Zen Buddhism, Talks on the Faith Mind of Sosan, Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book Of Nothing Chapter 9: Neither this nor that

IN THIS WORLD OF SUCHNESS THERE IS NEITHER SELF NOR OTHER-THAN-SELF.

TO COME DIRECTLY INTO HARMONY WITH THIS REALITY JUST SIMPLY SAY WHEN DOUBTS ARISE, "NOT TWO."

IN THIS "NOT TWO" NOTHING IS SEPARATE, NOTHING IS EXCLUDED.

NO MATTER WHEN OR WHERE, ENLIGHTENMENT MEANS ENTERING THIS TRUTH.

AND THIS TRUTH IS BEYOND EXTENSION OR DIMINUTION IN TIME OR SPACE; IN IT A SINGLE THOUGHT IS TEN THOUSAND YEARS.

FIRST TRY TO UNDERSTAND the word 'suchness'. Buddha depends on that word very much. In Buddha's own language it is TATHATA -- suchness. The whole Buddhist meditation consists of living in this word, living with this word, so deeply that the word disappears and you become the suchness.

For example, you are ill. The attitude of suchness is: accept it -- and say to yourself, "Such is the way of the body," or, "Such are things." Don't create a fight, don't start struggling. You have a headache -- accept it. Such is the nature of things. Suddenly there is a change, because when this attitude comes in a change follows just like a shadow. If you can accept your headache, the headache disappears.

You try it. If you accept an illness it starts dispersing. Why does it happen? It happens because whenever you are fighting, your energy is divided: half the energy moving into illness, the headache, and half the energy fighting the headache -- a rift, a gap and the fight. Really THIS fight is a deeper headache.

Once you accept, once you don't complain, once you don't fight, the energy has become one within. The rift is bridged. And so much energy is released because now there is no conflict -- the release of energy itself becomes a healing force. Healing doesn't come from outside. All that medicines can do is to help the body to bring its own healing force into action. All that a doctor can do is just to help you to find your own healing power. Health cannot be forced from outside, it is your energy flowering.

This word 'suchness' can work so deeply that with physical illness, with mental illness and finally with spiritual illness -- this is a secret method -- they all dissolve. But start from the body, because that is the lowest layer. If you succeed there, then higher levels can be tried. If you fail there, then it will be difficult for you to move higher.

Something is wrong in the body: relax and accept it, and simply say inside -- not only in words but feel it deeply -- that such is the nature of things. A body is a compound, so many things combined in it. The body is born, it is prone to death. And it is a mechanism, and complex; there is every possibility of something or other going wrong.

Accept it, and don't be identified. When you accept you remain above, you remain beyond. When you fight you come to the same level. Acceptance is transcendence. When you accept, you are on a hill, the body is left behind. You say, "Yes, such is the nature. Things born will have to die. And if things born have to die they will be ill sometimes. Nothing to be worried about too much" -- as if it is not happening to you, just happening in the world of the things.

This is the beauty: that when you are not fighting, you transcend. You are no more on the same level. And this transcendence becomes a healing force. Suddenly the body starts changing. And the same happens to mental worries, tensions, anxieties, anguish. You are worried about a certain thing. What is the worry? You cannot accept the fact, that's the worry. You would like it in some way different from how it is happening. You are worried because you have some ideas to enforce on nature.

For example, you are getting old. You are worried. You would like to remain young forever -- this is the worry. You love a wife, you depend on her and she is thinking to leave, or of moving with another man, and you are worried -- worried because what will happen to you? You depend on her so much, you feel so much security with her. When she is gone there will be no security.

She has not only been a wife to you, she has been also a mother, a shelter; you can come and hide against the whole world. You can rely on her, she will be there. Even if the whole world is against you, she will not be against you, she is a consolation. Now she is leaving, what will happen to you? Suddenly you are in a panic, worried.

What are you saying? What are you saying by your worry? You are saying you cannot accept this happening, this should not be so. You expected it just the otherwise, just the contrary; you wanted this wife to be yours forever and ever, and now she is leaving. But what can you do?

When love disappears what can you do? There is no way; you cannot force love, you cannot force this wife to remain with you. Yes, you can force -- that's what everybody is doing -- you can force. The dead body will be there, but the living spirit will have left. Then that will be a tension on you.

Against nature nothing can be done. Love was a flowering, now the flower has faded. The breeze has come into your house, now it has moved into another. Such is the way of things, they go on moving and changing.

