Zen Buddhism, Talks on the Faith Mind of Sosan, Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book Of Nothing Chapter 10: No Yesterday, No tomorrow, No today

EMPTINESS HERE, EMPTINESS THERE, BUT THE INFINITE UNIVERSE STANDS ALWAYS BEFORE YOUR EYES.

INFINITELY LARGE AND INFINITELY SMALL; NO DIFFERENCE, FOR DEFINITIONS HAVE VANISHED AND NO BOUNDARIES ARE SEEN.

SO TOO WITH BEING AND NON-BEING.

DON'T WASTE TIME IN DOUBTS AND ARGUMENTS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION.

TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION.

TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH IS THE ROAD TO NON-DUALITY, BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND.

WORDS!

THE WAY IS BEYOND LANGUAGE, FOR IN IT THERE IS

NO YESTERDAY

NO TOMORROW

NO TODAY.

MAN IS LOST because of words, symbols, language. You are not lost in reality, you are lost in a linguistic dream -- because the reality is always there in front of you, but you are not always there in front of reality. You are somewhere else, always somewhere else, because you are a mind and a mind means something gone astray.

A mind means now you are not looking at that which is, you are thinking about it. The 'about' is the problem, the 'about' is the way to miss reality. Philosophy is the way to miss reality. The moment you think about it, the target will never be reached.

What is thinking? It is a substitute. If you know love, you never think about it. There is no need to think about it. If you don't know love, you think about it -- really, you don't think about anything else. How can you know love through thinking? -- because it is an existential experience. It is not a theory, it is not speculative. To know it, you have to be it.

Why does mind think about things which are not experienced? Because this is a substitute; the whole being feels the need, so what to do? Just to think about it you feel a little at ease, as if something is happening, as if you are experiencing. It happens in the dream, it happens while you are awake -- because the mind remains the same whether you are asleep or awake.

All dreams are substitutes and all thinking also, because thinking is dreaming while awake, dreaming is thinking while asleep. They are not qualitatively different, they are the same process. If you can understand dreaming, you will be able to understand thinking.

Dreaming is more primitive, hence more simple. Think ing is more complicated, more evolved, hence more difficult to penetrate. And whenever you want to penetrate a thing, it is better to penetrate from the simplest form of it.

If you have not eaten the day before, in the night you will have dreams about food: you are being invited by the king, you are eating delicious foods. If you are starving for sex, you will have a sexual dream. If you are starving for power and prestige, you will have a substitute dream for it: that you have become an Alexander or a Napoleon or a Hitler, you dominate the whole world.

A dream is always about that which is lacking while you are awake; that which you have missed in the day, it comes in the dream. If you don't miss anything in the day, dreaming will disappear. A man who is totally content will not dream. That's why Buddhas never dream. They cannot dream even if they want, because everything is complete and finished, nothing remains hanging on the mind.

A dream is a hangover; something incomplete goes on trying to be complete. And desires are such that you can never complete them. They go on growing and become bigger and bigger. Whatsoever you do, something is always lacking. Who will fulfill that hole? A dream fulfills that hole.

You fasted, a hole is created in you. It is uncomfortable to carry that hole, so in the night, in dreams, you eat. The mind has deceived you, the eating has not been real. It cannot become blood in you; you cannot digest a dream, you cannot live on it. So what is it going to do? One thing: it can help a good sleep, it is a sleep-support.

If there is no dream and you have incomplete desires, you will be absolutely unable to sleep, many times sleep will be broken. You are hungry, how can you sleep? But the dream gives you a false solution: that you have eaten, eaten delicious foods, now go to sleep.

And you believe it, because there is no way to know whether this is true or false. And you are so fast asleep, so unconscious, how can you know whether it is true or false? Because the truth about anything can be known only by awareness, and you are not aware. And then, moreover, the dream is beautiful, it fulfills a deep need. So why bother about it? Why try to find out whether it is true or not?

Whenever you are happy you never try to find out whether this is true or not. You would like it to be true, it is a wish-fulfillment. And it is dangerous to try to think about it -- it may prove untrue, then what to do? So it is better not to open the eyes. The dream is beautiful, the sleep is good. Why not rest?

In the night if you feel an urge to go to the toilet, immediately there is a dream: you are in the toilet. This is how the dream protects the sleep, otherwise you will have to go. The bladder is full and it is becoming uncomfortable; you will have to go to the toilet.

But the dream protects, the dream says, "Yes, this is the toilet, you have unloaded yourself. Now go to sleep." The bladder remains full, the discomfort remains full, but the dream gives a comfortable coating, it makes it easier to tolerate. In reality the situation remains the same, but the dream gives you a false illusion that the reality has changed.

So what is the deep meaning of dreaming? The deep meaning is that reality as such is so harsh you cannot I tolerate it. Reality as such, naked, is too much, you are not ready to bear it. The dream fills the gap; it gives you a reality you can tolerate. Reality is given to you by the mind in such a way that you can adjust to it.

The more you grow, the less dreaming will be there because there will be no problem of being adjusted. The more you grow, the less dreams. If you grow perfectly in awareness, dreaming stops because, perfectly aware, you don't want to change reality. You simply become one with it. You don't fight with it because, perfectly aware, you come to realize that the real cannot be changed. All that can be changed is your attitude, your mind -- the real will remain the same.

You cannot change reality, you can change only this false process of mind. Ordinarily we are trying to change reality so that reality adjusts to us. A religious person is one who has dropped out of that foolish effort. Now he is not trying to change reality to fit him because that is nonsense. The whole cannot fit to the part, and the whole cannot in any way follow the part; the part has to follow the whole.

My hand has to follow my organic body, my whole body; my body cannot follow the hand, it is impossible. The part is minute, atomic. Who are you before this vast reality? How are you going to adjust this reality to you?

