| ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
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MASTERY
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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 3
Chapter 2: Only One Exists
Question 3
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 3
The third question:
Question 3
AFTER BEING ENLIGHTENED, HOW IS MEDITATION NECESSARY?
Who has told you that after being enlightened meditation is necessary? Meditation remains, but it is not necessary -- it becomes natural. Before enlightenment it is necessary, after enlightenment it is just like breathing. it is, there. It is natural, it is spontaneous.
Enlightenment means exactly that: when meditation has become natural. You are meditative -- not that you sit sometimes in meditation, not that you have a few hours of meditation every day -- your whole time is meditative You move in meditation, you walk in meditation, you sit in meditation, you eat in meditation, you love in meditation, you do your businesses in meditation. Your whole life becomes surrounded by a new kind of energy. It is not NECESSARY, it is simply natural.
Parinirvana has sent me a small anecdote -- is relevant to this question.
There was a man sitting on a small planet. Every day at six o'clock he ordered fondly for the sun to rise and the sun rose. And at six o'clock he ordered 'set' and the sun set. After a while, the sun knew her lesson and from then on the man was only sitting there and watching.
Nobody has learned any lesson. Even without ordering the sun would have arisen at six o'clock.
If you simply go on living silently, even meditation is not needed; even before enlightenment it is not needed. If you go on living a healthy, heartful life -- not much worried about the past and not much desirous of the future -- if you just go on living the life moment to moment as it comes, even BEFORE enlightenment meditation is not necessary. The meditation will start happening. Just as the sun rises in the morning, you need not order it; and in the evening the sun sets, you need not order it.
The man was ordering every day at six o'clock for the sun to rise and every evening at six o'clock to set. And then after a few days he thought, "Now the sun must have learned the lesson " So he sat silently, watched, and the sun rose! and he watched, and the sun set! So the man was very happy, his work was done -- the sun had learned the lesson.
All meditations are like that. Life itself is continuously moving towards meditation, no other extra effort is needed. Extra effort is needed because your life is not moving at all, because you have been taught utterly nonsensical notions. Because of those wrong notions you have created many blocks in yourself, and life is no more flowing, you are no more a river -- you have become dirty, closed ponds. Hence, meditation is needed.
Meditation is needed because you have become unnatural. If you live a natural life... and by 'natural' I mean: live the moment as it is -- don't try to put any should on it, don't try to transform it into anything else. Just accept the moment as it is. When angry, be angry and accept it; and don't create an ideal of not being angry. And when the anger has passed, don't repent. There is nothing to repent about -- it was so! When in love, love, and don't think how love should be. Don't consult love manuals, just let love flow naturally.
I have heard about a great warrior in Japan, a samurai, a very famous swordsman:
One night when he came tired after the whole day's fight in the fields and he was just going to fall into bed, he saw a rat. And the rat was looking at him ferociously! The samurai tried to kill the rat with his sword. He was one of the best swordsmen known, but somehow he missed. He hit many times, he broke his sword, and he could not kill the rat. He became really afraid: "The rat seems to be very mysterious. This is no ordinary rat!" He started, perspiring -- he had never perspired. He had been a fighter his whole life and now a rat had defeated him.
He ran out, asked his wife what to do. The wife said, "You are a fool! You need not kill a rat. Have you ever heard of anybody killing a rat by a sword? You just take our cat inside." And the cat was brought inside. It was no ordinary cat, it was the great warrior's cat. She was also trained in many things; she was one of the most famous rat-catchers.
She came with all her art, with all her skill. She tried, but the rat was really extraordinary. He jumped exactly into her eyes! And the cat escaped out. She had never seen such a rat -- attacking the cat?! And she was also trembling like the warrior.
The warrior said, "This is too much!"
Then the king's cat was called. She was a master cat, very well-known all over the country; of course, she was the king's cat. The king's cat came and she was also defeated by the rat. She went in, tried hard, used all her skill, but the rat was just too much.
Then the king's cat suggested a cat she knew who was not famous at all. "You have tried with famous cats, now you try with an ordinary one... just ordinary, plain ordinary."
The warrior said, "But what can a plain, ordinary cat do?"
The king's cat said, "You just try. I know this cat. She is so ordinary, she does not know a thing. The whole day she sleeps. But there is one thing about her: cats know, the whole country's cats know that she is very mysterious. The mysterious thing is that she knows nothing about rats, rat-catching, the art, the technique, the methodology, the philosophy -- she knows nothing; she has never been to any school or college or university. She is a plain, ordinary cat, but rats are so afraid of her! Wherever she sleeps... no rat ever enters that house! Just her presence is enough. And she goes on sleeping, and nobody knows when she kills and how she kills.
"Once I went to that cat and I asked, 'What is your art?' She simply looked at me, and she had no words to say, and she closed her eyes and went to sleep. And I woke her again and asked, 'What is your art?'
"She said, 'I don't know. I am a cat, that's enough. A cat is a cat and IS MEANT to catch a rat. What art? What nonsense are you talking about?"'
The cat was brought, and the samurai was not very hopeful because she was really very ordinary, just like any vagabond cat.
She came in, and without any skill she simply went in, caught hold of the rat and brought it out.
All the cats gathered together and asked her, "What is your art?"
And she said, "I don't know any art. I am a cat! Is not that enough?"
That's what I mean by being natural. Meditation will happen if you are natural -- even before enlightenment. Meditation is your natural blooming; meditation is not something like an art, skill, performance. No, not at all. You need not go to any school to learn it. But you have been spoiled. Rats have been around you too much, and you have become afraid of the rats -- not only afraid, you have started learning how to catch these rats. You have become very skillful, artificial; you know the know-how and that is your trouble. Your knowledge is your trouble.