The world of things is a flux, nothing is permanent there. Don't expect! If you expect permanency in the world where everything is impermanent, you will create worry. You would like this love to be forever. Nothing can be forever in this world -- all that belongs to this world is momentary. This is the nature of things, suchness, TATHATA.

So you know now the love has disappeared. It gives you sadness -- okay, accept sadness. You feel trembling -- accept trembling, don't suppress it. You feel like crying, cry. Accept it! Don't force it, don't make a face, don't pretend that you are not worried, because that won't help. If you are worried you are worried; if the wife is leaving she is leaving; if the love is no more it is no more. You cannot fight the facticity, you have to accept it.

And if you accept it gradually, then you will be continuously in pain and suffering. If you accept it without any complaint, not in helplessness but in understanding, it becomes suchness. Then you are no more worried, then there is no problem -- because the problem was arising not because of the fact, but because you couldn't accept it the way it was happening. You wanted it to follow you.

REMEMBER, life is not going to follow you, you have to follow life. Grudgingly, happily -- that's your choice. If you follow grudgingly you will be in suffering. If you follow happily you become a Buddha, your life becomes an ecstasy.

Buddha has also to die -- things won't change -- but he dies in a different way. He dies so happily, as if there is no death. He simply disappears, because he says a thing which is born is going to die. Birth implies death, so it is okay, nothing can be done about it.

You can be miserable and die. Then you miss the point, the beauty that death can give to you, the grace that happens in the last moment, the illumination that happens when body and soul part. You will miss that because you are so much worried, and you are so much clinging to the past and to the body that your eyes ate closed. You cannot see what is happening because you cannot accept it, so you close your eyes, you close your whole being. You die -- you will die many times, and you will go on missing the point of it.

Death is beautiful if you can accept, if you can open the door with a welcoming heart, a warm reception: "yes, because if I am born I am to die. So the day has come, the circle becomes complete." You receive death as a guest, a welcome guest, and the quality of the phenomenon changes immediately.

Suddenly you are deathless: the body is dying, you are not dying. You can see now: only the clothes are dropping, not you; only the cover, the container, not the content. The consciousness remains in its illumination -- more so because in life many were the covers on it, in death it is naked. And when consciousness is in total nakedness it has a splendor of its own; it is the MOST beautiful thing in the world.

But for that an attitude of suchness has to be imbibed. When I say imbibed, I mean imbibed -- not just a mental thought, not the philosophy of suchness, but your whole way of life becomes suchness. You even don't think about it, it simply becomes natural.

You eat in suchness, you sleep in suchness, you breathe in suchness, you love in suchness, you weep in suchness. It becomes your very style; you need not bother about it, you need not think about it, it is the way you are. That is what I mean by the word 'imbibe'. You imbibe it, you digest it, it flows in your blood, it goes deep in your bones, it reaches to the very beat of your heart. You accept.

Remember, the word 'accept' is not very good. It is loaded -- because of you, not because of the word -- because you accept only when you feel helpless. You accept grudgingly, you accept half heartedly. You accept only when you cannot do anything, but deep down you still wish; you would have been happy if it had been otherwise. You accept like a beggar, not like a king -- and the difference is great.

If the wife leaves or the husband leaves, finally you come to accept it. What can be done? You weep and cry and many nights you brood and worry, and many nightmares around you and suffering... and then what to do? Time heals, not understanding. Time -- and remember, time is needed only because you are not understanding, otherwise INSTANT healing happens.

Time is needed because you are not understanding. So by and by -- six months, eight months, a year -- things become dim, in the memory they are lost, covered with much dust. And a gap comes of one year; by and by you forget.

Still, sometimes the wound hurts. Sometimes a woman passes on the road and suddenly you remember. Some similarity, the way she walks, and the wife is remembered -- and the wound. Then you fall in love with someone, then more dust gathers, then you remember less. But even with a new woman, sometimes the way she looks... and your wife. The way she sings in the bathroom... and the memory. And the wound is there, green.

It hurts because you carry the past. You carry everything, that's why you are so much burdened. You carry everything! You were a child; the child is still there, you are carrying it. You were a young man; the young man is still there with all his wounds, experiences, stupidities -- he is there. You CARRY your whole past, layers upon layers -- everything is there. That's why you sometimes regress.

If something happens and you feel helpless, you start crying like a child. You have regressed in time, the child has taken over. The child is more efficient in weeping than you, so the child comes in and takes over, you start crying and weeping. You can even start kicking, just like a child in a tantrum. But everything is there.

Why is so much load carried? Because you never really accepted anything. Listen: if you accept anything it simply never becomes a load, then the wound is not carried. You accepted the phenomenon; there is nothing to carry from it, you are out of it. Through acceptance you are out of it. Through half -- helpless acceptance it is carried.

