Zen Buddhism, Talks on the Faith Mind of Sosan, Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book Of Nothing Chapter 8: Life in true faith

CONSIDER MOVEMENT STATIONARY AND THE STATIONARY IN MOTION, AND BOTH THE STATE OF MOVEMENT AND THE STATE OF REST DISAPPEAR. WHEN SUCH DUALITIES CEASE TO EXIST ONENESS ITSELF CANNOT EXIST.

TO THIS ULTIMATE FINALITY NO LAW OR DESCRIPTION APPLIES.

FOR THE UNIFIED MIND IN ACCORD WITH THE WAY ALL SELF CENTERED STRIVING CEASES.

DOUBTS AND IRRESOLUTIONS VANISH AND LIFE IN TRUE FAITH IS POSSIBLE.

WITH A SINGLE STROKE WE ARE FREED FROM BONDAGE; NOTHING CLINGS TO US AND WE HOLD NOTHING.

ALL IS EMPTY, CLEAR, SELF-ILLUMINATING, WITH NO EXERTION OF THE MIND'S POWER.

HERE THOUGHT, FEELING, KNOWLEDGE, AND IMAGINATION ARE OF NO VALUE.

CONSIDER MOVEMENT STATIONARY AND THE STATIONARY IN MOTION, AND BOTH THE STATE OF MOVEMENT AND THE STATE OF REST DISAPPEAR.

THIS IS ONE of the most basic things. Try to understand as deeply as possible.

The mind can see only one pole, and reality is two poles, the two opposite poles together. The mind can see one extreme; in the one extreme the other is hidden, but the mind cannot penetrate it. And unless you see both the opposites together you will never be able to see what is, and whatsoever you see will be false because it will be half.

Remember, the truth can only be the whole. If it is half it is even more dangerous than lies, because a half-truth carries the sense of being true and it is not true. You are deceived by it. To know the truth is to know the whole in everything.

For example, you see movement, something is moving. But is movement possible without something hidden inside which is not moving? Movement is impossible without something unmoving within it.

A wheel moves, but the center of the wheel remains unmoving; it moves on that unmoving center. If you see only the wheel you have seen the half, and the half is very dangerous. And if, in your mind, you make the half the whole, then you have fallen into the illusory world of concepts.

You love a person; you never see that hate is hidden within your love. It is there; whether you like it or not is not the question. Whenever you love, hate is present there -- the opposite pole -- because love cannot exist without hate. It is not a question of your liking. It is so.

Love cannot exist without hate; you love the person and the same person you hate. But the mind can see only one. When mind sees love, it ceases to see the hate; when hate comes up, when the mind is clinging to hate, it ceases to see love. And if you want to go beyond mind, you have to see both together -- both the extremes, both the opposites.

It is just like a pendulum of a clock. The pendulum goes to the right; all that is visible is that the pendulum is going to the right, but there is something invisible also. And that is that while the pendulum is moving towards the right it is gaining momentum to go to the left. That is not so visible, but soon you will see.

Once it has touched the extreme, the pendulum starts moving to the opposite polarity; it goes to the left. And it goes to the same extent to the left as it went to the right. While moving to the left, again you can be deceived. You will see it is moving to the left, but already deep within it is gathering energy to move to the right.

While you love you are gathering energy to hate; while you hate you are gathering energy to love. While you are alive you are gathering energy to die, and when you are dead you will gather energy to be reborn.

If you see only life then you will miss. See death hidden everywhere in life! And if you can see that death is hiding in life, then you can see the reverse also: that in death life is hidden. Then both the polarities disappear. When you see them in their togetherness, simultaneously, with that your mind also disappears. Why? Because mind can only be partial, it can never be whole.

What will you do if you see hate hidden in love? If you see love hidden in hate, what will you choose then? Choice will become impossible, because if you see, "I choose love," you also see you are choosing hate. And how can a lover choose hate?

You can choose because the hate is not apparent to you. You had chosen love, and then you think by some accident hate has happened. But the moment you choose love, you have chosen hate. The moment you cling to life, you are clinging to death. Nobody wants to die -- then don't cling to life, because life is leading towards death.

Life exists in polarities and mind exists in one part of the polarity; that's why mind is false. And mind tries to make that one part the whole. Mind says, "l love this man or this woman and I simply love. How can I hate this woman? When I love, I love; hate is impossible."

Mind appears logical but it is wrong. If you love, hate IS possible; hate is possible only if you love. You cannot hate a person without loving him; you cannot make an enemy without making him first your friend. They go together, they are just like two aspects of a coin. You look at one aspect, the other is hidden behind -- but the other is there, always waiting. And the more you move to the left, the more you are getting ready to move to the right.