Otherwise there is no need! Kabir never meditated -- went on spinning his things and became enlightened. What happened? A natural man, doing his thing with total heart, absorbed in doing his thing -- attained.
So remember, you have to learn meditation because you have learned a few wrong things. To destroy that wrong learning you will need learning. It is as if you have got a thorn in your foot and you need another thorn to take it out. The other thorn is as much a thorn as the first one, but it helps. Meditation is just like a thorn, because you have become artificial and that artificiality has gone deep into your being. Meditation takes it out; it is medicinal.
Do you know? -- 'medicine' and 'meditation' come from the same root. It is medicinal. When somebody is ill we give him medicine. Do you think medicine gives him health? Then you are wrong. Medicine simply destroys his illness. No medicine has yet been invented which can give you health. Health is beyond medicine, and beyond meditation too. The medicine simply destroys the disease. Once the disease is destroyed, once the thorn has been taken out, your inner health starts blooming again.
Only the artificial has to be destroyed. Naturally, for the artificial, something artificial is needed. To destroy something false you will need another thing which is false. You cannot destroy the false by the real, they will not meet. How can you destroy the false by the real? So ALL techniques of meditation are as fictitious as your other fictions -- all fictitious! They help, they certainly help; they help you out of your fiction. But the day you are out of your fictions, suddenly you realize, "Meditation was not even necessary before I became enlightened." It had become necessary because of the society, because of the conditionings, because of too many teachings, because you had lost your nature, your Tao.
So there is no question of "After enlightenment, how is meditation necessary?" Not at all. One forgets what meditation is, because one knows no moments of non-meditation at all. One lives in meditation, one's life is meditation.
But sometimes it has happened: you will sometimes find a Buddha also sitting with closed eyes. You will sometimes find a Meera still worshipping Krishna. So the problem arises in the mind: "What is Buddha doing?"
It is known about Christ that many times he would tell his disciples, "You wait here and I will go into the mountains to meditate." What is Jesus doing when he says he is going to meditate? He need not meditate at all. What does he want to go there for? He simply wants to get rid of the crowd. That meditation is just a trick. He simply wants to be alone. Tired.... Tired of the enemies and tired of the friends. Tired of those who are against him and tired of those who are his followers. Tired, simply tired.
It is almost like a doctor who has been working the whole day in the hospital with ill people, a thousand and one kinds of illness, and he wants to go home and rest. It is like that.
A Jesus or a Buddha is continuously with ill people, because there are only ill people left in the world. He also needs a little rest.
What should Buddha meditate for? But sometimes he sits with closed eyes under the Bo tree -- still, after Buddhahood. Just wants a few moments purely for himself. That beauty of aloneness, that benediction of aloneness -- for a few seconds he wants to forget all the troubles of all kinds of people, that's all. Again he is fresh, again the energy is flowing, again he is ready -- again to help people, again to invite people, again to provoke people.
Long ago in China, Zen Master Obaku, who had reached the highest peak of spiritual attainment, was yet seen constantly worshipping the Buddha with great devotion.
Struck by a doubt, a disciple asked, "Are you asking something of the Buddha, or seeking something concerned with the truth?"
The Master replied, "I have nothing to ask of the Buddha or to seek about the truth."
The disciple asked again, "Then why do you worship?"
The Master said, "I simply worship."
Now this is a strange statement. He says, "I simply worship." It is pure gratitude. It has nothing to do with meditation, prayer. He is not there to ask anything -- all is already given. Now, when ALL is already given, you feel a tremendous gratitude -- such gratitude that you cannot pay anything back; you don't have anything. You can serve your father in his old age and in some way you can pay for all that he has done for you when you were a child. You can respect your mother, look after her in her old age, and pay her in some way. But what can you do for a Master? Because all the coins that you know are of this world -- he has given you something of the other world, and you don't have any coins of the other world. What will you do with a Master? Utterly helpless, you cannot show your gratitude in any other way.
Obaku is right, he says, "I simply worship. I have nothing to ask the Buddha any more. He has already given me, but how can I forget him?"
My own feeling is that Obaku, wherever he is, must be worshipping still. It is eternal gratitude.
Another disciple of Buddha, Manjusri, became enlightened. When he became enlightened, Buddha said to him, "Now you go away from me. Now you have the word yourself. The message has become alive in you. Go and spread it!"
So Manjusri had to go, but with tears in his eyes. Somebody asked, "Why are you crying? You have become enlightened yourself, so what is this clinging to Buddha?"
He said, "Who is clinging to Buddha? But just to see him, just to be close to him, just to be near him, and just to bow down whenever one passes him.... I was passing him almost one thousand times a day, and each time I was bowing. What else can I do? Now I will be far away."
So somebody reported to Buddha that Manjusri was crying. Buddha called him and he said, "You can bow down from anywhere." And it is said Manjusri lived for twenty years, but every day -- morning, evening, afternoon, whenever he had time, he would bow down in the direction Buddha was moving. Wherever Buddha was moving he would bow down.
His disciples would say, "You are a Buddha now in your own right! Why do you go on doing this thing?"
And he would say, "How can I stop doing it? It has become so natural."
It is simple gratitude, for no reason at all. There are a few things which are done for no reason at all. Not all things are done for reasons only. It is impossible not to thank your Master even when you have become enlightened.
A monk asked Hyakujo Yekai, another Zen Master, "What is the most miraculous event in the world?"
Hyakujo answered, "I sit here all by myself. This is the most miraculous event in the world. I SIT HERE ALL BY MYSELF."
Next: Chapter 2: Only One Exists, Question 4
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 3
| ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
|
THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
|
|
ENERGY ENHANCEMENT TESTIMONIALS EE LEVEL1 EE LEVEL2 EE LEVEL3 EE LEVEL4 EE FAQS |