Remember one thing: anything incomplete is carried by the mind forever and forever, anything complete, it is dropped. Because mind has a tendency to carry the incomplete things just in a hope that someday there may be an opportunity to complete them. You are still waiting for the wife to come, or for the husband, or for the days that have gone you are still waiting. You have not transcended the past.

And because of a too much loaded past, you cannot live in the present. Your present is a mess because of the past, and your future is also going to be the same -- because the past will become more and more heavy. Every day it is becoming heavier and heavier.

When you really accept, in that attitude of suchness there is no grudge, you are not helpless. Simply you under stand that this is the nature of things. For example, if I want to go out of this room I will go out through the door, not through the wall, because to enter the wall will be just hitting my head against it, it is simply foolish. This is the nature of the wall, to hinder, so you don't try to pass through it! This is the nature of the door, that you pass through it -- because the door is empty you can pass through it.

When a Buddha accepts, he accepts things like wall and door. He passes through the door, he says that is the only way. First you try to pass through the wall, and you wound yourself in many millions of ways. And when you cannot get out -- crushed, defeated, depressed, fallen -- then you crawl towards the door. You could have gone through the door in the first place. Why did you try and start fighting with the wall?

If you can look at things with a clarity, you simply don't do things like this, trying to make a door out of a wall. If love disappears, it has disappeared! Now there is a wall -- don't try to go through it. Now the door is no more there, the heart is no more there, the heart has opened to somebody else. And you are not alone here; there are others also.

The door is no more for you, it has become a wall. Don't try, and don't knock your head on it. You will be wounded unnecessarily. And wounded, defeated, even the door will not be such a beautiful thing to pass through.

Simply look at things. If something is natural, don't try to force any unnatural thing on it. Choose the door -- be out of it. You are doing every day the foolishness of passing through the wall. Then you become tense, and then you feel continuous confusion. Anguish becomes your very life, the core of it -- and then you ask for a meditation.

But why in the first place? Why not look at the facts as they are? Why can't you look at the facts? Because your wishes are too much there. You GO on hoping against all hope. That's why you have become so hopeless a case.

Just look: whenever there is a situation, don't desire anything, because desire will lead you astray. Don't wish and don't imagine. Simply look at the fact with your total consciousness available and suddenly a door opens and you never move through the wall, you move through the door, unscratched. Then you remain unloaded.

Remember, suchness is an understanding, not a helpless fate. So that's the difference. People ARE there who believe in fate, destiny. They say, "What can you do? God has willed it such a way. My young child has died, so it is God's will and this is my fate. It was written, it was going to happen" But deep down there is rejection. These are just tricks to polish the rejection. Do you know God? Do you know fate? Do you know it was written? No, these are rationalizations -- how you console yourself.

The attitude of suchness is not a fatalist attitude. It does not bring in a God, or a fate, or a destiny -- nothing. It says simply look at things. Simply look at the facticity of things, understand, and there is a door, there is always a door. You transcend.

Suchness means acceptance with a total welcoming heart, not in helplessness.

IN THIS WORLD OF SUCHNESS THERE IS NEITHER SELF NOR OTHER-THAN-SELF.

AND ONCE YOU MERGE -- you are merged into a suchness, in TATHATA, in understanding -- there is no one as you and there is no one as other-than-you, no self, no other-self. In a suchness, in a deep understanding of the nature of things, boundaries disappear.

Mulla Nasruddin was ill. The doctor examined him and said, "Fine, Nasruddin, very fine. You are improving, you are doing well, everything is almost okay. Just a little thing has remained; your floating kidney is not yet right. But I don't worry a bit about it."

Nasruddin looked at the doctor and said, UDo you think if your floating kidney was not all right I would worry about it?"

The mind always divides: the other and I. And the moment you divide I and the other, the other becomes the enemy, the other cannot be a friend. This is one of the basic things to be deeply understood, you need a penetration into it. The other cannot be the friend, the other is the enemy. In his very being the other, he is your enemy.

Some are more inimical, some less, but the other remains the enemy. Who is a friend? The least of the enemies, really, nothing else. The friend is one who is least inimical towards you and the enemy is one who is least friendly towards you, but they stand in a queue. The friend stands nearer, the enemy further away, but they all are enemies. The other cannot be a friend. It is impossible, because with the other there is bound to be competition, jealousy, struggle.

You are fighting with friends also -- of course, fighting in a friendly way. You are competing with friends also, because your ambitions are the same as theirs. You want to attain prestige, power; they also want to attain prestige and power. You would like to have a big empire around you, they also. You are fighting for the same, and only a few can have it.