What will happen if the mind can see both together? Mind is not possible, because then the whole thing becomes so absurd, illogical. Mind can live only in a logical frame, clear-cut, the opposite denied. You say, "This is my friend and that is my enemy." You can never say, "This is my friend and my enemy." If you say it things become illogical. And if you allow illogical things to enter they shatter mind completely -- mind drops.

When you look at the absurdity of life of the way life moves through contradictions, the way life lives through opposites, you have to drop the mind. The mind needs clear cut demarcations and life has none. You cannot find anything more absurd than life, than existence. Absurd is the word for it if you look at both the polarities together.

You meet -- you meet only to depart. You like a person -- you like a person only to dislike. You are happy -- you are happy only to sow the seeds for unhappiness. Can you conceive of a more absurd situation? If you want happiness, you have already wanted unhappiness; now you will be in a continuous anguish.

What to do? Nothing is left for the mind to do. The mind simply disappears. And when mind disappears then life does not look absurd, then life becomes a mystery.

This has to be understood, because life looks absurd because of the over-logicalness of the mind; life looks wild because you have lived in a man-made garden too long. You move into the forest and it looks wild, but wild it looks because of comparison. Once you understand that life is so, such is life that the opposite is always involved...

Love a person and hate will come. Make a friend and an enemy is born. Be happy and somewhere, from the back door, unhappiness is entering. Enjoy the moment and immediately you will weep and cry. Laugh, and just behind the laughter are tears, waiting to pop up. What to do then? There is nothing left to be done, this is how things are.

And Sosan says:

CONSIDER MOVEMENT STATIONARY...

That's what he is saying. He is saying when you see something moving, remember, something inside is stationary. And all movement will lead to the stationary. Where will it go? You run, you walk, you move. Where are you going? -- just to rest somewhere, just to sit somewhere. You are running just to rest somewhere. So running reaches to rest, movement to a state of being stationary.

And that stationary is already there. You run and see -- something inside you is not running, it cannot run. Your consciousness remains stationary. You may move all over the world; something within you never moves, cannot move -- and all movement depends on that immovable center. You get involved in all sorts of situations, emotions, but something in you remains uncommitted, uninvolved. And the whole life of involvements is possible because of that non-involving element.

You love a person, you love as much as you can, but deep down something remains aloof, detached. It has to be so, otherwise you will be lost. Something remains detached even in attachment. And the greater the attachment, the greater will be the feeling of the detached point within you, because without the opposite nothing can exist. Things exist by way of opposites.

CONSIDER MOVEMENT STATIONARY, AND THE STATIONARY IN MOTION...

AND WHEN YOU SEE something stationary, don't be befooled -- it is stationary but something is already moving. Now scientists say that everything is moving, even this stationary wall, the rock. They are moving so fast, their atoms are moving so fast, that you cannot see the movement. That's why they look stationary.

The movement is SO fast, just the same speed as a light ray moves. A light ray moves one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in one second. This is the movement of an atom. In a circle it moves. It is going so madly fast it looks static.

Nothing is static and nothing is absolutely moving. Everything is both -- something moving, something static -- and the static remains the base of all movement. When you see something static don't be befooled; look inside and somewhere you will find the movement already happening. If you see something moving, look for the stationary. You will always find it there, it is absolutely certain, because one extreme cannot exist alone.

If I give you a staff and tell you that this staff has only one extreme, there is no other extreme, you will say it is impossible. If it has one extreme then the other must be there, maybe hidden, but it is impossible that a staff should have only one extreme. The other must be there; if there is a beginning the end must be there.

This is what Buddha goes on saying: "If you are born, death must be there. Everything that is born has to die." Because one end is the beginning, then where is the other end, the other end of the staff? It HAS to be there. Everything born has to die, everything made will be unmade, everything joined will fall apart, every meeting is a departure, every arrival is a departure.

Look at both simultaneously and immediately the mind disappears. You may feel a little dizzy, because the mind has lived with logical demarcations, logical clarity. When all distinctions disappear, even the opposite is hidden in everything, mind feels dizzy.

Allow that dizziness, let it happen. Soon the dizziness will go and you will settle into a new wisdom, a new knowing, a new vision of reality.

This new vision of reality is the whole, and with this whole you are empty. There is no opinion about it; now you know every opinion is going to be false.

Somebody asked Mahavira, "Is there God?"

