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ZEN

HYAKUJO: THE EVEREST OF ZEN, WITH BASHO'S HAIKUS

Chapter 9: The Buddha is your empty heart

 

Energy Enhancement             Enlightened Texts             Zen             Hyakujo

 

BELOVED OSHO,
ON ONE OCCASION, ISAN, GOHO AND UNGAN, WERE ALL STANDING TOGETHER IN ATTENDANCE ON HYAKUJO.
HYAKUJO SAID TO ISAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
ISAN SAID, "I WOULD ASK YOU TO SAY IT."
HYAKUJO SAID, "I COULD SAY IT, BUT IF I DID SO, I FEAR I SHOULD HAVE NO SUCCESSORS."
HYAKUJO TURNED TO GOHO. "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" HE ASKED HIS SECOND DISCIPLE.
GOHO SAID, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"
HYAKUJO SAID, "IN THE DISTANT LAND WHERE NO ONE STIRS, I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU."
THEN HYAKUJO ASKED UNGAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
UNGAN SAID, "OSHO, DO YOU HAVE THEM OR NOT?"
HYAKUJO SAID, "MY SUCCESSORS WILL BE MISSING."

Maneesha, this is the last talk on Hyakujo, and the piece that you have chosen is the strangest  --  a beautiful ending, showing Hyakujo at his peak.
ON ONE OCCASION, ISAN, GOHO AND UNGAN, WERE ALL STANDING TOGETHER IN ATTENDANCE ON HYAKUJO. These three were the most intimate disciples. One of the three was going to be the successor  --  so was the rumor. In the thousands of disciples these three were possible successors. And every master, before choosing, asks a question which is in fact a koan which cannot be answered.
HYAKUJO SAID TO ISAN... This was the evening of his life, time to depart from the world. He was in search now for whom to transmit the light that he had carried his whole life. He asked Isan, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
Two things: first, the it is the ultimate experience. Zen is very particular. There have been gods which are male gods, created by male chauvinists: "How can a god be a woman?" And there have been women goddesses in the primitive tribes, far closer to the idea of the father god than the mother goddess, because the mother gives birth to life. God can be conceived as the whole womb of universe. He creates the world. It seems to be more human to conceive of God as a woman, but the male chauvinist mind won't allow it. So only in very primitive tribes is there still some idea of mother goddesses. But all over the world, in the so-called civilized societies, the male chauvinist has replaced the mother goddesses and has put father god's.
To avoid this stupid controversy about whether God is a man or a woman, Zen calls the ultimate experience, it  --  neither he nor she. That comes very close to the point of how God can be male or God can be female. It can only be a neutral life principle which can express itself in thousands of ways in men, in women, in trees, in mountains. Those are all just his expressions. In reality, hidden behind all these expressions, is a pure life principle. It can only be called it.
So when Hyakujo asked, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" Those who are not acquainted with the world of Zen, will be simply surprised, "What are you asking, what is it! In the first place you are asking an impossible thing: `With your mouth and lips closed,' and in the second place you are asking, `How would you say it?'  --  two mysteries in one question."
ISAN SAID, "I WOULD ASK YOU TO SAY IT." He challenged his masters: "It is impossible, but I will give you a chance. If I cannot say it, I want you to say it. With your lips closed, with your mouth shut, say it."
HYAKUJO SAID, "I COULD SAY IT, BUT IF I DID SO, I FEAR I SHOULD HAVE NO SUCCESSORS." What he is saying is, "If I have to say it, then you are not capable of being my successor. I can say it. Neither the lips are needed nor the mouth. Just a good hit and you will know it that I have said it." Ordinarily Hyakujo was not very much into hitting people. Perhaps this was the first time he had gone so far: "My hit is going to be so great that perhaps you will fall dead. I won't have any successors. And even if you survive my hit, you would have disqualified yourself. You have not answered. Rather than answering my question, you have questioned me  --  and this is a test to choose a successor."
HYAKUJO TURNED TO GOHO. "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" HE ASKED HIS SECOND DISCIPLE.
GOHO SAID, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"
It is a little better than the first answer from Isan: "I would ask you to say it." He is simply accepting his defeat, but hiding it in a circular way rather than saying, "I cannot say it." Even if he had remained silent without saying it, that would have been far better. But very stupidly he said, "I WOULD ASK YOU..." He was not the master and he was not going to choose his successor. Hyakujo was the master almost on the verge of death.
The second disciple Goho did a little better. GOHO SAID, "OSHO!" Osho is a very honorable word. There are many respectful words, but the sweetness of Osho, the love, the respect, the gratitude, all are together in it. It is just like Christians using `reverend', but that is no comparison to it. Just the very sound of Osho  --  even if we don't understand Japanese, the very sound is very sweet. He said, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"
It looks very contradictory, on the one hand addressing him with the most honorable word in Japanese, and on the other hand telling him "YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!" but that is how Zen is. It is as sharp as a sword  --  it cuts hard and straight to the heart  -- and it is as soft as a lotus leaf. It is both together. It is not right for the disciple to say to the master, "YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!" To avoid the disrespectfulness of his answer, he first addresses the master, Osho! Don't misunderstand me. I have great respect and love for you, but you are asking nonsense. You should shut up. At the moment of death, have you gone a little senile. Just shut up!
HYAKUJO SAID, "IN THE DISTANT LAND WHERE NO ONE STIRS, I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU."
Beautifully, he has rejected. He is not accepted as a successor because he has not answered the question. But yet he has been very careful. Although he has not answered, he has been very loving, honoring, grateful. Out of this gratitude and love he has earned a special virtue. Hyakujo says, "IN THE DISTANT LAND..." Somewhere in the universe, if we meet sometime, WHERE NO ONE STIRS  --  where everything is silent, utterly quiet  --  I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU. He is saying, "You can be my companion, but you cannot be my successor. Somewhere faraway in the distant future at some corner of the universe I will watch for you. You will reach to the goal. Of that I am certain." But saying this he has rejected him as a successor. His answer was better than Isan's answer.
THEN HYAKUJO ASKED UNGAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
UNGAN SAID, "OSHO, DO YOU HAVE THEM OR NOT?" It is a little better. With tremendous respect he says, "Osho, what are you asking, do you have it already or not. If you have it, then what is the point of asking. And if you don't have it, you will not understand it." But this too is not the answer. Although the second answer is better than the other, Hyakujo sadly said, "MY SUCCESSORS WILL BE MISSING." I will not have any successor, it seems. You are all well versed, you are all great scholars, you have tremendous love and respect for me, but that is not enough for the successor.
What is enough, what is needed is that the successor should be able to say it. His whole life will be devoted to teaching people, to provoking people, to challenging people to get it. If he cannot say it, how can he be a successor?
A successor has to be a master. You are all mystics but none of you is capable of being a successor, a master. This will help you to understand. The mystic is one who can experience, but is not articulate enough that through some gestures, some device he can manage to convey it to others. Out of a hundred mystics perhaps one is a master, because the task is immensely difficult. To say it perhaps is the most impossible thing in the world. You can go roundabout, you can bring the person to the experience by creating false devices, but you cannot say it. Those false devices needs a very articulate craftsman  --  a master who knows that even lies can be used to indicate the truth. Hyakujo said, "Perhaps I will not have any successors."