It is impossible to have friends in the world. Buddha has friends, you have enemies. Buddha cannot have an enemy, you cannot have a friend. Why does Buddha have friends? Because the other has disappeared, now there is nobody who is other than him.

And when this other disappears the I also has to disappear, because they are two poles of one phenomenon. Here inside exists the ego, and there outside exists the other -- two poles of one phenomenon. If one pole disappears, if 'you' disappears, 'I' disappears with it; if 'I' disappears, 'you' disappears.

You cannot make the other disappear, you can only make yourself disappear. If YOU disappear there is no other; when the I is dropped there is no thou. That's the only way.

But we try, we try just the opposite -- we try to kill the 'you'. The 'you' cannot be killed, the 'you' cannot be possessed, dominated. The 'you' will remain a rebellion, because the 'you' is in an effort to kill YOU. You are both fighting for the same ego -- he for his, you for yours.

The whole politics of the world is how to kill the 'you' so that only 'I' is left and everything is at peace. Because when there is nobody else, you alone are there, everything will be at peace. But this has never happened and will never happen. How can you kill the other? How can you destroy the other? The other is vast, the whole universe is the other.

Religion works through a different dimension: it tries to drop the I. And once the I is dropped there is no other, the other disappears. That's why you cling to your complaints and grudges -- because they help the I to be there. If the shoe pinches, then the I can exist more easily. If the shoe is not pinching, the foot is forgotten -- then the I disappears.

People cling to their diseases, they cling to their complaints, they cling to all that pinches. And they go on saying that "These are wounds and we would like them to be healed." But deep down they go on making the wounds, because if all the wounds are healed they will not be there.

Just watch people -- they cling to their illness. They talk about it as if it is something worth talking about. People talk about illness, about their negative moods, more than about anything else. Listen to them, and you will see that they are enjoying talking about it.

Every evening I have to listen, for many years I have been listening. Look at their faces, they are enjoying it! They are martyrs... their illness, their anger, their hatred, their this problem and that, their greed, ambition. And just look, the whole thing is simply crazy -- because they are asking to get rid of those things, but look at their faces, they are enjoying it. And if they are really gone, what will they enjoy then? If all their illnesses disappear and they are completely whole and healthy, there will be nothing for them to talk about.

People go to psychiatrists and then they go on talking about it, that they have visited this psychiatrist and that, they have been to this Master and that. Really they enjoy saying that "All, everybody, has failed with me. I am still the same, nobody has been able to change me." They enjoy this, as if they are succeeding because they are proving every psychiatrist a failure. All 'pathies' have become failures.

I have heard about one man who was a hypochondriac, continuously talking about his illnesses. And nobody believed him, because he was checked and examined in every possible way and nothing was wrong. But every day he would run to the doctor -- he was in serious difficulty.

Then by and by the doctor became aware that "Whatsoever he hears -- if on the TV there is an advertisement about some medicine and talk about some illness -- immediately that illness comes to him. If he reads about any illness in a magazine, immediately, the next day, he is there at the doctor's office -- ill, completely ill. And he imitates all the symptoms."

So the doctor said once to him, "Don't bother me too much, because I read the same magazines you read and I listen to the same TV program you listen to. And just the next day you are here with the disease."

Said the man, "What do you think? Are you the only doctor in town?"

He stopped coming to this doctor, but he would not stop his madness about illness.

Then he died, as everybody has to die. Before his death he told his wife to write a few words on a marble stone on his grave. They are still written there. In big letters on his gravestone it is written: "Now do you believe that I was right?"

People feel so happy about their misery. I also feel sometimes that if all their misery disappears, what will they do? They will be so unoccupied they will simply commit suicide. And this has been my observation: you help them come out of one, the next day they are present there with something else. You help them to come out of that, they are again ready... as if there is a deep clinging to misery. They are getting something out of it, it is an investment -- and it is paying.

What is the investment? The investment is that when the shoe is not fitting, you feel more that you are. When the shoe fits completely, you simply relax. If the shoe fits completely, not only is the foot forgotten, the I disappears. There cannot be any I with a blissful consciousness -- impossible!

Only with a miserable mind can the I exist; the I is nothing but a combination of all your miseries. So if you are really ready to drop the I, only then will your miseries dissappear. Otherwise you will go on creating new miseries. Nobody can help you, because you are on a path which is self-destructive, self-defeating.