And Mahavira said, "Yes, no. Yes and no both."

The man was puzzled. He said, "I don't follow. Either you say yes or you say no, but don't say everything together.

Mahavira said, "These are only three standpoints. If you want to listen to the whole thing I have seven standpoints about everything."

And Mahavira has. First he says yes -- one standpoint -- not the truth, one aspect. Then he says no -- not the truth, another aspect. Then he says yes and no both -- third aspect. Then he says yes and no, both not -- fourth aspect. Then he says yes plus yes and no both -- fifth aspect. No plus yes and no both -- sixth aspect. No plus yes and plus both not -- seventh aspect.

He says seven are the aspects and then the thing is whole. And he is right, but the mind feels dizzy. But that is your problem, not his problem. He IS right, because he says whenever you say yes, it is half. In a certain sense a thing is, but in a certain sense it is already on the way to being non-existential.

You say, "This child, is he alive or dead?" He is alive, yes. But Mahavira says he is already on the path to die. He will die and the death is certain, so let it be implied in the statement, otherwise the statement will be half and untrue.

So Mahavira says, "Yes, in a sense this child is alive -- and no, in a sense, because this child is going to die" -- not only going to die, in fact he is already dead because he is alive. The death is hidden there, it is part of him. And that's why he says it is better to say the third: he is both.

But how can a child be both dead and alive? -- because death negates life, life negates death. That's why Mahavira says let there be a fourth standpoint also: he is both not. This is how he goes, and by the time he has finished his seven-fold statement, you are even more puzzled than you were before you asked him. But that is your problem. He says drop the mind, because mind cannot look at the whole, it can look only at the aspects.

Have you ever observed? If I give you a small pebble, can you see the small pebble whole? Whenever you look you see only one aspect, the other is hidden. If you look at the other then the first part is again hidden. Even with a small pebble that you can put on your palm, you cannot see the whole.

The mind cannot see anything whole. I am looking at you but your back is hidden. You are looking at me; my face you see but not my back. And you have never seen the whole of me, because when you see my back you will not see my face.

There is no possibility for the mind to see anything whole. It can see only the half, the other half is inferred. It is an inference, taken for granted that it must be there, because how can the face be if there is no back? So we infer that the back may be there, must be there.

But if you can look at both the things together, dizziness is bound to happen. If you can tolerate it and pass through it, then comes clarity, then all clouds disappear. In dervish dancing the whole point is to give the mind a dizziness. There are many ways. Mahavira used a very logical device: seven-fold logic. That is just like dervish dancing; it gives you a dizziness.

Those who are very intellectual, for them Mahavira's method is very beautiful. It gives a dizziness and everything becomes topsy-turvy, and you cannot really say anything -- you have to become silent. Whatsoever you say looks absurd and you have to go on denying it immediately. And by the time you have stated everything, nothing is stated, because every statement contradicted the other.

This seven-fold logic of Mahavira is just like dervish dancing of the mind, it gives you dizziness. Dervish dancing is a physical method to give the mind a dizziness and this is a mental method to give the mind a dizziness.

If you dance fast, move fast, whirl fast, you suddenly feel a dizziness, a nausea, as if the mind is disappearing. If you continue, for a few days dizziness will be there and then it will settle. The moment dizziness has gone you will find the mind has gone, because there is nobody to feel dizzy. And then a clarity comes. Then you look at things without the mind. Without the mind the whole is revealed -- and with the whole, the transformation.

WHEN SUCH DUALITIES CEASE TO EXIST ONENESS ITSELF CANNOT EXIST.

AND REMEMBER, when we use the word 'oneness', that too is part of duality. If there is no duality how can there be oneness? That's why Hindus never use 'oneness'. If you ask Shankara, "What is the nature of existence?" he says, "Non-dual, ADVAITA, not two."

He will never say one, because how can you say one? If there is only one, how can you say one? One needs two to be meaningful. If there is no possibility of the second, of the two, then what is the use of saying that it is one? Shankara says, "At the most, I can say not two, but I cannot say positively one. I can say what the reality is not: it is not two. I cannot say what it is, because meaning, words, all become useless."

WHEN SUCH DUALITIES CEASE TO EXIST...

When you cannot see love apart from hate, what meaning will you give to love? Dictionaries cannot be written by Sosan. If somebody tells me to write a dictionary, I cannot do that. It is impossible, because what meaning will I give to love? Dictionaries are possible only if love and hate are different, not only different but opposite. So you can write: love is not hate. When you have to define hate, you can say: not love.