This is the ego which says, "Go on making effort -- some day or other the reality will have to adjust to you." Then you become burdened with anxiety, because this is not going to happen. This cannot happen in the very nature of things: a drop trying to change the ocean, a drop trying to influence the ocean according to his ideas!

What is your mind? Not even a drop in this vast ocean! And what are you trying? You are trying to make the reality follow you, truth should become a shadow to you. This is the foolishness of all worldly men, all those who think they are materialists.

Then what is a religious man, what is a religious mind? A religious man is one who comes to understand that this is absolutely impossible, you are knocking against an impossible wall. The door is not possible there -- only you will be hurt, only you will be in anguish, only you will feel frustrated, only you will become a failure. Nothing else is possible. That happens to every ego in the end; wounded, hurt, frustrated, worried -- this happens to every ego in the end. Ego suffers, ego is always crucified -- crucified because of its own foolishness.

When understanding dawns, when you can look and see the fact that you are just a part, an infinitely small part of an infinitely vast universe, you simply don't try to be foolish. You stop fooling around. Rather, on the contrary, you start a new journey: you try to adjust yourself to reality. When you start trying to adjust yourself to reality, dreaming stops by and by -- because this is possible, this is the only possibility that can happen, and it happens. When it happens, dreaming stops.

When you are trying to change reality according to you, you will become a thinker, because you will have to devise means and ways, artifices, to force reality to adjust to you. You may become a great scientist, you may become a great mathematician, a great philosopher, but you will be in anxiety and anguish.

You will not become a dancing Meera or a silent Buddha or an ecstatic Sosan, no, because their whole approach is diametrically opposite. They adjust to the universe, they become one with it, they flow with it, they become just shadows in it. They don't fight, they don't have any conflict or argument with existence. They simply say yes to all that is. They are not no-sayers, they are yea-sayers.

That is the meaning of being religious: be a yea-sayer. It is not a question of whether you believe in God or not. Buddha never believed in any god, but he is a religious man because he is a yea-sayer. It doesn't matter to whom you say the yes. YOU say the yes -- that changes the whole thing.

Whether you say it to a god with four heads or four hundred heads, with two hands or one thousand hands, whether you say it to a Hindu, Christian or Mohammedan god, or whether you say it to nature or to fate, destiny, it makes no difference. To whom you address it is not the point. If you say yes, a total yes on your part, you become religious.

If you say no, that means you will continue the struggle. You will fight the current, you will move against the river. You think that you are wiser than Tao, you think you are greater than the existence. Then of course, naturally, obviously, you will be frustrated because that is not the case.

The moment you say yes, your life starts flowering in a new dimension. The dimension of the yes is the dimension of religion. The dimension of the no is the dimension of politics, science and everything else.

A mystic is one who flows with the river, he does not push it. He does not even swim in it, because swimming also is a fight -- he simply floats. He has no goals to reach, because how can YOU determine a goal? Who are you? How can YOU fix a goal?

When you let go into the river, the river moves; you move with it. The goal of the river is your goal. You don't even bother where it is -- wherever it is. You have learned a great secret of saying yes. In fact, now wherever you are you are at the goal, because yes is the goal. It is not a question of where you reach; wherever you are, you say yes and it is the goal.

And if you are addicted with the no, wherever you are it will be a journey, it will never be a goal. Wherever you reach, your no will reach with you. Even if you enter heaven the no will reach with you. Where will you leave it?

If you meet the ultimate force as you are right now, you will say no, because you are trained in it. Suddenly, how can you say yes? Even if you encounter God you will say no. You will find many faults, because for the no-saying mind, nothing can be perfect -- NOTHING can be perfect. And for the yea-saying mind nothing is imperfect. Even imperfection has its own perfection for a yes-saying mind.

It will look contradictory. He will say, "How beautifully imperfect! How perfectly imperfect!" Even in chaos there is cosmos for him. And even in matter, the yes penetrates deeply and finds the divine. Then every rock is full of the divine, then everywhere he is.

One who can say yes will find him everywhere. And one who can only say no will not find him anywhere. It depends on you, it doesn't depend on him.

One understanding which brings transformation is: Don't fight with the whole. The whole effort is absurd. And the whole will not suffer because of it, because the whole is not fighting with you. Even if it seems to you that the whole is fighting you and trying to crush you and be victorious, you are wrong. If YOU fight against it, your own fight is reflected. The whole is not fighting with you, he has not even thought about you to fight with. It is your own mind reflected, and the whole resounds. Whatsoever you do is reflected, it is a mirror.

If you go in a fighting mood, you will see that the whole around you is trying to crush you. Try to swim upstream: the whole river seems to be forcing you downwards, as if the whole river exists there just to defeat you. But is the river there just to defeat you? The river may not know anything about you. And when you were not there, then too it was flowing the same way. And when you will not be there, it will continue flowing the same way. It is not flowing that way because of you. And if you feel it is against you, it is BECAUSE of you -- you are trying to go upstream.

Once it happened:

Mulla Nasruddin's wife fell into a flooded river. The neighbors came running to him and they said, "Your wife has fallen in the river, and the river is in flood and flowing fast. Come soon!"

Nasruddin ran to the river, jumped into the river -- started swimming upstream. The people who were surrounding and standing there and watching, they said, "What are you doing, Nasruddin?"

Nasruddin said, "I know my wife very well -- she always tries to go upstream. She cannot go downwards, that's impossible. You may know the river, I know my wife. So don't try to..."

There are people who always go upstream, everywhere they are. And because of their own effort they feel the river is crushing them, fighting, trying to defeat and be victorious.

The whole is not against you, cannot be -- the whole is your mother. You come from the whole, you will dissolve in the whole. How can the whole be against YOU? It simply loves you. Whether you go upstream or downstream, it makes no difference for the whole -- but just because of love the whole cannot flow upstream.