A little biographical note:
ALL THAT IS KNOWN ABOUT HYAKUJO'S LAST DAYS IS THAT ONCE, WHEN HE WAS GETTING RATHER OLD AND FEEBLE, HIS MONKS TRIED TO PERSUADE HIM NOT TO WORK, BUT THEIR WORDS HAD NO EFFECT ON HIM.
FEARING FOR HIS HEALTH, THEY FINALLY RESORTED TO HIDING HIS WORKING TOOLS FROM HIM. BUT HYAKUJO REFUSED TO EAT, FOLLOWING HIS OWN PRECEPT OF: "A DAY WITHOUT WORK IS A DAY WITHOUT FOOD." FINALLY, HIS MONKS RETURNED HIS TOOLS.
HYAKUJO DIED IN 814 AT THE AGE OF 90.

He did not choose anyone as a successor. He left it to the assembly to find out a successor. So the assembly of the sannyasins nominated a successor. This nomination is just like nominating a pope; he is not authentically a successor. And nobody even objects to the very idea of how unenlightened people can elect the successor of Jesus Christ, who is the representative of God.
Two hundred cardinals come to the Vatican when one pope dies. There is a special place for these two hundred cardinals  --  small caves in absolute secrecy. Everybody goes into a cave, different caves. Nobody is allowed to talk to each other, or confer with each other about whom to choose. Twenty-four hours are given and everybody meditates. I don't know how they meditate, because I have not come across any bishop or cardinal... I have met these people and none of them knows how to meditate.
What they call meditation is contemplation. They contemplate over who will be the right person out of two hundred. So they write down the name, and after twenty-four hours those names are collected. Whoever is chosen by the majority becomes the pope. Of all these two hundred cardinals none of them is enlightened, so it is simply a political election.
As for becoming a successor to a master, it cannot be an election, it can only be a transmission of the lamp. Only the master can choose. But it was a strange situation because the master refused to accept the most intimate three followers. This shows something special about Zen  --  that it will not choose anything less than the best.