But what will Sosan do? If you ask him, "What is love?" how should he define love? -- because love is hate too. How will he define life? -- because life is death too. How will he define a child? -- because a child is an old man too. How will he define beauty? -- because beauty is ugliness too. Boundaries disappear, then you cannot define anything because definition needs boundaries, and definition depends on the opposite; all definitions depend on the opposite.

If we say what a man is, we can say: not a woman -- and it is defined. But if you look at Sosan and understand him, every man is a woman, every woman is a man. This is how things are. Now psychologists have discovered that fact also: that man and woman are bisexual. Every man has a woman hidden within, and every woman has a man hidden within her -- they are there. No woman is simply a woman, cannot be. In this existence nothing can be without the opposite. And no man can be without a woman, the woman is there.

You are born out of two parents; one was man, one was woman. You carry both within you, half-half. This has to be so, there is no other way to be born. You are not born out of a woman only, otherwise you would have been only woman. You are not born out of the father only, otherwise you would have been only man. You are born out of a duality, man and woman. They both contribute, you are both.

That creates trouble, because when the mind thinks about a woman, it always thinks in terms of the feminine. But you don't know then. If a woman becomes ferocious, she is more ferocious than any man; if she is angry, no man can compete with her; if she hates, no man can hate like her.

Why? Because her woman is tired, on the surface, and her man is always at rest and is more full of energy. So whenever she is angry, she is more angry because the man starts functioning, and that man is at rest. And whenever a man surrenders or becomes very loving he is more feminine than any woman, because then the woman that is always at rest and hidden behind, and always fresh and young, comes up.

Look at Hindu deities. They have the right thing, they have understood the duality very well. You must have seen pictures of Kali, the mother. She is a very ferocious woman with skulls around her neck, blood and a head in one hand, and many hands holding weapons to kill. She is the consort of Shiva, and Shiva is Lying down and she is standing on his chest.

When for the first time Westerners started to think about this symbol, they were puzzled: "Why? And why do you call this woman 'mother'? She looks like death!" But Hindus say that the mother also has death in her, because she gives birth, then who will give you death, the opposite? The mother gives you birth, then she will give you death also. This has to be so.

Kali, the mother, is both dangerous, destructive and creative. She is the mother, the creative force, and she is also death, the destructive force. She loves Shiva but she is standing on his chest as if ready to kill.

But this is the nature of life. Love kills, birth becomes death, beauty disappears, ugliness comes in. Everything fades into the opposite, melts into the opposite. All logic looks futile and mind gets dizzy.

WHEN SUCH DUALITIES CEASE TO EXIST...

And when you see through all of them, they simply cease to exist -- because LOVE IS HATE. The right word will be 'lovehate' -- one word, not two words. The right thing will be 'lifedeath' -- one word, not two words. The right word will be 'manwoman', 'womanman' -- not two words, one, together.

But then oneness also disappears, ceases to exist. Then what is the use of saying that life is one? Two disappear; in the wake one disappears also.

That's why Sosan and all followers of Buddha insist that when you come to realize truth, it is neither one nor two, is is emptiness. Now you can understand why they say SHUNYATA, emptiness. Everything disappears, because when the two disappear, the one disappears -- then what is left? Nothing is left, or, ONLY nothing is left. This nothingness is the ultimate peak of enlightenment, when you see everything empty, when everything becomes empty.

TO THIS ULTIMATE FINALITY NO LAW OR DESCRIPTION APPLIES.

FOR THE UNIFIED MIND, IN ACCORD WITH THE WAY AND SELF-CENTERED STRIVING CEASES.

WHAT WILL YOU TRY to achieve in this emptiness? Where is the goal and who is the seeker and who is the sought? There is no goal to be achieved, there is no one who can achieve. And all striving ceases.

This is the peace of Buddha, the total silence -- because there is nothing to achieve, no one to achieve, nowhere to go, no one to go. Everything empty. Suddenly the whole striving disappears. You are not going anywhere. You start laughing, you start enjoying this emptiness. Then there is no barrier to your enjoyment, then the bliss goes on falling on you.

If existence IS felt as empty then nobody can disturb your bliss, because there is nobody to disturb it. It is you because of your duality you get disturbed. You fall in love, and then hate comes and the hate disturbs. You want to be beautiful, and then ugliness enters and then ugliness disturbs. You want to be alive forever and forever, and then death knocks at the door and death disturbs.