And remember, if it flows upstream you will start going against it -- because that is not the point. Your no-saying mind is the point, because the ego gathers strength through no. The more you say no, the more ego feels powerful; the more you say yes, the more ego drops. That's why it is very difficult to say yes to anything, even ordinary things.

The child wants to play outside and he asks the father, "can I go and play outside?" "No!" What is the POINT of it? Why does no come easy? Why is yes difficult? Because when you fight you feel you are. Otherwise everything fits so beautifully, you cannot feel you are.

If you say yes, you are not there. When a real yes is said, you are absent. How can you feel? You can feel only AGAINST, and then you feel powerful. No gives you power. And how can no give you power? Because, saying no, you are cut from the source of all power. It is a false feeling, it is a disease, it is illness. Say yes, and a transformation starts happening.

Ordinarily you say no unless you have to say yes. Whenever you say yes, you don't feel very good -- as if defeated, as if helpless. Whenever you say no, you feel good: you are victorious, you have put someone again in his place, you have said no, you are more powerful. No is violent, no is aggressive. Yes is prayerful, yes is a prayer.

No need to go to the church and the mosque and the temple -- life is a big enough temple. You simply start saying yes, and everywhere you will feel prayerful because everywhere the ego will be absent. And when the ego is not there, the whole suddenly flows in you. You are not closed, you are open. Then new breeze from the whole comes, a new surge of energy enters you. Then you are renewed moment to moment.

SO THE FIRST THING: the mind substitutes by thinking and dreaming, but it can never become the real. It remains an imitation. It may look like the real but it is not -- it cannot be. How can a symbol, a linguistic symbol, be the real?

You are hungry and I go on talking about bread. You are thirsty and I go on talking about water, not only talking, but I give you the best scientific formula for it. Or I give you the clear cut definition, or I tell you, "Don't worry, water means H20. You just go on repeating H20, H20... make it a mantra, a transcendental meditation, a TM: H20, H20, H20. And everything will happen to you -- the thirst will be gone -- because this is the formula."

H20 may be the formula, but your thirst won't listen to it. This is what is happening all over the world. Go on repeating AUM, AUM, AUM. Aum is also a formula, just like H20. Because Hindus discovered that three sounds -- A, U, M -- they are the root sounds, so AUM comprehends all sounds possible. So what is the need of any other mantra? You simply repeat AUM, AUM, and the whole range of sounds is repeated, the root. So if you have the root, go on repeating it, soon flowers will follow.

Neither H2O nor AUM nor anything like that will be of much help, because who will repeat? The mind will repeat. And reality is there surrounding you; there is NO need to repeat about it, no need even to think about it. You just look, you just open your eyes and see: it is everywhere! It is a miracle how you have missed it. When you attain it, it is not a miracle.

Remember, I never say that Buddha is a miracle or Sosan is a miracle -- YOU are the miracle! Because whatsoever they have attained is such a simple thing, it should be attained by everyone. What is there mysterious to talk about? A Buddha has seen reality, and reality is just in front of you. Why call the attainment such a big phenomenon, such a great happening? Nothing! It is simple!

The reality is as much before you as before a Buddha or before a buffalo. The miracle is you -- how you have missed it, and how you go on missing it. Really, you must have devised such a technique, and so perfect, that for lives together you go on missing. And the reality cannot do anything, it is just in front of you and you go on missing. What is the trick? How do you attain it? How do you do this magic?

The magic is 'about'. This word 'about' is the magic. A flower is there, you start thinking about the flower -- the flower is no more there, the mind is diverted by the words. Then a film comes around you, between you and the flower. Then everything is murky and muddled, then the word becomes more important than the real, then the symbol becomes more important than that which is symbolized.

What is Allah? -- a word. What is Brahma? -- a word. What is God? -- a word. And Hindus and Christians and Mohammedans go on fighting about the word, and nobody bothers that all these three words symbolize the same. The symbol becomes more important.

If you say something against Allah, then the Mohammedan will immediately be ready to fight and kill you or be killed. But the Hindu will go on laughing because it is being said against Allah, it is good. But say the same thing against Brahma, then he brings his sword out, now it cannot be tolerated. What foolishness! Because Allah, or Brahma, or God -- three thousand languages are there, so three thousand words are there for God.

The symbolized is less important than the symbol. The rose is not important, the word 'rose' is important.

And man has become so word-addicted, so intoxicated with the word, that the word can create reactions. Somebody says 'lemon', and your mouth starts watering. This is word addiction. Even the lemon may not be so effective; a lemon may be Lying on the table and your mouth may not water. But somebody says 'lemon', and the mouth starts watering. The word has become more important than the real. This is the trick. And unless you drop this word addiction you will never be able to encounter reality. There is no other barrier.

Be absolutely without language and suddenly it is there, it has always been there. Suddenly your eyes are clear; you attain to clarity and everything becomes illuminated. The whole effort of all meditations is just how to drop out of language. Dropping out of society won't help, because basically society is nothing but language.

That's why animal societies are not in existence, because there is no language. Just think: if you couldn't speak, if you had no language, how would society exist? Impossible! Who would be your wife? Who would be your husband? Who would be your mother and who would be your father?

No boundaries are possible without language. That's why with animals no society exists. And if a society exists, for example with ants and bees then you can suspect that language must be there. And now scientists have worked it out, that bees have language -- a very small language of four words, but they have one. Ants must have a language because their society is so organized, it cannot exist without language.

Society exists because of language. The moment you drop out of language, the society disappears. No need to go to the Himalayas, because if you carry your language you may be alone outwardly, but inwardly the society will be there. You will be talking with friends, making love to your wife or others' wives, selling, purchasing. You will continue whatsoever you were doing here.

There is only one Himalaya and that is a state of inner consciousness where language does not exist. And this is possible -- because language is a training, it is not your nature. You were born without language. Language has been given to you, you have not brought it by nature. It is not natural, it is a social by-product.

