiving nobody except yourself.

This sutra of Sosan says:

TO DENY THE REALITY OF THINGS IS TO MISS THEIR REALITY; TO ASSERT THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS IS AGAIN TO MISS THEIR REALITY.

THE MORE YOU TALK AND THINK ABOUT IT, THE FURTHER ASTRAY YOU WANDER FROM THE TRUTH.

THINKING IS A WANDERING AWAY, going astray. Whenever you think about anything, immediately you have started going away. I am here, you can be with me -- but if you start thinking about me you are on a journey going on and on, and the more you get into thinking the further away you will be. Thinking is a way to escape from reality; it gives you an inner direction, it makes you a path in your mind and you move on it.

A thinker is never here and now, he is never in the present, he is always somewhere else. A meditator is always here and now, he is nowhere else. That's why thinking is the only barrier in meditation. You have to become aware, and by and by, the more you become aware, the more you stop cooperating with thinking.

I bring a rose to you and you start thinking. Immediately the mind says, "Beautiful! I have never seen such a beautiful rose!" Or, "I have seen a few other roses also just like this," and you go on. And then your mind can raise the question, "What is beauty?" Nobody knows, nobody has come to any conclusion.

One of the great British philosophers of this century, G.E. Moore, has written a book, PRINCIPIA ETHICA, one of the best logical attempts to define what is good. And after two or three hundred pages of compact logical reasoning, he says that it is difficult to define what is good. In the end he says it is indefinable -- but after two or three hundred pages of argument.

One of the keenest minds goes on trying and trying and trying, from this way and that, from this door and that he knocks and knocks and he comes to the conclusion that good is indefinable -- why? He says it is a simple quality, just like yellow. How do you define yellow? What will you say if somebody asks, "What is yellow?" You will say, "Yellow is yellow." How will you define it?

A rose is a rose is a rose. How are going to define it? If you say it is beautiful, do you know what beauty is? Has anybody ever defined it? No. They say beauty is indefinable. If you compare it with other roses... do you know that everything is incomparable? How can you compare it with other roses? This rose is just THIS rose; it is no other rose. Why do you bring other roses?

And when you bring other roses your mind is cluttered; then you have many things in the mind and they will become a barrier, and this rose will not be able to approach you. And here was something real -- it could have penetrated you, its fragrance could have penetrated you. The rose was ready to knock at your heart, but your started thinking about it. And by the time you come back the rose will not be here, because the rose will not wait; it will have faded.

It had a message, it brought something of the unknown with it. But that unknown is delicate, it cannot continue forever and ever. It brought something from the beyond every rose brings it. Every morning it comes, knocks at your door, but you are great thinkers. Something of the unknown, of the divine, something beyond time penetrates into time through a rose. But if you think, you miss, because in thinking you go astray, you have already gone away.

A philosopher thinks about a rose. A poet feels about a rose. And if you have to decide, decide always in favor of a poet. He touches reality better than a philosopher. And a mystic, he neither thinks nor feels -- he simply remains in the presence of the rose. Because feeling also is going away -- not so far as thinking, but feeling is also going away, because feeling is also a subtle activity.

A mystic simply remains in the presence of the rose. No activity, no thinking, no feeling -- neither heart nor head. He is simply there with the rose. This Hindus call SATSANG. Whenever there is a rose of man, a Buddha, a Master, you simply remain with him. You don't think, you don't feel. You simply remain with him -- simply with him -- you exist with him. This Hindus call SATSANG: to be with truth. The word SATSANG means to be in the presence of truth.

A rose is there -- you be with it. Don't create any activity, subtle or gross. Thinking is a very gross activity, feeling is a subtle activity. But you know feeling can change into thinking, thinking can change into feeling. They are convertible, they are not very far away from each other. Feeling is thinking on the way, maybe the seed, or just sprouting, and thinking is the tree, but the process is not different. Heart and head are not very far away. Things start in the heart and, immediately, before you become aware, they have reached into the head.

Just being with... then everything is revealed, then all the doors are open. There are no questions, no answers. Simply you have become one with reality. Thinking -- and you are separate. Feeling -- not so separate but yet separate, joined together but yet separate.

Neither thinking nor feeling, just being with, and suddenly you are not there and the world is not there. The One, the BRAHMA, is revealed. You and the world, both have become one. One infinite is there, the formless is there -- -- and that is the truth.

Truth is not a philosophic conclusion, it is an existential experience. It is neither thought nor feeling, it is existential -- with your total being you are with it.

When a drop of water falls into the ocean, whether it falls with the head or with the heart or it falls totally, it falls totally -- heart, head, everything; good, bad, everything; saint, sinner, everything. It falls completely!

Neither can saints know the divine, because they are too good and their good becomes the barrier, nor sinners, because they think they are too bad and their too -- badness becomes the barrier. One who is neither a saint nor a sinner, neither this nor that, one who has not chosen anything, one who does not claim anything, that "I am this or that," who simply remains in the presence, can know the divine.