If you can see the opposite is hidden, suddenly you don't ask for anything, you don't seek anything, because you know whatsoever you ask, the opposite will come. If you ask for prestige, respect, insults will be coming from everywhere; if you ask for flowers, thorns will fall on you, if you want to be known, you will be forgotten; if you want to reach to the throne, you will be thrown completely.

Whatsoever you ask, the opposite will be given to you. Then what is the meaning of asking, then why ask for anything? Desires will be fulfilled, but by the time they are fulfilled, you will be surprised -- the opposite has come into your hands. Goals you will achieve, but by the time you achieve you will cry and weep, because the opposite is hidden in the goal. You will reach wherever you want to reach, but the very reaching will become the frustration.

ALL SELF-CENTERED STRIVING CEASES when this emptiness is seen as empty. What is there to strive for? The achieving mind falls, disappears into the dust.

DOUBTS AND IRRESOLUTIONS VANISH AND LIFE IN TRUE FAITH IS POSSIBLE.

This is the difference. These sayings of Sosan are called in Chinese THE BOOK OF TRUE FAITH. It is very difficult for Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, to understand what type of true faith this is. Try to understand; it is the deepest understanding of faith.

Ordinarily what is taught in churches, temples -- what Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, talk about -- is not faith but belief: Believe in a God! But how can you believe? Because every belief carries its own doubt. That's why you insist that "I absolutely believe!"

When you say, "I absolutely believe," really, what are you saying? Why this 'absolute', why this emphasis? It shows that a doubt is hidden somewhere, and you are hiding it with the word 'absolute', with the word 'total', with the emphasis. Whom are you going to deceive? You are deceiving yourself. The emphasis shows that the opposite is hidden somewhere.

When you say to someone, "I love you and ONLY YOU," a doubt is hidden. Why 'only you'? Why do you say it? Why do you want to emphasize it? The possibility of loving somebody else is hidden there, so you emphasize to hide that possibility. If you don't hide it, it may become apparent, it may come up, it may surface. Then what to do? Just make every arrangement to hide it.

Why do you say, "I am a true believer"? Can there be an untrue believer also? What is this true belief? True belief means you have hidden the doubt so completely that nobody will be able to know, but you know it well. And that's why believers don't like to listen tO things which go against their belief. They become deaf because they are always afraid. You are never afraid of the other, of what he is going to say; you are afraid he may touch the hidden doubt and the doubt may uncoil.

So ordinary religious people won't like to listen to an atheist. They will say, "No, he may destroy the faith." But can faith be destroyed? And if faith can be destroyed, then is it worth clinging to? If faith also can be destroyed, then what type of faith is this? But it can be destroyed because doubt is there, the doubt is already eroding it.

This happens every day. Believers become disbelievers, disbelievers become believers -- they change, easily convertible. Why? Because the other is hidden there. Belief carries doubt; as love carries hate, life carries death, belief carries doubt. Then what is faith?

Sosan has really an understanding of what faith is. Faith happens only when the duality has fallen; it is not a belief against doubt. When belief and doubts both have disappeared, then something happens which is faith, which is trust. Not trust in a God, because there is no duality, you and God. Not that you trust, because you are no more there -- because if YOU are there then others will be there. Everything empty and the trust flowers; the emptiness becomes the very flowering of trust.

The Buddhist word SHRADDHA -- faith, trust -- is very very different. The meaning is absolutely different from that which the word 'belief' carries. Nobody to believe, nobody to be believed in; all dualities have fallen. Then trust... Then what can you do? You cannot doubt, you cannot believe -- what can you do? You simply trust and flow into the flow. You move with life, you rest with life.

If life brings birth, you trust in birth -- you don't hanker. If life brings death, you trust in death -- you don't say that this is not good. If life brings flowers, okay; if life brings thorns, okay. If life gives, it is good; if life takes away, it is good.

This is trust. Not making a choice on your own. Leaving everything to life, whatsoever... Not desiring, not making demands. Simply moving wherever life leads, because the moment you demand you know now the opposite will be the result. So you don't ask, "Give us eternal life," because you know you will get eternal death.

Have you ever observed that in the whole world only Christians have been praying for eternal life? Only Christians pray, "Lord, give us eternal life," and only Christians have a hell which is eternal. It has to the be opposite. No other religion has an eternal hell. They have hells, but temporary ones; you are there for a few days, a few months, a few years, and then you are transferred, because no punishment can be eternal. How can it be?

When every pleasure is temporary, how can the punishment be eternal? When the prize is temporary, how can the punishment be eternal? When you never get anything eternal in life, how can you be punished eternally for it? Seems unjust.