Be happy, because there lies the possibility of getting out of it. If you HAD brought it from the very birth, then there would be no way of getting out of it. But then there would be no need, because then it would be a part of Tao. It is not a part of Tao, it is man-created. It is utilitarian, it has a purpose; society cannot exist without language.

The individual need not be twenty-four hours a day a part of society. For a few minutes even, if you become no part of the society, suddenly you merge with the whole and become part of Tao. And you should be flexible. When you need to move in society, you should use language; when you need not move into society, you should drop language. Language should be used as a function, as a mechanism. You should not be obsessed with it, that's the whole point.

Even Sosan uses language. I am using language because I want to convey something to you. But when you are not there, then simply I am not in language. When I have to speak I use language; when you are not there I am without language, then inside no words are moving. When I communicate I become a part of society. When I am not communicating I become a part of Tao, part of the universe, part of nature, or God -- whatsoever name you want to give it, you can give.

With God, silence is communication; with man, language is communication. If you want to communicate with God, be silent; if you want to communicate with man, talk, don't be silent.

If you sit with some friend silently you will feel awkward, and the friend will also feel awkward. He will think some thing has gone wrong, he will ask, "What is the matter? Why are you not speaking? Are you sad or something, depressed or something? Has something gone wrong?l' If a husband sits silently, the wife suddenly starts creating trouble: "Why are you silent? Why are you not talking to me?" If the wife goes suddenly silent there is trouble.

Why is there this need to talk with somebody? Because if you don't talk it means you are alone, you don't accept that somebody is there. When you don't talk the other cannot exist for you, you are alone. The other becomes aware that you are indifferent towards him or her. So people go on talking.

When they don't want to talk, nothing to communicate, nothing to say, they talk about the weather, or about something, anything will do, but TALK, because without talking the other may feel hurt. And this is impolite, to be silent with someone. But with God just the opposite is the case; with nature, if you talk you will miss.

Talking with nature means you are indifferent to that reality which is in front of you. Only silence is needed there. You bring silence in the world when you are born. Language is given; it is a gift, a training of society. It is useful -- a device, an artifice. But silence you bring in the world with you. Attain to that silence again, that's all -- again be a child. The whole thing comes to this, you can conclude it. All the Buddhas come to this conclusion: that you have to become a part of nature again.

That doesn't necessarily mean going against society; that only means going beyond society, not against. When you were born... the first moment of your birth must become your last moment of life. Your death must be like birth again, you must be a child again, reborn.

Says Jesus, "Unless you are reborn you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Be like small children." What does he mean He means just be natural. All that society gives you is good, but don't be confined in it otherwise it will become a bondage. Be again the infinite. Society cannot be infinite, it has to be a narrow tunnel, it has to be by its nature.

And second thing to remember before we enter this sutra: if you are silent then you are not, because only disturbance is felt. Have you ever felt silence? Who will feel it? -- because if you feel, then a little disturbance is there.

It happened:

One of the disciples of Bodhidharma came to him, and Bodhidharma had told him, "Become completely empty and silent, only then come to me."

The disciple worked for years. Then he became empty, silent. Then he came to Bodhidharma and said, "Now, Master, I have come, and you had told me 'Be silent and empty'. Now I have become silent and empty."

Bodhidharma said to him, "Go out and throw this emptiness and silence also."

Because if you can feel it then it is not total, a division exists. The one who feels is not silent yet. Silence may be in the milieu, around, but the feeler is still not silent, otherwise who will feel?

When you are REALLY silent you are not even silent, because silence is just the opposite of noise. When there is no noise, how can silence be there? When noise disappears the opposite also disappears. Then you cannot even say, "I am silent." Say, and you miss. That's why the Upanishads say: "One who says, 'I have known,' has not known." Socrates says that when one becomes wise, he knows only ignorance and nothing else.

When you become silent you don't know what is what. Everything merges into everything else, because you are not there. YOU are just part of noise; the I is the noisiest thing in the world. No jet plane can create so much noise as the I creates! It is the greatest disturber in this world, and everything else is just a by-product of it. The I creates the most noisy phenomena.

When you are silent you are not. Who will feel? When you are empty, you cannot feel "I am empty"; otherwise you are still there to feel and the house is filled, it is not empty. When really you are empty, you are empty of yourself. When the noise ceases, you also cease. Then the reality is in front of you, it is all around. It is inside, outside, it is everywhere, because only reality can be.

With the I all dreams disappear, because with the I all desires disappear. If there is no desire, how can there be an incomplete desire which has to be completed by a dream? Only emptiness can be perfect. This is the meaning of Sosan.

Now try to enter the sutra:

EMPTINESS HERE, EMPTINESS THERE, BUT THE INFINITE UNIVERSE STANDS ALWAYS BEFORE YOUR EYES.

INFINITELY LARGE AND INFINITELY SMALL; NO DIFFERENCE, FOR DEFINITIONS HAVE VANISHED AND NO BOUNDARIES ARE SEEN.

SO TOO WITH BEING AND NON-BEING.

DON'T WASTE TIME IN DOUBTS AND ARGUMENTS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

"EMPTINESS HERE" means emptiness within; "emptiness there" means emptiness without. And can there be two emptinesses? That is impossible. Two emptinesses are not possible, because how will you demark them from each other? Two emptinesses by their very nature will become one. The inside and the outside is a division of mind; when mind disappears this division disappears.

EMPTINESS HERE, EMPTINESS THERE...

Really, to say here and there is also not good, not exactly right. But that is a problem; in words nothing can be put exactly right, they distort. Sosan knows, because now there can be no here and no there. They are old demarcations. Within and without are old demarcations, now and then are old demarcations, and with language they disappear.

