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RINZAI: MASTER OF THE IRRATIONAL
Chapter 4: How coarse
Question 1
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Rinzai
Question 1
Maneesha has asked:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
WITH THE PATH OF SUFISM, THE WAY OF THE HEART BEHIND US, WHERE DOES THE DEVOTEE FIT IN?
Maneesha, the devotee fits in everywhere. Of course the context becomes different.
In Sufism, the devotee is devoted to God to such an extent that al-Hillaj Mansoor started shouting, "I am God!" The devotee disappears into God. But God is a hypothesis, so the devotee in Sufism is only living in a very great hallucination. It is his mind's projection.
But the devotee in Zen has no hypothesis, he is not devoted to any God or to any fiction. His devotion is to a living human master. It is not a fiction, it is a real being-to-being contact.
So don't think that the devotee has no place in Zen. In fact, in Zen the devotee has a more authentic and real meaning. In Sufism it is only imagination, great imagination. It will bring many flowers, will make the person very blissful, but it is just like a person who is intoxicated.
It is not a coincidence that in Sufism they have wine, and saki -- the woman who brings the wine -- and God conceived of as a woman. The man who gets deeply involved in Sufi imagination almost looks mad, but you can see he is very joyful; he dances and sings, his whole energy is now being dominated by his imagination.
But if a person, by drinking alcohol or by taking marijuana, dances and sings, do you think it has any significance in the ultimate sense? It is just chemical. Soon the chemical will be out of the body and with the chemical going out of the body, the person is back down to the earth, more shattered than he was ever before. Imagination is a certain release within you of something intoxicating.
That's why I said to Coleman yesterday, "You bring a Sufi to me, and within one hour I will bring him down to the earth. Otherwise he is flying in the sky."
There have been cases when people under LSD thought they could fly. It was so clear for them, without any doubt, that they flew out from a seventeen story building. It was not a question of courage, it was not a question of any decision; they were so certain under the impact of LSD that they were found shattered on the earth in pieces.
Sufism is a much lower state, but very simple to be intoxicated with. But the devotee on the path of Zen does not disappear, he simply takes a new context. Now it is a question of coming closer to a living master. It is not a question of coming closer to God, which is only a hypothesis. You can come close to God only in imagination, and you don't know the powers of imagination.
It happened that Ramakrishna tried many paths. He was the first man in the history of seekers who had tried many paths to see whether they reach to the same point or not. So whatever was available around him in Bengal, he tried. There is a sect which believes that only Krishna is the male and everybody is a female. He followed that path also. It is absolutely imagination, but the story shows the power of imagination.
For six months Ramakrishna lived like a woman, and his disciples were completely shocked to see that he started walking like a woman. Not only that, but his breasts became like a woman; not only that, but he started having periods. Even doctors could not believe it. His voice changed; and when he started having regular periods, his disciples tried to hide the fact, because if others knew they would laugh. They persuaded him to change this path: "You have gone too far!" -- and it took almost six months for him to be his own self again.
Imagination is not a small thing, it has tremendous power. If you follow imagination -- and all the religions have been doing that -- you will see Krishna and you will see Christ. But all that seeing is just your projection. You want to see Krishna, you insist on your imagination producing Krishna, and it will produce. But you are falling into a trap of your own mind.
A devotee in any other religion is devoted to God; only in Zen is his devotion towards a living master. There is no question of imagination. Imagination has to be avoided completely if you want to know the truth.
Now it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. Where is he? Anando, send missiles!
(ANANDO SHOOTS DEATH RAY SOUNDS IN SARDARJI'S DIRECTION.)
No, I think bombs will be better!
(ANANDO SENDS SOME BOMB SOUNDS ACROSS THE AUDITORIUM.)
Bert Badbreath suspects his wife, Luscious Lucy, is cheating on him, so he hires Manfred Sneek, the private detective, to follow her.
Manfred gets hot on Lucy's trail, watching her in bars, nightclubs and hotels all over the city. The next morning, Sneek comes back to report to Bert.
"I followed her into the Crawling Cat bar," says Sneek, "and then she gave me the slip. And then I traced her to the Rotten Jazz nightclub, and she gave me the slip there too."