So whenever next time you come to me with any problem, just first inquire inside whether you would like it to be solved, because be aware -- I can give it. Are you really interested in solving it or just talking about it? You feel good talking about it.

Go inwards and inquire, and you will feel: all your miseries exist because you support them. Without your support nothing can exist. Because YOU give it energy, then it exists; if you don't give it energy it cannot exist. And who is forcing you to give it energy? Even when you are sad, energy is needed, because without energy you cannot be sad.

To make the phenomenon of sadness happen, you have to give energy. That's why after sadness you feel so dissipated, drained. What happened? -- because in depression you were not doing anything, you were simply sad. So why do you feel so much dissipated and drained? Out of sadness you must have come full of energy -- but no.

Remember, all negative emotions need energy, they drain you. And all positive emotions and positive attitudes are dynamos of energy; they create more energy, they never drain you.

If you are happy, suddenly the whole world flows towards you with energy, the whole world laughs with you. And people are right in their proverbs if they say: "When you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. When you weep, you weep alone." It is true, it is absolutely true.

When you are positive the whole existence goes on giving you more, because when you are happy the whole existence is happy with you. You are not a burden, you are a flower; you are not a rock, you are a bird. The whole existence feels happy about you.

When you are like a rock, sitting dead with your sadness, nursing your sadness, nobody is with you. Nobody can be with you. There simply comes a gap between you and the life. Then whatsoever you are doing, you have to depend on your energy source. It will be dissipated, you are wasting your energy, you are being drained by your own nonsense.

But one thing is there, that when you are sad and negative you will feel more ego. When you are happy, blissful, ecstatic, you will not feel the ego. When you are happy and ecstatic there is no I, and the other disappears. You are bridged with existence, not broken apart -- you are together.

When you are sad, angry, greedy, moving just within yourself and enjoying your wounds and seeing them again and again, playing with your wounds, trying to be a martyr, there is a gap between you and existence. You are left alone, and there you will feel I. And when you feel I, the whole existence becomes inimical to you. Not that it becomes inimical because of your I -- it appears to be inimical. And if you see that everybody is the enemy, you will behave in such a way that everybody HAS to be the enemy.

IN THIS WORLD OF SUCHNESS THERE IS NEITHER SELF NOR OTHER-THAN-SELF.

When you accept nature and dissolve into it, you move with it. You don't have any steps of your own, you don't have any dance of your own, you don't have even a small song to sing of our own -- the whole's song is your song, the whole's dance is your dance. You are no more apart.

You don't feel that "I am"; you simply feel, "The whole is. I am just a wave, coming and going, arrival and departure, being and non-being. I come and go, the whole remains. And I exist because of the whole, the whole exists through me."

Sometimes it takes forms, sometimes it becomes formless -- both are beautiful. Sometimes it arises in a body, sometimes it disappears from the body. It has to be so, because life is a rhythm. Sometimes you have to be in the form, then you have to rest from the form. Sometimes you have to be active and moving, a wave, and sometimes you go to the depth and rest, unmoving. Life is a rhythm.

Death is not the enemy. It is just a change of the rhythm, moving to the other. Soon you will be born -- alive, younger, fresher. Death is a necessity. YOU are not dying in death; only all the dust that has gathered around you has to be washed. That is the only way to be rejuvenated. Not only Jesus is resurrected, everything is resurrected in existence.

Just now the almond tree outside has dropped all his old leaves, now new leaves have replaced them. This is the way! If the tree clings to the old leaves then it will never be new, and then it will get rotten. Why create a conflict? The old disappears just for the new to come. It gives place, it makes space, room, for the new to come. And new will always be coming and old will always be going.

You don't die. Only the old leaf drops, just to make room for the new. Here you die, there you are born; here you disappear, there you appear. From the form to the formless, from the formless to the form; from the body to the no-body, from the no-body to the body; movement, rest; rest, movement -- this is the rhythm. If you look at the rhythm you are not worried about anything, you trust.

IN THE WORLD OF SUCHNESS,

in the world of trust,

THERE IS NEITHER SELF NOR OTHER-THAN-SELF.

Then you are not there, neither is there any thou. Both have disappeared, both have become a rhythm of one. That one exists, that one is the reality, the truth.

TO COME DIRECTLY INTO HARMONY WITH THIS REALITY JUST SIMPLY SAY, WHEN DOUBTS ARISE, "NOT TWO."

THIS IS ONE of the oldest mantras. Whenever doubts arise, whenever you feel divided, whenever you see that a duality is coming into being, simply say inside: "Not two." But say it with awareness, don't repeat it in a mechanical way.