It happened:

One man came to Bokuju and said to him, "I am in a hurry and I will not be able to stay long with you. Just passing by this road, I thought it would be good to come and listen to just a word. I don't need much. You simply say one word to indicate truth and I will carry it in my heart."

Bokuju said, "Don't force me, because even one word is enough for the truth to disappear. And whether you are in a hurry or not, I cannot say anything. Only carry this: that you asked Bokuju and he said, 'I cannot say anything.' Only remember this."

The man said, "This is not very much and it won't help me. You say a little, just a word -- I don't ask much."

Bokuju said, "Even a word is enough to destroy the whole. You just look at me and carry me within you."

But the man could not look because it is difficult -- you don't know how to look -- otherwise there would have been no need to go to Bokuju.

You cannot look in front. Your tip of the nose is the most difficult thing to look at. Sideways it is okay; you go left and you go right, but never in the middle. So there are leftist madmen and rightist madmen, but you cannot find a middleman, one who is not mad. Move to any extreme and you go mad, remain in the middle and you become enlightened -- but nobody remains in the middle. In the middle you encounter the reality.

Words are bound to say the half, a word cannot say the full thing. If you say, "God is," then you deny, "God is not" -- and he is both. If you say, "Life is," you deny death -- and life is death also. If you say anything it is going to be half, and a half-truth is more dangerous than a total lie. Because of that halfness it carries a fragrance of truth and you can be deceived by it.

All sects are based on half-truths, that's why they are dangerous. All cults are dangerous because they are based on half-truths. And otherwise is not possible, because a cult, a creed, a sect, is necessarily based on words. Buddhism is not based on Buddha, it is based on what Buddha said. And what Buddha said is half, because the whole cannot be said. Nothing can be done about it.

Or you try to say the whole, then nothing is said. If you say, "Life is both life and death," what are you saying? If you say, "God is both Devil and God," what are you saying? You are talking paradoxes, you are not clear-cut, and people will think you have gone mad. How can God be both good and bad? And how can life be both death and life? Death must be opposite to life.

EMPTINESS HERE, EMPTINESS THERE, BUT THE INFINITE UNIVERSE STANDS ALWAYS BEFORE YOUR EYES.

INFINITELY LARGE AND INFINITELY SMALL NO DIFFERENCE...

Because if something is infinitely large and something is infinitely small, there cannot be any difference because of the question of infiniteness. If you go down, dividing, analyzing, you will reach to the infinitely small. Science has reached to the infinitely small, the electron. Now everything has disappeared, nothing can be seen. The electron has not been seen, nobody can see it. Then why do they say the electron is?

Physics has become almost metaphysics, and physical statements, statements of the physicists, look almost philosophical, mystic, because they say, "We cannot see the electron, we can only observe the consequences. We can see the effects but not the cause. We infer that the electron MUST be there, because how, if the electron is not there, can these effects be there?"

This is what mystics have always been saying. They say, "We cannot see God but we can see this creation. And God is the cause and this creation is the effect. We cannot SEE God but we see the creation -- he must be there, otherwise how is this creation possible?"

If you listen to my voice and you cannot see me, you will have to infer that I must be somewhere, otherwise how can you listen to my voice? The effect is seen but the cause is not seen. Science has reached to the infinitely small, and the small has disappeared completely -- because it has become so small, so small, so small, so subtle, that now you cannot catch it.

Religion reaches to the infinitely great. It becomes so great, so great, so vast, that you cannot see its boundaries. It becomes so vast you cannot catch it, you cannot cling to it, you cannot demark it. The infinitely small cannot be seen, it becomes invisible; and the infinitely great also cannot be seen, it becomes invisible.

Then Sosan says a beautiful thing: they both are the same because they both are infinite. And the infinite, whether small or great makes no difference, they are the same.

INFINITELY LARGE AND INFINITELY SMALL; NO DIFFERENCE, FOR DEFINITIONS HAVE VANISHED AND NO BOUNDARIES ARE SEEN.

SO TOO WITH BEING AND NON-BEING.

When you are totally empty, with no ego, with nobody inside the house, are you a being or a non-being? Are you or are you not? Nothing can be said.

People used to ask Buddha again and again, "What happens when one becomes a Buddha? Is he, or is he not? Does the soul exist or not? What will happen when Buddha leaves the body? Where will he be? Will he be somewhere or not?"

And Buddha says, "These questions you don't ask. You simply become a Buddha and see, because whatsoever I say will be wrong." And he always avoided the temptation of answering such questions.

DON'T WASTE TIME IN DOUBTS AND ARGUMENTS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

Reality does not depend on your arguments. Whether you prove this way or that is irrelevant -- the reality is THERE. It has been there before you, it will be there after you. It does not depend on your mind; on the contrary, your mind depends on it. It does not need any proof or disproof. It exists on its own. You cannot prove it, you cannot disprove it.

But people go on arguing whether God exists or not. Thousands of books are published every year on whether God exists or not. All foolish Those who say yes and prove, and those who say no ARID prove, both are in the same boat -- the boat of proof, argument, logic.

And if there is a God, he must be laughing. Does he need your argument? What are you saying? You are saying that if he is there, then his being depends on whether you prove him or not. Whatsoever you do -- prove or disprove -- but do you think that his being depends on your arguments?

Existence is there without anybody's argument. No witness is being called, and there is no court which is going to decide. How can you judge? And who is the judge? And arguments have been going on continuously; for millions of years people have argued this way and that. Atheists are there who go on and nobody can convince them; theists are there and they go on and nobody can unconvince them. Theists and atheists both argue and no argument proves to be the final thing, the problem remains the same.

Sosan says all arguments are irrelevant: theist, atheist -- both; for, against -- both. You are doing a foolish thing, because the reality is there, it does not need any proof. It is already there, it has always been there, it will be always there. The truth means that which is.