And you need not go to the Himalayas, because you can remain with a rock and the thing will happen: you need not go to the temple! You can remain with a tree and the thing will happen. You need not even go to the tree: you can remain with yourself and the thing will happen -- because it is everywhere. Every atom vibrates with it, every atom celebrates it. Everything is nothing but it.

THE MORE YOU TALK AND THINK ABOUT IT THE FURTHER ASTRAY YOU WANDER FROM THE TRUTH. STOP TALKING AND THINKING, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO KNOW.

NO-THINKING IS THE DOOR. No-word is the gate. No-mind is the way.

How to achieve this? What will you do to achieve this? Just listening to it won't help, because mind is so clever. The mind will start thinking about this, what Sosan is saying; the mind will start thinking and spinning theories around it. The mind will say, "Yes, it seems right." But the mind will say, "It seems right," and you have gone astray. The mind will say, "No, it seems difficult, impossible. How can you stop thinking?" and you have gone astray.

Listen to the mind and you are never near the truth. Listen to the mind, you are always on the journey.

I have heard about a woman who was a philosopher, a thinker -- had written many books, was very well known. And then she suddenly declared to her friends that she was going to get married.

Never was any rumor heard about her love affairs, because people who think never love. Nobody ever thought that she was going to marry, so they were surprised.

They said, "Who is this man?"

So she told the name -- they were even more surprised. They said, "What do you see in that man?"

A very ordinary man... and this woman was well known. She was a professor in a university, had written many books, her name was known all over the country. "To this man? Why, what have you seen in him?"

She said, "One good thing -- he is a traveling salesman. He will never be here, he will be always traveling." Thinkers are always married to traveling salesmen. "He will never be here and I will be free to think and do my things."

Being married to the mind is being married to a salesman, a traveling salesman who is always on a journey. And because of this mind which is always on a journey you can never be in touch with the real. You eat but you miss eating. The flavor, the taste, the smell -- you miss it. You simply go on throwing things inside. It is ugly! But why do you miss? Because the mind goes on thinking; you are thinking of a thousand and one things while you are eating.

Says Rinzai, "When I eat, I only eat, and when I sleep, I only sleep."

Somebody said, "But nothing is special in that, everybody is doing it."

Rinzai laughed and said, "If everybody is doing it, everybody is a Buddha, everybody is enlightened then."

Eating -- simply eat, be with it. Walking -- simply walk, be there. Don't go ahead, don't jump here and there. Mind always goes ahead or lags behind. Remain with the moment.

In the beginning it will be very difficult to remain with the moment. And sometimes the moment may not be very happy. You are angry, then the mind starts thinking of repentance or tries to do something so that the anger never happens again. Sometimes you are sad; you put on the radio or the TV, you start reading a book, because you would not like to be sad. You want to divert the mind. And because miserable moments are more than happy moments it becomes a constant habit. And when it is fixed, even when happiness comes, you are not found at home. You are somewhere else.

Make it a point: whatsoever -- sadness, anger -- whatsoever -- depression, unhappiness -- be with it. And you will suddenly become surprised that if you remain with sadness, sadness changes into a beautiful thing, sadness becomes a depth. If you remain with anger, not thinking about, just being with, anger is transformed; it becomes forgiveness. If you remain with sex, sex takes on a different quality; it becomes love.

If you start living with the moment you will see your being with is a miracle, it has a magic to it. Happiness will become deeper. Ordinarily your happiness is just on the surface. Deep down you carry millions of things; just on the surface it is. If you remain with it, it will become deeper and deeper and deeper. If you start living with, everything is transformed because you bring a new quality of being, of awareness, of witnessing. Don't fight against sadness and don't hanker for happiness, because that is going away, astray.

Have you observed? -- if you go for a holiday to the Himalayas or to Switzerland, for months you plan to arrive there, and the moment you arrive your mind has started already to plan when to depart, how to go back home. Look! For months you plan how to arrive and when you arrive -- or even before you arrive, just on the way -- your mind has started to go back: How to depart?

Your every arrival is just the beginning of a departure. And you are never there because you cannot be there. Again back home you will start thinking. Back home you will start thinking about what happened in the Himalayas, what beautiful experiences you went through -- and you were never there. It is as if you have read about them it is as if somebody else has told you. You look at the memory as if the memory functions on its own; it takes photographs and becomes an album. Back home you will open the album and see, and you will say to friends, "Beautiful!" And you will start planning -- again next year you are going to the Himalayas.

Mind is never where you are: awareness is always there where you are. Drop more and more mind, and minding, and become more and more aware and alert. Bring yourself together in the moment.

Difficult in the beginning. Mind, because of the old habit, will go away again and again. Bring it back. No need to fight! Simply call it back: "Come." Again it will go... within seconds it will not be there. Call it back again.

And by and by, when you start enjoying THIS moment -- the eternal now, the only time that there is, the only existence that there is, the only life that there is -- when you start enjoying it, more and more the mind will be coming to it. Less and less it will be going.

Then a tuning happens. Suddenly you are here, at home, and the reality is revealed. The reality was always there, YOU were not there. It is not the truth which has to be sought, it is you who have to be brought home.

Zen

HSIN HSIN MING: THE BOOK OF NOTHING

Chapter-3

Truth cannot be sought