I am reminded of another choosing of the successor by Bodhidharma....
He had four disciples who were very intimate to him. And all the other disciples thought it was almost certain that out of these four, one was going to become the successor.
At the time of departure, Bodhidharma was not dying, he was coming back to the Himalayas. He had gone to China because his master, a woman, had told him to take the message to China. So he traveled for three years to reach China. He remained there for fourteen years until he saw that, "Now a few people are ripe and ready, and I can choose a successor and move back to the Himalayas."
The Himalayas have attracted for centuries and centuries the mystical people. There is some quality of mystic atmosphere in the Himalayas. No other mountains in the world have that quality  --  the height, the eternal snow that has never melted, the silence that has never been broken, paths that have never been trodden. There are some similarities between the Himalayan peaks and the inner consciousness.
Bodhidharma said, "Now I am old enough and sooner or later I will have to die. I don't want to leave my footprints behind me. I want to disappear into the Himalayan snows without leaving a trace behind. And it is time that I should move, because it will take years to reach again to the deepest part of the Himalayas." So he collected his disciples and the four disciples he called forth. Everybody knew that these four were the probable candidates.
He asked the first one, "What is the essence of my teaching?"
The first man said, and very rightly, "The essence of your teaching is meditation." It is not a question of right and wrong, it is a question of depth and height. The answer is very flat. "Your teaching is meditation." Any idiot could have said that.
Bodhidharma said to him, "Your answer to my question is right but not right enough. You have my skin, at the most. Just sit down."
He asked the second, and he said, "Your essence is to achieve buddhahood."
The master said, "You are right. Meditation finally leads to buddhahood. But that can be said even by a schoolchild. Those who have heard me for fourteen years, can easily say it. You have at the most my bones. Just sit down. You have gone a little deeper than the first. So you have my bones."
He asked the third one and he said, "Your essential teaching is to be silent."
Bodhidharma said, "It is better than the other two answers, but if my teaching is to be silent, why have you spoken? You are breaking my teaching yourself. You have my marrow"  --  the marrow is the inner side of the bones  --  "but sit down."
The fourth came forward with tears in his eyes, bowed down to the master, touched his feet, did not say a single word. Bodhidharma said, "You have my very soul. You are my successor. Your tears have said what the others have missed. Your gratitude has said what the others have missed. Your silence has said what the others have missed."

This man was chosen by the master as a successor. This is not an election. This is just finding out how deep the person has gone and whether he has realized truth or not. Only that way in Zen is the successor chosen. Just in some instances where the master has found that nobody is ripe enough  --  then too it shows such a devotion to truth that he will not choose anybody  --  will he then leave it to the assembly. "It is better that all together you find out who is going to be the successor. I am not going to commit the mistake of choosing an unenlightened person. You are at least free. You are unenlightened. What else can you do? You can choose an unenlightened person, very scholarly, learned, clever, a good speaker, a convincing logician. You can do that. But I cannot do something in my last moments of life for which I will be forever condemned by the buddhas."

All these popes are elected people.
Just by the way, today Prarthana phoned from California. She goes on finding things for me. She was visiting a company which specializes in making bedcovers and pillowcovers. The manager asked her, "For whom are you ordering these?"
And she said, "For Osho."
The man said, "It is a strange coincidence that Osho and the pope will not agree on anything, but they both are my customers."
He has the best customers around the world, Princess Diana... and he himself enjoyed the idea.... I have to tell Prarthana to find somebody else. I cannot sleep on those sheets on which this idiot pope.... There is no agreement between me and him on anything, not even on bedsheets.

Basho wrote the haiku:
ONLY THE SHELL
OF THE CICADA LEFT?
DID IT SING ITSELF OUT OF EXISTENCE?

An old cicada tree, almost dead, no foliage left  --  and Basho is saying, "Only the shell..." The inner life has left the tree....
"Only the shell of the cicada left? Did it sing itself out of existence?"
Did it go out of existence singing, dancing? He is indicating to every disciple who is in search of the eternal sources of life that you should go dancing in your death. Only then can you find it. Dancing transforms death into eternal life. Dancing is a very transforming force. It contains your joy, your blissfulness, your peace, your gratitude; your thankfulness to existence that it gave you time to blossom, it gave you great foliage, great flowers. And now that it wants you to return to the source, you should not be sad. That is ungratefulness.

You should be in a celebrating mood, in a thankful mood for all that the existence has done for you. Go dancing and in that dancing death becomes a fiction. That dancing transforms even death into a new life, or into eternal life.

 

 

Next: Chapter 9: The Buddha is your empty heart, Question 1

 


Energy Enhancement             Enlightened Texts             Zen             Hyakujo

 

 

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