Arguing, you simply waste your energy and time. Rather, enjoy it. Rather, merge in it. Rather, delight in it. Rather, live it! And if you live, you start carrying the flavor of reality around you. If you live it and delight in it, something of the vast, something of the infinite, starts being expressed by your finite existence. By and by your boundaries also dissolve, by and by you are lost. The drop drops into the ocean and becomes the ocean.

Don't waste time in arguing. Philosophers are fools, and more dangerous fools than ordinary fools, because ordinary fools are simply fools and philosophers think they are wise. And they go on! I look at a Hegel or a Kant -- their whole life they go on arguing and they never reach anywhere.

It happened:

A girl proposed to Immanuel Kant, she wanted to marry him. He said, "Yes, I will think about it."

A thinker, a great thinker and a great logician, how can he take a step? Even if it is love he has to think about it first. And it is said he thought and thought and thought. Then he gathered all arguments for and against -- because there are people who are against love, there are people who are for love, there are people who are against marriage, people who are for marriage, and they have argued. So he accumulated all the data about marriage, love, for, against. It is said that he accumulated three hundred arguments for and against marriage. He got very much confused. What to do? How to decide?

Then he tried and tried, and then he could find one argument more in favor of marriage. And the argument was this: that if there is a possibility, two alternatives which look equal, then always choose that alternative which will give you more experience. Marriage or no marriage -- if all arguments are equal -- then no marriage he already knew, because he was a bachelor. Then it was better to go into the marriage, because at least it was something new. When all the arguments are equal, then how to decide? So move and know about marriage by experience.

So he went and knocked at the door of the girl. The father opened the door and Immanuel Kant said, "I have decided. Where is your daughter?"

The father said, "It is too late -- she is a mother of three children."

Because twenty years had passed and women are not so foolish as to wait so long. They are always wiser, instinctively wiser. That's why women have not made great philosophers. They are not so foolish, they are more instinctive, more intuitive, nearer nature, more interested in living rather than in arguing.

That's why to men women always appear concerned with small things, not with great problems, VERY small things: dress, ornaments. But look -- they are concerned with small things because life consists of small things. Great problems are only in the mind, not in life. Whether you decide God exists or not makes no difference. You have to eat twice a day, you have to cover up when it is too cold and you have to move in the shade when it is too hot -- whether you decide God exists or not, it makes no difference. Life consists of small things. And if life consists of small things then small things are not small -- because life consists of them, they are vital.

DON'T WASTE TIME IN DOUBTS AND ARGUMENTS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION.

TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION.

TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH IS THE ROAD TO NON-DUALITY, BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND.

VERY VERY SIGNIFICANT WORDS, and more significant if you can look beyond the words.

ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE...

Life is an organic unity. Nothing is divided, everything is one. If you think it is divided, divisions are mind enforced. Otherwise everything intermingles, melts, merges into the other. It is happening all the time. You don't see it because you have become completely blind with words.

You eat a fruit; the fruit becomes your blood. The tree has mingled in you, the boundary is lost. And this fruit may have remained in many people's blood before, many animals, many plants, many rocks. This energy that is the fruit has been there always in existence -- melting, merging, emerging, moving from this to that, passing all boundaries.

Just watch any phenomenon. The fruit on the tree, what is it doing? Scientists say that the fruit is doing a miracle. It is transforming the earth, it is transforming the sunrays, it is transforming water. It is a miracle, because you cannot eat earth, you cannot eat sunrays directly. This fruit, an apple, is doing a miracle. It is transforming everything and making it so that you can absorb it and it becomes your blood.

And this energy has been moving because it has always been there. The whole of the energy remains the same, because there is nowhere else to go, so the energy cannot be less OR more. Nothing is added to the universe, and nothing can be deleted. Where will you take it away? The whole remains the same.

One day the fruit was just in the earth, you could not have eaten it. The fruit was in the sun, the D vitamin was in the sun. Now the fruit has absorbed it, now the earth has transformed -- a miracle is happening! Why go to a magician to see a miracle? It is happening: the dirt has changed into a delicious food.

And you eat it, it becomes your blood. Your blood is churning continuously, it creates semen. Now a seed is born, it becomes a small child. Now the fruit, the apple, has moved to the child. Where are the boundaries? The tree moves in you, the sun moves in the tree, the ocean moves into the tree, you move in the child and this goes on...

Everything is moving. The breath that is within you will be in me a little later. And the breath is life, so your life and my life cannot be different, because the same breath you breathe I breathe. I exhale, you inhale it; you exhale, I inhale it.

Your heart and my heart cannot be very different. They are breathing and beating the same ocean of vitality around. I call this my breath, but by the time I have called it, it is no more mine -- it has moved, it has changed the house, now it is somebody else's breath. What you call your life is not yours. It is nobody's -- or it is everybody's.

When somebody looks at reality, then he sees that the whole is an organic unity. The sun is working for you, the ocean is working for you, the stars are working for you. The people milling around the world are working for you and you are working for them. You will die and worms will eat your body, you will become their food.

You are getting ready, ripe, to die, to become food for somebody else. And this has to be so -- because you have made so many things your food, finally you have to become their food. Everything is food for somebody else. It is a chain... and you want to cling to life. And the apple, it also wants to cling to the life; and the wheat, the wheat also wants to remain itself. Then life will cease.

Life lives through death. You die here, somebody becomes alive there; I exhale, somebody inhales. Just like a rhythmic exhalation, inhalation, is life and death. Life is inhalation, death is exhalation.

When you are ripe you will fall down on the earth. Then the worms will eat you and the birds of prey will come and they will enjoy you. You enjoyed many foods, now you will be enjoyed in turn. Everything melts, meets, merges. So why be worried? This is going to happen, this is already happening. Only the whole lives, individuals are false. Only the ultimate lives -- all else are just waves in it, they come and they go.