But Christianity demands, prays for eternal life. Then you have to make the balance: eternal hell. Once you sin and are thrown into hell you will never be able to come out of it. Forever and forever you will be there. This has to be so because you demanded eternal life.

Buddhist trust means a deep understanding of the fact that whatsoever you demand will go wrong. Try to understand it. I will repeat: whatsoever you desire will go wrong.

Understanding this, desiring disappears. When desiring disappears there is trust! Trust means moving with life without any expectations, desires, demands of your own. Not asking, not complaining. Whatsoever happens, accepting it.

And remember, this is not something that you are DOING. If you are doing it, then there is rejection. If you say, "yes, I will accept," you have rejected. You say, "Whatsoever happens I will accept." There is a deep rejection behind it. You really don't accept. You are accepting only because you feel helpless, because nothing can be done, so what to do? -- accept. But the acceptance has a deep depression in it, a rejection. If it had been possible to reject, you would have chosen rejection. Then it is not trust.

Simply seeing the reality, that the opposite is implied everywhere, Sosan says trust happens. It is not that you say, "i accept"; it is not in any helplessness that you accept. It is simply the nature of life that the opposite is implied. Looking at the fact, truth, deep inside you, gives you trust. Looking at the fact, faith happens.

If I see that I was born, then the fact is there that I will die. This is a simple fact. I don't accept it because there is no rejection; I simply trust. When I trusted being born, life gave me birth -- and I trusted. Life will give me death, and I trust. If birth has been so beautiful, why not death? And who are you to decide? If birth has given you so much, why not death?

The unknown is there always. Trust means going into the unknown, not making any demands. Then you cannot be miserable, then bliss goes on showering on you. How can you be miserable if you don't demand? Who can make you miserable if you don't demand? Life seems to be miserable, because whatsoever you demand, life seems to be going towards just the opposite. Life will become bliss if you don't demand; whatsoever happens is beautiful. WHATSOEVER happens is beautiful -- you simply move with it.

Right is Chuang Tzu: "Easy is right," and "When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten." And when you fit so deeply with life, doubts, disbeliefs disappear. This fitting of the shoe is trust. A faith arises which is not a belief. A faith arises which does not need any God to be believed in.

That's why Buddhists don't talk about God. Buddhism reached really the deepest core of religion, and people like Sosan are rare. Their understanding is perfect, total. The whole has come into their understanding. They don't need a god because they say, "Why a god? Is not existence enough? Why personify it? And whatsoever YOU make will be just like you -- it will be a projection. So all gods are projections."

Hindus make a god: look at the god, it is just a projection of the Hindu physiology -- the nose, the eyes, the height, everything. Look at a Japanese god, look at a Negro god, and you can see that these are just projections of our own minds. If horses have their gods they cannot be men they will be horses. Can you think of a horse having a god like a man? Impossible! Horses will have horses as their gods. If trees have their gods they will be trees.

What are your gods? Your projections. And why do you project? Because you want to be protected. Without a god you feel lonely, alone, empty; you want someone to help you. With this asking for help, you are creating misery for yourself. Now the opposite will happen. Every moment you will feel God is not listening, and you are praying and crying and he is not listening. And every moment you will feel you have done everything and you have not been given that which is due to you.

Saints, so-called saints, always have complaints because they have renounced the world and yet bliss has not happened. They are celibate, but yet flowers have not fallen on them. And they have done this and that, they have a long list, and they HAVE done many things, and yet God is as far away as ever. They don't trust, they are still making a fight with life. They don't allow life to happen in its own way. They have their own ideas to enforce on life -- that is distrust.

Distrust means you have some ideas to enforce. You think yourself wiser than life itself. That is distrust, that is disbelief. You want to impose yourself. Go even to the churches, synagogues, and see people praying to God. What are they saying? They are giving advice. They are saying, "Don't do this, this is wrong. My son is ill, make him healthy."

In the first place, if you really trust, then HE makes your son ill -- so trust it! Why go complaining and praying? Do you think you can improve upon him? All prayers mean praying to God that "Please don't make two and two become four. Whatsoever is happening, whatsoever is natural, don't let it happen." You have some ideas to suggest, some advice -- this is not trust.

Trust means: "I am no one and I go wherever life leads me, wherever -- into the unknown, into the dark, death or life. Wherever it leads, I am ready. I am always ready and I ht." But when can you fit? You can ht only when duality ceases. When you can see, and that very seeing becomes stopping -- stopping of desire, demand.

FOR THE UNIFIED MIND, IN ACCORD WITH THE WAY, ALL SELF-CENTERED STRIVING CEASES.

