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ZEN

THE ORIGINAL MAN

Chapter 2: Only a remembrance

 

Energy Enhancement             Enlightened Texts             Zen             The Original Man

 

OUR BELOVED MASTER,
RINZAI SAID:
IF YOU MEET A BUDDHA, CUT HIM DOWN; IF YOU MEET A PATRIARCH, CUT HIM DOWN; IF YOU MEET AN ARHAT, CUT HIM DOWN; IF YOU MEET YOUR PARENTS, CUT THEM DOWN AND IF YOU MEET YOUR RELATIVES, CUT THEM DOWN.
ONLY THUS WILL YOU BE LIBERATED, AND IF YOU ARE NOT HELD BY EXTERNALS, YOU WILL BE DISENGAGED AND COMFORTABLY INDEPENDENT.
AFTER THIS MOUNTAIN MONK HAS SAID THAT THERE IS NO DHARMA EXTERNALLY, STUDENTS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS IMMEDIATELY MAKE THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THE INTERNAL. THEY THEN SIT AGAINST THE WALL WITH THE TONGUE TOUCHING THE PALATE, TO BE IN A MOTIONLESS POSITION AND REGARD THIS AS THE BUDDHA DHARMA OF THE PATRIARCHS.
THE GREATEST MISTAKE IS THAT IF YOU TAKE STILL IMMOBILITY AS THE RIGHT STATE, YOU WILL MISTAKE THE DARKNESS FOR YOUR MASTER. THIS IS WHAT AN ANCIENT MEANT WHEN HE SAID, "IN COMPLETE DARKNESS, AN ABYSS IS DREADFUL."
IF YOU TAKE THE MOVING STATE AS THE RIGHT ONE, ALL PLANTS AND STRAWS CAN MOVE. ARE THEY TAO? THEREFORE, THE MOVING IS THE ELEMENT WIND, AND THE UNMOVING IS THE ELEMENT EARTH. BOTH THE MOVING AND THE UNMOVING HAVE NO NATURE OF THEIR OWN. IF YOU WANT TO CATCH IT IN THE MOVING, IT WILL GO TO THE UNMOVING; AND IF YOU WANT TO CATCH IT IN THE UNMOVING, IT WILL GO TO THE MOVING. IT IS LIKE A FISH CONCEALED IN THE WATER WHICH IT CAN STIR INTO RIPPLES THROUGH WHICH TO SKIM.
VIRTUOUS ONES, THE MOVING AND UNMOVING ARE TWO KINDS OF STATES, BUT THE MAN OF TAO CAN MAKE USE OF BOTH THE MOVING AND UNMOVING STATES.