When one sees reality just in front of the nose, suddenly there is no problem, no anxiety, because the whole goes on living whether you live or not. Your death is not a problem then, your life is also not a problem then. You will live in the whole in many many millions of ways.

Sometimes you will be a fruit... that is the meaning of the Hindu concept of millions of YONIS. Sometimes you were an animal and sometimes you were an insect and sometimes you were a tree and sometimes you were a rock -- and life goes on.

So you are nobody, in a sense, and you are everybody in another sense. You are empty in one sense and you are full in another sense. You are not in one sense, and you are the all in another sense -- because you are not separate.

Separation brings anxiety. If you are anxious, in anguish, that means you are thinking you are separate -- you are unnecessarily creating problems for yourself. There is no need, because the whole goes on living; the whole never dies, it cannot die. Only parts die -- but that death is not really a death, it is a rebirth. Here you die, there you are born.

ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION.

TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION.

Then why be worried about perfection? That too is an egoistic goal. This is very deep to be understood, because even religious people try to be perfect. But who are you to be perfect? Only the whole can be perfect, you can never be perfect. How can you be perfect? Even a Buddha has to fall ill, he has to die. You cannot be perfect! The very goal of perfection is an ego trip. The whole is already perfect, you need not be worried about it -- and in the whole you are also perfect.

Two words have to be understood: one is perfection, another is wholeness. A real religious person is concerned with wholeness, never with perfection, and a pseudo religious person is concerned with perfection, never with wholeness.

Wholeness means, "I am not, the whole is." And it is perfect, because how can it be otherwise? There is no comparison, there is nobody else. But if you are thinking in terms of perfection, morality, ideals, character, you have to be perfect, then you will go mad.

All perfectionists go mad -- that is their ultimate, final end -- because as a separate unit you will remain imperfect, you cannot be perfect. How can you be perfect? Because your energy comes from the whole, it goes to the whole -- you are not. A wave has to remain a wave, it cannot become the ocean. And if it tries too hard, it will go mad.

That's why in the world of religion you see the most egoistic people possible, because they are trying to be perfect about everything. They insist on perfection. They cannot be relaxed, they will always be tense. And always something will be wrong and they have to put it right -- and they will always remain in anxiety. Go to the madhouses, and you will find there ninety percent perfectionists.

A man of understanding remains relaxed. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care. No, he cares but he knows the limitations. He cares, but he knows that he is just a part. He never thinks himself to be the whole, so he is never worried.

He enjoys whatsoever he is doing, knowing well that it is going to remain imperfect, it cannot be perfect. But he enjoys doing it, and by enjoying it, whatsoever perfection is possible happens without creating any worry in him. He loves it, knowing well that it is not going to be the absolute thing. It cannot be; something will remain incomplete, it is the nature of things.

That's why in the East we have always believed -- and believed in a very true thing -- that whenever somebody becomes perfect he is not born again, he disappears from this world. He has to, because in this world only imperfection is possible. He no more fits here, he is not needed, he dissolves into the whole.

Even a Buddha to the very last moment of his life remains imperfect, but not worried about it. That's why Buddhists have two terms for NIRVANA. The ultimate enlightenment they call MAHAPARINIRVANA, and enlightenment they call NIRVANA. NIRVANA means a Buddha is in the body. He has attained to illumination, he has become a knower, but he is still in the body, the body of imperfection. He is still in the world of imperfect parts. This is NIRVANA, enlightenment.

Then when he leaves the body, when he simply disappears into the ultimate emptiness, it is MAHAPARINIRVANA, it is the great enlightenment. Now imperfection disappears, now there is no individuality, now he is whole. Only the whole can be perfect. Now Buddha can be perfect, because now he has dissolved into the whole, he is oceanic.

So remember this well, because all perfectionism is an egoistic effort, you go mad after everything. Try to do it as well as you can, but don't be crazy about it; do as well as you can and accept the limitation. The limitation is going to be there, even about your character, morality, everything!

Even a saint has to give a little space for the sinner, because where will the sinner go? So it is possible, ninety-nine percent a saint, but one percent of the sinner will be there. And the reverse happens: you can become a ninety-nine percent sinner but one percent of the saint will be there. It has to be so, because where will you leave the other? You can force it to the very extreme, but the one percent of the other will remain there. And if you go mad about it, it is not going to help.

A man of understanding accepts limitations. He accepts the possibilities, that which is possible. He knows the impossible, he never tries for the impossible. He relaxes and enjoys the possible. And the more he enjoys, the more perfection comes to his life. But it is no more a worry, it is graceful -- and this is the difference.

If you come to a really religious man you will feel a grace around him, effortless. He has not done anything to himself, he has simply relaxed into the ultimate, and you feel the effortlessness around him.

If you come to a person who is a perfectionist, a pseudo religious man, then everything you see will be man-made, there will be no grace. Everything clear-cut, every movement calculated, cunning. Everything he is doing is a discipline not a spontaneity. He lives in a code; his own code becomes his imprisonment. He cannot laugh, he cannot be a child, he cannot be a flower. Whatsoever he is, so much effort he has put into it that everything has become tense and gone wrong. It is not a spontaneous flow.

And this should be the criterion -- if you move towards a Master this should be the criterion -- that he is a spontaneous flow. Only then can he help you to become a spontaneous flow on your own part. If he is an enforced perfectionist he will cripple you, he will kill you completely. He will cut you in many ways, and by the time he thinks you are perfect, you are dead.

Only a dead thing can be perfect, a living thing is bound to remain imperfect. Remember this.

TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION.

ONE SIMPLY LIVES! One lives totally, one lives wholly, and doesn't bother about the consequence, what happens.

TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH...

And this is faith for Sosan, and this is faith for me also. This is trust.