This is the problem with all mantras -- really, this is the problem with everything. You can do it mechanically, then you miss the point; you do EVERYTHING and you still miss. Or you can do it with full awareness, intelligence, understanding, and then the thing happens.

Whenever you feel love arising say, "Not two." Otherwise the hate is waiting there -- they are one. When you feel hate arising say, "Not two." Whenever you feel a clinging towards life say, "Not two." Whenever you feel a fear of death say, "Not two." Only one is.

And this saying should be your understanding; it should be filled with intelligence, penetrating clarity. And suddenly you will feel a relaxation within. The moment you say, "Not two" -- if you are saying it understandingly, not repeating in a mechanical way -- you will suddenly feel the illumination.

Somebody has insulted you and you feel insulted. Simply remember and say, "Not two." Because the one who insults and the one who is insulted are one. So why be worried? That man has not done anything to you, he has done to himself -- because only one exists.

It happened:

In 1857 there was a rebellion in India against the British. One night a sannyasin was passing, just through the street, but he was not aware that it was a military camp. So he was caught. And he had remained for thirty years in silence. When the police caught him and the Britishers asked him, "Why are you walking here? This is a prohibited area. Without permission you cannot come in," he simply stood there because he couldn't speak. For thirty years he had not spoken, so what to do? And he did not write, he did not use any communication.

They thought that this man was trying to deceive, and he was not a foolish-looking man, he was very intelligent. The quality of his eyes, the way he was standing -- he was a beautiful man. He was not a fool or an idiot.

So they told him, "You tell us, otherwise we will shoot you." But he stood the same. So they thought, "He must be a spy and just moving in orange he is trying to find something in the camp, that's why he is silent."

So they said, "You speak, otherwise we will kill."

But he stood, so they killed him.

He had taken the vow thirty years before that only once would he speak in his life. So when he was killed, and the British soldier with his spear killed him, when the spear reached his heart, he only uttered one word. It is the base, the very base of Eastern understanding and wisdom; it is a word from the Upanishads. He said, "TATTWAMASI" -- that art thou -- and died!

You are also that -- the one. The killer and the killed are one, so why be worried? So why take standpoints? Why not merge in the other? Because the other is also me, and the other and me are also that. Only one exists.

Nobody could understand what he was saying because he uttered the word in Sanskrit: TATTWAMASI. But the quality of the man dying was such that even the killers, the murderers, became aware that they had done something wrong. Because they had never seen a spy dying in such a way. A spy is just a spy! And the bliss and the energy that was released when this man died was tremendous. Everybody felt it in the camp, as if there had suddenly been a lightning.

Thirty years' silence... and then if you speak a word it has to be so. So much energy, thirty years' silence in that one word, TATTWAMASI, it becomes atomic, it explodes! Everybody in the camp, even people who were sleeping in their tents, they felt that something had happened. But now it was too late.

Then they went in search of a Brahmin scholar to find out what he had said. There they found that he had said the ultimate: That art thou, TATTWAMASI, only one is.

Whenever you are faced with a confusion, with doubt, with division, conflict, whenever you are just going to choose something, remember, "Not two." Make it a deep mantra, resounding within your being continuously. But remember, it has to be done with understanding, awareness, consciously. Otherwise you can go on saying, "Not two, not two, not two," and you go on doing the two. And they become two separate things, they never meet.

This is what I mean when I say mechanical. Mechanical means: on one layer you go on saying beautiful things and on another layer you go on doing all ugly things. On one layer you say everyone is divine and on the other you remain the I, the ego, fighting, violent, aggressive.

And aggression is not only in war, it is not that when you kill a person then it is aggression. Aggression is so subtle, in your gestures it is there. You look, and if you are divided with I and thou, your look is violent.

I have heard once it happened:

A prisoner was brought to the warden of the prison, and that prisoner was an ideal one. For five years there had been no complaint against him, and the prison authorities were thinking now to make him free. He was a murderer and he was in prison for his whole life, but for five years he had been such a good prisoner, the model, and every year he was given the prize for the best prisoner. But suddenly he jumped on his cell mate and beat him hard, so he was called.

Even the warden was surprised. He said, "What has happened? Because for five years we have been watching you -- I have never in my life seen such a good, silent, well-behaved prisoner as you, and we were thinking to make you free. And suddenly, what has happened? Why did you jump on your cell mate? Why did you start beating him?"

The man stood there with a hung head, very ashamed. And then he said, "It happened because my cell mate tore off the leaf from the calendar and it was my turn."