Anando, one of the fundamentals of Zen that makes it a totally unique religion, more than any other religion of the world, is that it does not want to exclude anything from your life. Your life has to be inclusive. It has to comprehend all the stars and the sky and the earth. It is not a path of renouncing the world.
What Maharishi Mahesh Yogi calls Transcendental Meditation, Rinzai is condemning. You teach people to sit silently with their tongue touching their palate, so even inside their mouth they cannot make any movement of the tongue, and the whole body should be just a statue -- then only you can realize the truth. But it is only half of the truth. And a half truth is more dangerous than a total lie; at least a lie is total.
Life is both rest and movement.
If you go sometime to Bodhgaya, where Gautam Buddha became enlightened, there stands a temple in memory of his enlightenment, by the side of the tree where he used to sit and meditate. That was his routine: for one hour he would sit under the tree and meditate, then for one hour he would walk by the side of the tree. Even the places where he moved are marked by stones to show you, a small path.
One hour he would walk and meditate, showing perfectly that life, if it is unmoving, is dead. And life -- if it has no rest, goes on moving -- it too will end very soon. Life is a balance between rest and movement. And when the harmony is achieved between rest and movement, you come to the very center of your life, which is always with you whether you are sitting or moving, whether you are awake or asleep. Its existence is absolutely certain, but not by reading scriptures. You have to experience it, then you can do anything. Then there is no problem for you, because whatever you do will be done out of a buddha nature.
It happened...
A young beautiful prince got initiated by Gautam Buddha. In those days, Vaishali was one of the richest cities in India. Buddha was staying for the monsoon near Vaishali. So the prince and every other monk used to go into the city to beg for their meals.
In the city there lived one of the most beautiful women in history. There are only two names that have been known as the most beautiful: one was an Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, and another was Amrapali of Vaishali.
Amrapali was so beautiful. It was a tradition in Buddha's time that the most beautiful woman cannot be married to any man. She cannot be the monopoly of anybody; she's so beautiful, she should remain free and available to anybody she likes.
Even kings stood in a queue in front of her house. Just to be with her for a few hours, tremendous money was paid. She had become so rich that even the king used to borrow money from her.
Those days were of a different quality of mind. They did not call her a prostitute, they called her nagarvadhu -- married to everyone. She was so beautiful that it would have been absurd to tie her to one person -- she would not have remained tied. Soon somebody else would be more attractive; you would be putting her into an unnecessary nightmare. Let her be free -- her beauty was such that it could not be owned but everybody was capable of rejoicing in it, according to her will. Such great respect for beauty. `Nagarvadhu' means married to all.
When this monk of Buddha, who used to be a prince just a few years before, was seen passing by, Amrapali sent a servant to prevent him and tell him: "You don't have to go anywhere. Today, please accept my invitation."
Other monks were following him, because with Gautam Buddha were ten thousand monks who always followed wherever he went. They could not believe that this monk was entering the house of a prostitute. They rushed back. A few even did not go to beg. It was their prior concern to report to Buddha, "This man has betrayed you. He has entered into a prostitute's house."
Buddha said, "I know him. You need not be worried about him. Whatever happens in his life is coming out of the very center of his being; it can never be wrong. But I will take care of it; let him come."
Soon a few more monks came rushing. They cried, "It is too much! Amrapali has asked him to stay with her at least for the monsoon while we are in Vaishali. And he has accepted!" They could not believe it. They wanted immediate expulsion: "He should be disrobed!"
Buddha said, "Wait, let him come here. I know him just as I know you. You have not come here to save somebody's virtue, you have come here out of jealousy. You have always been jealous of that young man because he is so beautiful, so attractive, so articulate, and wherever he goes he gets more respect, more love, more dignity."
And then the prince returned, because he had told Amrapali, "I accept your invitation because it is against my master to refuse anything; it is cruel. But I have one condition: I have to ask the permission of my master. From my side there is no objection, but if my master objects I'm helpless. I have surrendered myself totally to my master. If he says yes, it is yes; if he says no, it is no. So please forgive me if I don't return. But most probably I will return because I know my master."
There was great uproar, gossiping, and the prince returned to ask the permission of Buddha. Kneeling down before him, he said, "I'm asking permission for a very strange thing: a prostitute has asked me, with so much love and so much prayer, to stay with her during this monsoon season while you are here. I have given her my agreement with the condition that "if my master agrees, I will stay with you, but if my master says no, that is absolute -- then no question arises at all."
The whole assembly of monks was utterly silent, listening to what Buddha would say.
Buddha said, "You should go and stay with the woman because I know that a man who has entered into his own center cannot be influenced by the non-essentials of life. Moreover I know that when after four months you come back, you will not be alone -- Amrapali will be coming with you to become a sannyasin. I trust you -- you can go with my absolute agreement."
It was such a shock to the thousands of monks. They started saying to Buddha, "What are you doing? You are destroying a young man; the woman is too beautiful -- you don't know, you never go to the city. The woman is so beautiful that kings from other kingdoms come and stand in a queue for their turn, just to have one night's stay with the woman. And she's not only beautiful, she is a great singer and a musician. You are sending our young monk into the lion's den, unnecessarily putting him in trouble."
Buddha said, "You wait, the four months will soon pass."
Amrapali did everything to make the prince comfortable. She played on musical instruments, she danced, she had delicious dishes made for him. She closed her door for four months to any other visitor, even if he were a king or an emperor. She hoped, deep down, "This young monk will melt, will fall in love with me. I have been searching and searching, but I have not found a man with whom I can live my whole life. This is the man."
But the prince sat in the lotus posture. While she was dancing, he was meditating. While she was making all kinds of loving gestures, he was simply watching.
For four months he lived in her house and finally the day of departure came. He thanked her, saying, "It has been a great discipline for me, and the whole credit goes to you. My meditation has deepened. I am more at home than ever before. My master will rejoice seeing me."
Amrapali said, "Perhaps you do not know that your master will not only see you, he will also see me reformed. I can see all the fallacious world of lust and love and power. Also I can see, against it, a totally different world of watchfulness and peace and serenity. You say you are grateful to me -- I say I am immensely grateful to you. Just help me, so that your master does not reject me."
The young prince said, "He never rejects anybody." They both came. They both touched the feet of the master, and the young monk asked, "Amrapali wants to be initiated..."
And as an initiation gift... They were staying in a very big mango grove -- it must have been, because ten thousand people were there and every man had a place under one mango tree. There must have been more than ten thousand mango trees... Before coming Amrapali had asked the owner of the land if he would sell it.
He said, "I cannot sell it; it has become sacred for me. Buddha has stayed here; it has now become part of history. This land is no longer ordinary land." Amrapali said, "You don't know how much I can pay." The man said, "If you really want to purchase it, my price is very high. I'm putting it so high that nobody can purchase it -- not even the emperor!"
Amrapali said, "You simply say it -- no haggling."
His price was certainly very strange. He said, "You can have the land if you put golden coins all over it, covering it completely. I don't know how many millions of coins will be needed."
The woman said, "It does not matter. The land is mine; you come with me and count the coins and measure the land."
So the young monk said to Buddha, "This woman has bought this whole beautiful mango grove to be used only for meditators, and she has asked me to ask you for her initiation because she has seen something in me that is missing in her."
And Amrapali said, "I don't even have the face to ask for initiation. I have been a sinner all my life. You must know that I'm a prostitute. Your young monk -- I hoped to change him, but on the contrary, he has changed me. Now I don't have any desire, except to sit at your feet and follow the path where one comes to one's own innermost center. Now I know -- up to now I have not even been aware that there is an inner center of life."
That inner center is the most powerful thing in the world. That innermost center is not of the individual. With that innermost center we are all joined. It is the center of the whole cosmos. And once you feel yourself as part of the cosmos -- eternal and immortal...
Amrapali said, "The bliss and the benediction I have seen radiating from your disciple in these four months -- I myself could not resist." The people who had been so anxious for this day to come so they could inform Buddha, "Now look what has happened, your disciple has not returned," were very much ashamed. Not only had he returned, he had brought with him a transformed human being.