A perfectionist never trusts because he is always looking for the faults. He never trusts anything. Even if you present him a rose he will immediately find the imperfections. He will not look at the rose, he will look at the imperfections. His eye is that of logic, not of love. He is always doubtful; he cannot trust anybody, because he cannot trust himself.

You go to your so-called saints -- they cannot trust themselves. They are afraid, because whatsoever they have enforced IS enforced, it is not natural, and they know if they relax then things will go wrong. If a beautiful woman comes to a saint, you can see that he has become fidgety, uneasy. It may not be on the surface, but if you watch deeply you can feel it, because he has enforced BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy, and that woman is a danger. He cannot allow this woman to be there for long, because then his own distrust about himself will come up.

A man who has not trusted his own life energy cannot trust anybody. He is an enemy of man, a poisoner. And poisoners are very articulate -- they have to be, because they have to be argumentative and defend themselves, and they have to depend on their own mind.

And these poisoners have done such a deep harm, such a wound to the whole humanity, that it is impossible to think how humanity can come out of it. They have poisoned everything: "This is bad, that is bad, this is sin, that is guilt." And they have created around you such a mess that whatsoever you do you will feel guilty. If you DON'T do, you will feel guilty because of the nature.

If you love you have fallen; if you don't love you go on feeling a deep urge to love. It comes from nature, nothing is wrong in it. It is as natural as hunger and thirst, and as beautiful as hunger and thirst. But your saints would like you to be just plastic men -- no hunger, no thirst, no love -- then you are perfect.

If your whole mechanism is made of plastic then it will be easy. And scientists ARE thinking on those lines, to make the whole mechanism plastic. Then you don't need any food, you don't need any love, you don't need anything. You become a machine, you are a robot. Sometimes, when something goes wrong, you can be sent to the workshop. And every day you can go to the filling station, and they can put some petrol in you and everything is okay. Then you will be a perfectionist, then you will be perfect.

But as life is, life is delicate; it is not plastic, it is very delicate. You don't have wires, you have nerves. And the balance is always moving. Nothing is certain, and everything goes on melting and merging into the other. That's why you are alive.

A man of understanding is not bothered, he is not anxious about non-perfection. He doesn't think in terms of perfection at all; he only lives the moment as wholly as possible, as totally as possible. And the more he lives totally, the more he becomes capable to live it.

A day comes... he simply lives without forcing any ideals, without thinking any concepts, without making any rules and regulations about his life. He simply lives and enjoys and delights.

TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH IS THE ROAD TO NON-DUALITY...

And this is faith.

BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND.

And deep inside, if you have a trusting mind, the non-dual will be in front of you. Deep down if you have doubts, then theories, thinking, words, philosophies, doctrines will be there, and in front you will be completely blind. You will not be able to see the close, you will be able to only think of the distant. Inside trust, outside reality; inside trust, outside truth. Trust and truth meet, and there is no other meeting...

... BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND.

WORDS!

THE WAY IS BEYOND LANGUAGE, FOR IN IT THERE IS

NO YESTERDAY

NO TOMORROW

NO TODAY.

THE LAST THING: Sosan is saying that language is possible if time is. Language is the same gestalt as time. That's why language has three tenses: past, present, future -- just like time: past, present, future. Language is time, divided into the same categories as time. And life is beyond. Life if not past. Where is past? You cannot find it anywhere.

I have heard once it happened:

One man had come to look in a great museum. The man was very rich, so the best guide was given to him. The man looked at one head and he asked, "Who is this?"

The guide really didn't know, so he said, "It is the head of Napoleon."

Then a small head, and again the man asked. And the guide was so excited with this rich man, and so afraid, that he got messed up inside and he said, "This is also Napoleon's head."

So the rich man said, "What do you mean? Two heads?"

Then the guide was in difficulty, and some answer had to be given. So he said, "Yes, this is his childhood head and that is his old-age head."

If past exists, then a childhood head will be there, then many heads will be there; when you die you will leave millions of heads behind. But you leave only one head, not millions of heads. Past disappears; past is nowhere, just in the memory.

Where is future? Future is nowhere, just in imagination. Past is that which is not now and future is that which is not yet. That's why mystics have always said: Only the present is. But Sosan goes a step ahead and he says:

NO YESTERDAY

NO TOMORROW

NO TODAY.

Not even present is. What does he mean? Because -- he is tight, absolutely right -- if there is no past and no future, then how can present exist? Because present exists only between past and future.

What is the present? A passage. From the past you move to the future; in that movement, just for a single moment, the present is. What is present? It is just a passage from the past to the future, it is a door from this room to that. But if neither this room exists, nor that, then how can the door exist? It is a bridge between past and future. And if both the banks are not, how can the bridge exist?

Sosan is right. Sosan says neither past nor future nor present. He is saying there is no time. And the whole language depends on time -- past, future, present. Language is a creation of the mind, time is also a creation of the mind.

When you drop language, time disappears. When you drop thinking, there is no past, no present, no future. You go beyond time, there is no time. When there is no time, there is eternity. When there is no time, you have moved into the world of the eternal. The truth is eternal. And all that you have got are temporal reflections of the truth.

It is just like: a moon has arisen in the sky, it is a full moon night, and you look deep into the lake and the moon is there. This moon is all that you have -- the moon in the lake. The mind mirrors; all truths that you have are mirrored by mind, they are reflections.

What is Sosan saying? Sosan is saying, "Forget this lake! because this is a mirror. Look beyond, only then will you be able to see the real moon -- and it is there."

But you are too much identified with the lake, with the mirroring mind. Drop the mind and suddenly everything that you were missing fits, everything that you were seeking happens, everything that you always dreamed and desired is there. Everything is fulfilled.

The whole message is how to drop out of the mind, language and time.

Zen

HSIN HSIN MING: THE BOOK OF NOTHING

Chapter-10

No Yesterday, No tomorrow, No today