DOUBTS AND IRRESOLUTIONS VANISH AND LIFE IN TRUE FAITH BECOMES POSSIBLE. WITH A SINGLE STROKE WE ARE FREED FROM BONDAGE...

WITH A SINGLE STROKE WE ARE FREED FROM BONDAGE...

IT IS NOT a gradual affair, it is not that by and by you reach to the truth, it is not a question of degrees. By a single stroke, when you see the truth, in a single moment you are freed of all bondage.

It is not a question of making effort, because whatsoever you do, you will do with the mind, and mind is the cause of all misery. And whatsoever you do with the mind will strengthen the mind more. Whatsoever you do with the mind will be a striving. And whatsoever you do with the mind will be a choice from two opposite poles. You will be getting more entangled.

So the question is not what to do, the question is how to see. The question is not of changing your character, the question is not to become more good, to become more saintly, to be less a sinner -- no, that is not the question. The question is: how to see without mind, how to see without choice. The question is not concerned with doing and action, the question is concerned with the quality of awareness.

That's why in the East we have been emphasizing meditation, and in the West they have been emphasizing morality. When for the first time the Upanishads were translated into Western languages the scholars were puzzled, because they didn't have anything like the Ten Commandments in the Upanishads -- "Don't do this, do that" -- nothing was there. They were puzzled. How are these Upanishads religious scriptures? Because religion means a morality, religion means, "Don't do this and do that," it is a DOING. And the Upanishads don't talk about what to do, they only talk about how to be, what to be.

How to be more alert and aware, that's the only question. How to be so aware that you can see through, and opposites become one and dualities cease. In a deep penetration of awareness, sinners disappear, saints also, because they both belong to the duality. God dies and the Devil also, because they also belong to the duality -- the mind created them.

And Christianity has remained in a deep turmoil continuously, because how to make arrangements with the Devil and God both? It is really a problem. In the first place, how does this Devil come in? If you say God created him then the responsibility goes to God himself. And what will happen in the end? Who is going to win? If you say God is going to win, finally, then why this whole nonsense on the way, on the road? If God is going to win finally, why not now?

And if you say there can be no final winning, victory, the conflict will continue, then the Devil becomes as powerful as God. And who knows? -- he may win in the end. And if HE wins then what will happen to all of your saints? Then sinners will be happy and saints will be thrown into hell. But the whole thing arises because of the dual mind.

The mind cannot see that God and Devil are one. They are. The Devil is just the opposite: the other extreme, the hate, the death. So you say God is love and the Devil is hate, God is compassion and the Devil is violence, and God is light and the Devil is darkness. What foolishness! Because darkness and light are two aspects of one energy. Good and bad also, right and wrong, moral and immoral, are both two polarities of one phenomenon. And that one phenomenon is existence.

Sosan will not call it God, because if you call it God you deny the Devil -- it is God plus the Devil. Existence is both night and day, morning and evening both, the happiness, unhappiness -- all. It is together. And when you see this, heaven and hell BOTH together, then where is the choice? And what is the point of choosing anything or asking for anything?

All demands cease. Faith arises, trust happens. In the emptiness of truth, where duality ceases, where you cannot even say one is, an unknown phenomenon, which is trust, flowers. Something blooms which is the most beautiful, the most precious, and that is the flower of trust.

WITH A SINGLE STROKE WE ARE FREED FROM BONDAGE; NOTHING CLINGS TO US, AND WE HOLD NOTHING.

ALL IS EMPTY, CLEAR, SELF-ILLUMINATING, WITH NO EXERTION OF THE MIND'S POWER.

HERE THOUGHT, FEELING, KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION ARE OF NO VALUE.

THEN ONE LIVES, only lives. One breathes, only breathes. No imagination, no thought, no mind -- they are all of no value. You trust existence, and when YOU trust existence, existence trusts you. This meeting of trust is the ultimate bliss, the ecstasy, SAMADHI.

So what to do about it? It is not a question of doing, nothing can be done. You have to SEE, YOU have to observe life; become an observer, look in everything. Next time you feel love, just don't be befooled by it. Love, but look inside -- there is hate waiting. And watch. And suddenly there will be an illumination. You will be able to see this love is just nothing but the first step of the hate.

Then what is there to choose? Then why ask, "God, give us more love" -- because more hate will be coming. So what will you do? You will float in love and you will know hate is coming. Neither will you cling to love... because clinging means you are fighting against hate. And you KNOW, as night comes after the day, after love the hate will be coming. Then what will happen? Neither will you cling to love nor will you hate hate.