Anando, the meditation that Buddha gave to the world is perhaps one of the most significant. There are many meditations, many ways to enter into yourself, but Buddha's is sharp, almost like a sword -- it cuts everything that hinders. And even in a split second, you can reach to your ultimate destiny.
But for that, Rinzai says: IF YOU MEET A BUDDHA... He does not mean the actual Buddha, because where will you meet him now? Even when he was alive -- I mean Rinzai -- Buddha had been dead for almost fifteen hundred years. So what is the meaning? -- IF YOU MEET A BUDDHA, CUT HIM DOWN...
It is a meditation process. When you go deeper into yourself, you are bound to meet figures which are very close to your heart. If you have loved Buddha, you are going to meet Buddha before you meet yourself. It will be just an image, but in the silences of the heart that image will be so radiant that there is a possibility you may sit by the side of the image and forget that this is not the goal.
IF YOU MEET A BUDDHA, CUT HIM DOWN --
Immediately! IF YOU MEET A PATRIARCH, a master, CUT HIM DOWN -- immediately!
... IF YOU MEET AN ARHAT, CUT HIM DOWN; IF YOU MEET YOUR PARENTS, CUT THEM DOWN AND IF YOU MEET YOUR RELATIVES, CUT THEM DOWN. ONLY THUS WILL YOU BE LIBERATED...
It is an inner psychological process -- making you free from the master, from the parents, from the friends. It has nothing to do with the outside world, it is your inner world where images go on gathering. And unless all these images are dissolved, you cannot see yourself. They are preventing your perception. Rinzai's description of the Buddhist meditation is excellent.
AND IF YOU ARE NOT HELD BY EXTERNALS, YOU WILL BE DISENGAGED AND COMFORTABLY INDEPENDENT.
Now, the internals you have cut down. The images, your dreams, your love affairs, you have destroyed all of them and made the path towards you clean, but you may still be attached to externals. You may be ready to cut away your parents' image and be free of it, but the desire for power in the world, the desire to be the richest man in the world... A thousand and one desires surround you in the external world.
Now the second step is easier. Rinzai begins with the hardest because he knows if you can do the hardest, the easier can be done without any difficulty.
IF YOU ARE NOT HELD BY EXTERNALS, YOU WILL BE DISENGAGED AND COMFORTABLY INDEPENDENT.
AFTER THIS MOUNTAIN MONK HAS SAID THAT THERE IS NO DHARMA EXTERNALLY, STUDENTS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS, IMMEDIATELY MAKE THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THE INTERNAL.
Rinzai is saying that it is very easy to misunderstand a master. In fact, it is easier to misunderstand a master than anybody else, because he is talking a new language, giving new meanings to words, talking about spaces you have never been to. It is almost human to be mistaken, to misunderstand.
He says: AFTER THIS MOUNTAIN MONK HAS SAID THAT THERE IS NO DHARMA EXTERNALLY... There is no religion externally. Going to the temple or to the church or to the synagogue, reading scriptures, ancient holy books -- these are all externals and there is no dharma as far as externals are concerned. They are dead skeletons, remnants of somebody who attained, but now it is too difficult to decode the scriptures. The man is no more there, only the skeleton of the man which cannot speak, which cannot explain, which cannot help you in any way.
You can go on carrying scriptures, but those scriptures will be your interpretations not the meaning of the masters. Outside you can go to the temples, but what are you doing? Man-made temples, man-made gods -- and you are worshipping those stone gods. And you are not alone! Almost the whole world is worshipping something or other as a god. But in this way you cannot find the essence of dharma. It is a very upside down, disturbed and perverted situation when man starts worshipping gods he has made himself.