"This is getting ridiculous," cries Bert. "What happened next?"
"Well," says Sneek, "then I traced her to Screwing Sands hotel...."
"Don't tell me," interrupts Bert. "She gave you the slip there, too!"
"That's right," reports Sneek, with a big grin, "and also her panties!"
A landscaping crew has a large, fully-grown pine tree suspended in the air on chains from a boom truck. Suddenly the boom moves sharply and the tree swings around, hitting a brand new Cadillac parked by the side of the road.
Betty Cheese jumps out of the smashed car and looks at the damage. "You will have to come with me and explain this to my husband," she says to one of the men.
"Don't worry, lady," replies the landscaper. "My company will pay for the damage."
"No, you don't understand!" cries Betty. "I want a witness to be there when I tell Chester that I was parked and a tree ran into me!"
Doctor Horton, the anthropologist, stumbles upon a tribe of cannibals in the middle of the jungle. Standing in the center of their village is a tall pole with a hat hanging on the top.
Immediately, Doctor Horton recognizes the hat and shouts to the cannibal chief, "My God! That is Doctor Fracture's hat! He is my best friend!"
"He was your best friend," says the cannibal chief, picking his teeth with a toothpick. "Last night he was our dinner."
"You ate him?" cries Doctor Horton.
"Yup," says the chief. "First we chopped up his legs, then we deep fried them and served them with lots of Pepsi-Cola."
"Really?" exclaims Doctor Horton.
"Yup, " replies the chief. "Then we boiled his arms in garlic sauce and ate them, also with lots of Pepsi-Cola."
"Really?" cries Doctor Horton in disbelief. "You really ate all of him?"
"Yup, " says the chief. "All of him, with lots of Pepsi-Cola."
"You mean," shouts Doctor Horton, "you even ate his... his... his thing?"
"That's right, we ate his thing," says the cannibal. "But not with Pepsi-Cola -- with Coca-Cola... because things go better with Coke!"
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
(Gibberish)
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.
Now look inwards with your total consciousness and with a great urgency, as if this is going to be your last moment.
The center is not very far away, and as you come closer to the center you will start feeling a coolness, a fragrance, an immense silence, and a great joy.
This moment, when you are at the center, you are only a witness. The body is far away, the mind is far away -- you have left them all.
You are just a mirror, alert, aware, watchful, and flowers start showering on you -- new fragrances, the peace that passeth understanding. Suddenly you are part of the whole cosmos.
In this Buddha Hall, ten thousand buddhas have disappeared.... Just one buddha-consciousness...
To make it clear,
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
Just remain a witness. The body is there, the mind is there, but you are neither the body nor the mind. You are an eternal witness.
Since existence began, you have been there as a witness in different forms. Witnessing is your exact nature, and to realize this witness is to become a buddha.
All boundaries disappear, and the Buddha Auditorium becomes a lake of silent consciousness without any ripples, so silent that it becomes almost a mirror.
You are fortunate to be here at such a momentous event. The whole humanity is so poor in comparison to you. You may not have anything, but if you have your buddha awakened, you have all the treasures of existence in your hands.
You have to bring this awareness, this witnessing, this buddhahood, from the center to the circumference of your day-to-day life.
In every action, buddha should be expressed. In your silence, buddha should be present. In your songs you should allow the buddha to sing. In your dances, you should not dance; allow the buddha to dance.
Slowly, slowly your whole life is completely overtaken by your innermost core. The difference between the circumference and the center disappears.
That is the most precious moment.
In Zen they call it coming back home.
Soon Nivedano will be calling you back. Collect as much flowers and fragrance... Persuade the buddha to come with you. He has come always; just a right persuasion...
At the center he is only a seed, at the circumference he will become the flower.
Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
Come back, but come back as a buddha -- with the same grace, with the same beauty, with the same blissfulness.
Sit down for a few moments just to recollect the space you have been in, the path, the golden path that you followed towards your center, and the same path you have followed back.
Remember, the buddha is not an achievement, it is a revelation. You have always been a buddha; just a little recognition and your whole life goes through a transformation.
This is the only revolution worth calling a revolution.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master.
Next: Chapter 5: Relax and disappear
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Rinzai
| ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
|
THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
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