They had a calendar in the cell and that was the only thing that they could do, the only action that was allowed to them. So they had divided it: one day one would tear off the leaf, another day the other. And this man said, "Today was MY turn, and he tore off the leaf."

If you are violent even this can become a problem. And he beat the cell mate so hard that he would have killed him, just with his bare hands, and the problem was a very simple one. But you don't understand if you really think it is a simple one -- it is not. Living in a cell for five years, not doing anything, one accumulates so much aggression that even this small thing can become too big.

And this is happening to you all. Whenever you jump on your friend, your wife, your husband, whenever you get angry -- have you ever thought about it? -- that the matter is really such a small thing, just tearing off a leaf from the calendar. Out of all proportion your accumulated anger and aggression comes out.

Whenever it happens, repeat -- not mechanically, consciously -- "Not two," and you will feel a sudden relaxation deep inside the heart. Say "Not two" and there is no choice, there is nothing to choose, like and dislike. Then everything is okay, and you can bless everything. Then wherever life leads, you go. You trust life.

If you say "Two" then you don't trust. Trust is possible only if I and the whole is one, otherwise how is trust possible? Trust is not an intellectual standpoint, attitude. It is a total response to the feeling that only one exists, NOT TWO. Make this your mantra, from Sosan learn this.

As many times as you feel doubt coming, confusion, division, conflict, repeat it very silently and deeply. First become conscious of the conflict, then repeat silently, "Not two," and see what happens. The conflict disappears. Even if for a single moment it disappears, it is a great phenomenon. You are at ease, suddenly there is no enemy in the world, suddenly everything is one. It is a family, and the whole is blissful with you.

IN THIS "NOT TWO" NOTHING IS SEPARATE, NOTHING IS EXCLUDED. NO MATTER WHEN OR WHERE, ENLIGHTENMENT MEANS ENTERING THIS TRUTH.

THE TRUTH OF NOT TWO. Enlightenment means entering this truth of not two. Go on tasting it as much as you can, go on feeling it as much as you can. Twenty-four hours a day there are opportunities, opportunities and opportunities -- infinite opportunities. No need to miss them.

At every opportunity, whenever you feel some tension inside, say "Not two" and relax the whole body. And look within at what is happening when you say "Not two." No mantra can be so deep as this. But this is not like repeating AUM, RAM. This is not like repeating when you repeat: RAM, RAM, RAM. No.

Whenever there is an opportunity of division, whenever you feel now you will be divided, now you are on the verge of choice, choosing this against that, liking this against that, whenever you feel the opportunity is coming and a tension is arising, whenever you feel a buildup of tension, suddenly say "Not two" -- and the tension will relax, and the energy will be re-absorbed. That re-absorbed energy becomes bliss.

There are two ways one can work with inner energy. One is: whenever the tension arises, relieve it. That's how sex works. It is a safety measure, because energy can accumulate so much that you can simply explode, you can die of it. So just to be safe, nature has made an automatic arrangement in the body: whenever the energy is too much you start feeling sexual.

What happens? There is a center that Hindus have been calling the third eye. Whenever energy reaches the third eye, whenever it is too much and you are filled with it, it hits on the third eye. You start feeling something has to be done. This third eye Hindus have called the AJNA CHAKRA, the center of order, of ordering, the office from where the body receives the orders.

Whenever the energy is filled up to the third eye center, immediately the body feels to do something. If you don't do anything you will feel suffocated. You will feel as if you are in a tunnel and you would like to get out of it, you will feel narrowed. Something has to be done immediately.

Nature has made a built-in process: immediately the third eye center hits the sex center, they are joined, and you start feeling sexual. The feeling of sexuality is just the arrangement to release the energy. You make love, energy is thrown, you feel relaxed, relieved. This is one way of using your energy -- you feel happiness through relief.

There is another way of using energy. That is: whenever energy becomes too much, not to relieve it but simply say, "Not two. I am one with the universe. Where to relieve it? With whom to make love? Where to throw it? there is nowhere to throw it, I am one with the universe." Whenever the energy is felt too much, simply say, "Not two," and remain relaxed.

If you don't throw it from the third eye, it starts rising higher than the third. And then there is the last, the seventh center in the head, which Hindus have called SAHASRAR: one-thousand-petaled lotus. When the energy reaches to the SAHASRAR there is bliss, when the energy reaches to the sex center there is happiness.

Happiness can be only momentary because relief can be only momentary. Relieved, finished -- you cannot go on relieving. A tension is relieved, then the energy is gone. But bliss can be eternal, because energy is not relieved but re-absorbed. But the center of relief is sex, the first center, and the center of re-absorbing the energy is the seventh, the last.