You have to know the source of life -- the source from which you spring, just as roses spring. And it is not a question of prayer, it is a question of intense exploration inside to find your roots. And you will be surprised: your roots are the roots of the moon, of the sun, of the stars -- of the whole existence. You are just a small branch of a vast tree. Once you know it, there is no fear of death. You cannot die -- you belong to immortality. There is no more desire.
What more can you have? You have the whole universe in your hands. You are already everything you could have dreamed, desired, asked to be. A great contentment descends over you. In this contentment are all the qualities of blissfulness, of ecstasy, of all that is a continuous dance, a festivity, a ceremony.
Rinzai says, "But I can be misunderstood" -- and the misunderstanding will be Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation. "When I say there is no dharma externally, they then SIT AGAINST THE WALL WITH THE TONGUE TOUCHING THE PALATE, TO BE IN A MOTIONLESS POSITION AND REGARD THIS AS THE BUDDHA DHARMA OF THE PATRIARCHS."
Just sitting... how long can you go on sitting? And when you stand up, Bodhidharma or Buddha or Rinzai will say, "What happened to the buddha?"
The buddha was sitting; sitting has become your form of experience, but standing, it will disappear. Walking, you will be walking away from sitting. Rinzai is trying to say things in simple terms and he had to be very simple because he was the man who brought Zen from China to Japan. He was talking to absolutely unconcerned people who had never heard about meditation.
THE GREATEST MISTAKE IS THAT IF YOU TAKE STILL IMMOBILITY AS THE RIGHT STATE, YOU WILL MISTAKE THE DARKNESS FOR YOUR MASTER.
Immobility is only a rest period. Existence is motion, continuous motion. Yes, there are moments of rest, but if you choose the moments of rest as the whole truth, you are accepting darkness as your master. You are cutting life in two: darkness and light.

Have you watched one thing? Darkness is stable. It never goes anywhere, it is always here. You bring light -- you cannot see darkness. You take the light away and darkness is there. It does not come running from M.G. Road. It is never late, not even a single moment. If it had gone out for an evening walk or just to have a look at what is happening around the world, there would be gaps when you had taken the lights away and still the darkness was not there. But there is never a gap. The reason is, darkness is always here even when light is here; it is just because of the light that you cannot see the darkness.
Even in the motion, the action, the gesture of a buddha, there is a certain restfulness. That restfulness brings a grace to it, a beauty to it.
THIS IS WHAT AN ANCIENT MEANT WHEN HE SAID, "IN COMPLETE DARKNESS, AN ABYSS IS DREADFUL."
Meditation is not meant to cut your life and your existence in two parts and then to choose one, the internal. A perfect meditation is all-inclusive. It transforms you, and with your transformation your vision of things transform, but nothing is excluded.