And when you are in such a balance, in such a tranquility, where you don't demand love, where you don't want to be away from hate, where you don't cling to anything, and nothing clings to you, suddenly you neither love nor hate -- suddenly, in one stroke, the duality is broken.

From anywhere... Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, "Find out your chief characteristic." It is good. Find out what is your chief characteristic -- fear? hate? Love? greed? sex? What is your chief characteristic? Just watch and see, and work on that chief characteristic, and try to see the opposites together.

If it is love, then see love and hate together. If you can see, they negate each other. Suddenly you are empty -- there is neither love nor hate. They can be only one at a time. Both together, they negate each other. Suddenly they both are not there -- only you are left alone, in your total aloneness. Nothing is there, not a trace of anything. This is the emptiness, the SHUNYATA, Sosan is talking about.

And if you can see this in one duality, you can see it in all -- that is not a big problem. Once you have seen it in one duality, love-hate, you have seen it all over. The same is everywhere. A totally different quality of being will come into existence.

Trust. It is not something to believe in, a doctrine, it has nothing to with any God, any Christ, Krishna, Mohammed, any Koran, Bible, Gita. No. It has something to do with your awareness. Fully alert, seeing through, you become free -- and at one stroke.

WITH A SINGLE STROKE WE ARE FREED FROM BONDAGE; NOTHING CLINGS TO US, AND WE HOLD NOTHING.

ALL IS EMPTY, CLEAR, SELF-ILLUMINATING, WITH NO EXERTION OF THE MIND'S POWER.

HERE, THOUGHT, FEELING, KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION ARE OF NO VALUE.

Don't think over it, try to see it in life. It will be painful, because when you are feeling love you don't want to think about hate at all. You are really afraid that if you think of the hate, then this whole ecstasy of love will disappear. When you are alive you don't want to think about death at all, because you are afraid that if you think too much about death then you will not be able to enjoy life.

But your fear is, in a way, right. If you really become aware of death, you will not be able to enjoy life the WAY you are enjoying it. It is not much of an enjoyment also. It is not -- it is just a misery. You will not be able to enjoy THIS way. And this way it is not an enjoyment at all, remember.

If you think of hate while making love, you will not be able to enjoy it the way you have been enjoying it. But is it really an enjoyment or just an obsession? Have you really enjoyed love? If you had enjoyed then you would have flowered, then you would have a different fragrance -- and it is not there. Then you would have a different illumination of being and it is not there. You are empty, poor, deep within -- dark, no flame. So what type of enjoyment has been this love and life and everything? No, you have been just deceiving.

Your love is nothing but an intoxicant, a drug. For a few moments you fall into it and forget. Then comes hate and then you are in misery. And again, because you are in misery, you seek love, and your love is nothing but again falling into a deep sleep. This has been your pattern. All that you call happiness is nothing but falling into sleep. Wherever you feel good sleep, you see it as being happy.

What is a happy man in your mind? He is a man who is not troubled by things. That's why so much appeal in alcohol, in drugs, because then worries are forgotten. What is your love? It seems to be a biological in-built process of drugging yourself. And it is chemical; some chemicals of the body are released, so the balance of the chemicals is changed. It is not much different from marijuana or LSD, because the basic thing is the change of chemicals in the body.

Love changes -- a fast also changes; the chemicals of the body lose their old pattern. In that new pattern, for a few moments you feel good. Again the hate comes, again the world enters, and the worries, and you are again in the wheel. This you have been doing for many many lives.

Now try something Sosan is saying, and this is what all Buddhas have said. Look while you are in love, while you are making love -- don't be afraid -- look how it is turning into hate. While you are alive, look how it is going into death -- each breath and you are moving into death. Every moment of time slips, and death is coming nearer and nearer. Look how your youth is becoming old age. Look to the opposite!

Courage is needed, because the old pattern will not be helped; it will be destroyed by it. But once you can see hate in love, you will attain to a tranquility which is beyond both. If you can see life and death both together, you transcend. In a single stroke you transcend. In a single stroke you are out of bondage, you are a free soul for the first time -- you are freedom itself. That's why we call this ultimate state MOKSHA, freedom.

Nothing is to be done. You have to become more aware in your doings, become more conscious. That is the only meditation: become more alert. In a sharp moment of awareness, the awareness becomes a weapon, and in a single stroke all bondage is broken.

Zen

HSIN HSIN MING: THE BOOK OF NOTHING

Chapter-8

Life in true faith