And remember, both are the two ends of one energy phenomenon; on one end is sex, on the other end is SAHASRAR. From one end energy is simply relieved; you feel at ease because now the energy is not there to do anything -- you go to sleep. That's why sex helps sleep, and people use it as a tranquilizer, as a sleeping pill.

If you move to the other extreme where energy is re-absorbed -- because there is no one else to throw it anywhere, you are the whole -- then the one-thousand petaled lotus opens. One thousand is just to say that it is infinite-petaled; an infinite-petaled lotus opens, and it goes on opening and opening and opening. There is no end to it, because energy goes on moving into it, re-absorbed. Then there is bliss, and bliss can be eternal.

One has to reach from sex to superconsciousness. This one-thousand-petaled lotus is the center of superconsciousness. So whenever again you feel sexual say, "Not two" understanding, conscious, alert, say, "Not two," and rest. Don't become fidgety and excited. Rest and say, "Not two".

And suddenly you will feel that something is happening in the head; the energy that used to fall downwards is moving upwards. And once it touches the seventh center it is transformed, re-absorbed. Then you become more and more energy, and energy is delight, energy is ecstasy. Then there is no need to relieve it, because now you are the oceanic self, infinite. You can absorb the infinite, you can absorb the whole, and there will still be space left.

This body is narrow. Your consciousness is not narrow, your consciousness is as vast as the sky. In this body you cannot carry much, this body is just a small cup; a little energy more and the cup overflows. Your sex is an overflowing of the cup, the narrow body. But when the SAHASRAR opens, a thousand-petaled lotus in your head, and it goes on opening and opening and opening, there is no end to it. If the whole is poured into you, still there is infinite space left.

It is said that a Buddha is greater than the universe. This is the meaning of it. His body is not greater than the universe, of course, obviously, but a Buddha is greater than the universe because the lotus has opened. Now this universe is nothing; millions of universes can fall into it and be re-absorbed. It can go on growing.

It is perfect and still goes on growing. This is the paradox -- because we think a perfection cannot grow. Perfection also grows; it grows to be more perfect and more perfect and more perfect. It goes on growing because it is infinite.

This is the emptiness Buddha is talking about -- SHUNYATA. When YOU are empty the whole falls into you and still infinity is left. More space is there, more universes can come into you and fall into you.

IN THIS "NOT TWO" NOTHING IS SEPARATE, NOTHING IS EXCLUDED.

NO MATTER WHEN OR WHERE, ENLIGHTENMENT MEANS ENTERING THIS TRUTH.

AND THIS TRUTH IS BEYOND EXTENSION OR DIMINUTION IN TIME OR SPACE...

THIS TRUTH IS BEYOND EXTENSION OR DIMINUTION IN TIME OR SPACE...

FOR THIS TRUTH time and space do not exist. It has gone beyond. It is not surrounded by anything now -- time OR space. It is greater than space, bigger than time.

... IN IT A SINGLE THOUGHT IS TEN THOUSAND YEARS.

This is just a way of saying that in it a single moment is eternity. A Buddha does not live in time, does not live in space. His body moves, we can see his body, but the body is not the Buddha. The Buddha is the consciousness that we cannot see. His body is born and dies; his consciousness is never born, never dies. But we cannot see that consciousness, and that consciousness is Buddha.

This enlightened consciousness is the very root of our whole existence -- and not only the root, but the flowering of it also. Time and space both exist in this consciousness, and this consciousness does not exist in time and space. You cannot say where this consciousness is -- where is irrelevant. It is everywhere! Rather, on the contrary, it will be better to say that EVERYWHERE IS IN IT.

We cannot say at which moment of time this enlightened consciousness exists. No, that is not possible to say. We can say only that all time exists in this consciousness. This consciousness is bigger, and it has to be so. Why does it have to be so?

You look at the sky: the sky is vast. But the looker, the witness, is vaster, otherwise how can you look at the sky? Your awareness must be vaster than the sky, otherwise how can you look at it? The seer must be greater than the seen... that is the only way.

You can watch time, you can say, "This is morning and now this is afternoon and now this is evening. And one minute has passed and one year has passed and one age has passed." This watcher, this consciousness, must be bigger than time, otherwise how can it watch? The watcher must be greater than the watched. You can see space, you can see time -- then this seer within you is greater than both.

Once enlightenment happens, everything is IN YOU. All stars move in you, the worlds arise out of you and dissolve in you -- because you are the whole.

Zen

HSIN HSIN MING: THE BOOK OF NOTHING

Chapter-9

Neither this nor that