IF YOU TAKE THE MOVING STATE AS THE RIGHT ONE, ALL PLANTS AND STRAWS CAN MOVE. ARE THEY TAO? THEREFORE, THE MOVING IS THE ELEMENT WIND, AND THE UNMOVING IS THE ELEMENT EARTH, AND BOTH THE MOVING AND THE UNMOVING HAVE NO NATURE OF THEIR OWN. IF YOU WANT TO CATCH IT IN THE MOVING, IT WILL GO TO THE UNMOVING...
They are continuously changing places: day becoming night, night becoming day; life becoming death, death becoming life. Don't hold onto anything. It will immediately change into its other.
IT IS LIKE A FISH CONCEALED IN THE WATER WHICH IT CAN STIR INTO RIPPLES THROUGH WHICH TO SKIM. VIRTUOUS ONES, THE MOVING AND UNMOVING ARE TWO KINDS OF STATES, BUT THE MAN OF TAO CAN MAKE USE OF BOTH THE MOVING AND THE UNMOVING STATES.
The movement and the non-movement are both in your hands. You are the watcher, neither the moving nor the unmoving.
You simply are.
You have never moved, so the question of unmoving does not arise. The question of movement or no movement is irrelevant to your witnessing consciousness.
Your witnessing consciousness is just existential. It is here. And if your meditation does not bring you to this state of watchfulness, it is a false meditation. If it brings you to any god, you are befooling yourself, you are dreaming. If it brings you to Jesus Christ, then... Jesus Christ!
Rinzai is saying if you meet Jesus Christ, give him another cross -- immediately! "That is your work, what else are you all doing here?" Even Buddha is not spared -- and they are all disciples of Buddha. If you meet the Buddha on the way, cut his head immediately!
Nothing is more important than your own internal watchfulness. That is the very stuff the universe is made of.

Basho wrote:
A WINTRY GUST
DISAPPEARS AMID THE BAMBOOS
AND SUBSIDES TO A CALM.

What is our so-called life? "A wintry gust disappears amid the bamboos and subsides to a calm." Just a little drama, just a little playfulness and you are gone.
Our so-called life is so momentary that one should not get attached to it. Its only function -- only proper function -- can be to find the immortal. Hidden behind every moment is the eternal. But you can go on moving on the surface, never going deeper into your consciousness. You will move for millions of lives on the surface like ripples. It is sheer wastage of an immense awareness that can open all the doors of your originality, of your creativity, of your beauty, of your joy. Each moment becomes such a dancing moment.

Another Zen poet wrote:
WHERE THE INTERPLAY OF "IS" AND
"IS NOT" IS FIXED,
NOT EVEN THE SAGES CAN KNOW.

There you are -- not in terms of "is" and "is not," in no duality.
All duality can be watched. That which can be watched, you are not. You are always the watcher. And remember: you cannot watch the watcher. That is absolutely impossible. If you watch the watcher, then one is just mind -- which you are calling the watcher -- and the other is the real watcher. But the real watcher is your ultimate. You cannot go beyond it, it is the boundary of existence.
WHERE THE INTERPLAY OF "IS" AND
"IS NOT" IS FIXED,
NOT EVEN THE SAGES CAN KNOW.

Now there is nothing to know. Watching silently, everything disappears. An immense silence opens its doors. There is nothing to know. Knowledge becomes absolutely futile. You, for the first time, come home. This is ultimate rest.

 

 

Next: Chapter 2: Only a remembrance, Question 1

 


Energy Enhancement             Enlightened Texts             Zen             The Original Man

 

 

Chapters:

 

 

 

ENERGY

ENHANCEMENT MEDITATION

MEDITATION HEAD

 HOME PAGE

 

GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE LEVEL1

THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL PROCESS

LEVEL2

THE KARMA CLEARING PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3

MASTERY OF  RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4

 

STUDENTS EXPERIENCES  2005 AND 2006

 

MORE STUDENTS EXPERIENCES

 - FIFTY FULL TESTIMONIALS

2003 COURSE

 
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