Don't try to understand them intelectually. rather play with them with deep love, sympathy, rapport. And, slowly, like a fragrance, like a melody, something will arise in you and you will be able to seewhat this amn want to convey. He wants to convey that which cannot be conveyed; he wants to say that which cannot be said. And he has been able to convey it.
Zen Master are strange masters. A religious person is bound to become strange, because he lives in a totally different way. He lives in a seperate reality. He starts existing here as an outsider.He becomes a stranger to this ordinary world, because he is here and yet not of it. He live here, but untouched, uncontaminated, unpolluted by it. He lives here, and lives in such a way that he is untouchable. He does not escape from the world. He lives in the ordinary world in an extraordinary way.
A story about a zen master named Ikkyu.
One summer day while working, perhaps weeding, Ikkyu got so tired, being hot, came up to the templeporch and aired himself in the cool breeze. He felt so fine that he went into the temple and took the buddha from the shrine and binding him to a pole outside and said, " Now, you too cool yourself!"
Looks absurd, binding a wooden buddha to a pole and saying to Buddha, "Now you too cool yourself" But look .... something deep is there. For Ikkyu, nothing is dead anymore, not even the wooden Buddha. All is alive. And he has started feeling for everything as he feels himself. Those boundaries of l and You are no longer relevant. He had come to being one.
And another opposite of the story,
One night, a very cold winter night, he was staying in a temple. And then suddenly, in the middle of the night, the priest of the templeheard noice and saw light, so he came running: "What is happening?"
He saw Ikkyu sitting there - he was burning a wooden Buddha. The preist was aghast. He said, " Are you mad or something? What have you done? This is sacrilege. There can be no other sin greater than this. You have burnt my Buddha!"
And Ikkyu took a small stick and start poking into the ashes. And the priest said,"Now what are you doing, what are you trying to do?"
And Ikkyu said, " I'm trying to find the bones of the Buddha."
And the priest said," You must be absolutely mad - how can you find the bones in a wooden Buddha?"
And Ikkyu laughed and he said, The night is long and very cold, and you have so many wooden Buddha - why dont you bring a few more ? And you can also warm yourself up."
Now this man is a strange man. One time he binds the Buddha on a hot summer day to a pole and say, "Now you cool yourself". Another time he burns a wooden Buddha because the night is too cold. And he says to the priest, " Look at me - the Buddha inside me is shivering." In fact, both the stories are the same, from two different angles the same.
A man of realization, a man who has understood, makes no differences. Distinctions are lost, divisions disappear. All boundaries become meaningless. A man of realizationstarts living in the unbounded, in the infinite.
Each words has to be penetrated with sympathy. The leaky road means this world, the world of desires. Through desires we are leaking our energy. Through desires we are wasting our being. through desires we are disappearing down the drain.
This world is a leaky road. Man simply waste himself here. Nothing is gain out of it, never . In fact, you come as emperor and you die as beggars. Each child is born as an emperor and soon the kingdom is lost, the purity, the innocence is lost. Each child is Adam in the Garden Of Eden, and each child has to be expelled from the Garden. And he starts moving to the world of desires.
Ten thousands of desires are there. They cannot be finished, they cannot be fulfilled. They bring only frustration and more frustration. Each desire is a new trap of frustration. You hope again and you are trapped, and each desire only bring greater frustration. But by the time it comes, you start desiring again. You move from one desire to another desire. You can go on moving for millions of lives. In fact, that's how we have been moving.
In Zen, this is the most foundamental meditation: to search for the face that you had before you were born, or, to search for the face after you are dead. Just to think about it brings great realizations. Just to meditate upon it constantly - and one starts feeling somethingfaceless. That is your original face: facelessness. You had no face before you were born, you had no body, no mind, no name, no form - You were, but you were not identified with anything.
To realize it again, amidst all this noise of the Leaky Road, admist all these people who are just running after desires, chasing one desire and then another and then another; to recognize and to realize the original face when you were neither a body nor a mind, but only a pure consciousness, a witness, is the goal of all meditations. If you can remain in that state, your life energies will not leak.
And the way back is to return to the source, to that original face. All religions are the way back. Religion means a hundred and eighty degree turn, an about-turn, an absolute about-turn. We are rushing away from the original source, we are rushing from ourselves. We have to return back. We have to come to our original source - because only there is peace and contentment and bliss. Only there is fulfillment.
The source is the goal - they are never seperate. Only the source can be the goal! When one has come back to one's original source, one has achieved all that life can give, all that life is meant to give.
Life is losing the paradise; religion is regaining it. Rushing into the world of desires is the Adam who is falling from grace; returning back is Christ. They are the same person! Adam and Christ are not two seperate persons. They are the same person, only their direction has changed. Adam is on the leaky road, going away from the source, farther and farther away from the source. Christ is returning back, has taken the turn.
Next Chapter Three
Zen Master are strange masters. A religious person is bound to become strange, because he lives in a totally different way. He lives in a seperate reality. He starts existing here as an outsider.He becomes a stranger to this ordinary world, because he is here and yet not of it. He live here, but untouched, uncontaminated, unpolluted by it. He lives here, and lives in such a way that he is untouchable. He does not escape from the world. He lives in the ordinary world in an extraordinary way.
A story about a zen master named Ikkyu.
One summer day while working, perhaps weeding, Ikkyu got so tired, being hot, came up to the templeporch and aired himself in the cool breeze. He felt so fine that he went into the temple and took the buddha from the shrine and binding him to a pole outside and said, " Now, you too cool yourself!"
Looks absurd, binding a wooden buddha to a pole and saying to Buddha, "Now you too cool yourself" But look .... something deep is there. For Ikkyu, nothing is dead anymore, not even the wooden Buddha. All is alive. And he has started feeling for everything as he feels himself. Those boundaries of l and You are no longer relevant. He had come to being one.
And another opposite of the story,
One night, a very cold winter night, he was staying in a temple. And then suddenly, in the middle of the night, the priest of the templeheard noice and saw light, so he came running: "What is happening?"
He saw Ikkyu sitting there - he was burning a wooden Buddha. The preist was aghast. He said, " Are you mad or something? What have you done? This is sacrilege. There can be no other sin greater than this. You have burnt my Buddha!"
And Ikkyu took a small stick and start poking into the ashes. And the priest said,"Now what are you doing, what are you trying to do?"
And Ikkyu said, " I'm trying to find the bones of the Buddha."
And the priest said," You must be absolutely mad - how can you find the bones in a wooden Buddha?"
And Ikkyu laughed and he said, The night is long and very cold, and you have so many wooden Buddha - why dont you bring a few more ? And you can also warm yourself up."
Now this man is a strange man. One time he binds the Buddha on a hot summer day to a pole and say, "Now you cool yourself". Another time he burns a wooden Buddha because the night is too cold. And he says to the priest, " Look at me - the Buddha inside me is shivering." In fact, both the stories are the same, from two different angles the same.
A man of realization, a man who has understood, makes no differences. Distinctions are lost, divisions disappear. All boundaries become meaningless. A man of realizationstarts living in the unbounded, in the infinite.
Each words has to be penetrated with sympathy. The leaky road means this world, the world of desires. Through desires we are leaking our energy. Through desires we are wasting our being. through desires we are disappearing down the drain.
This world is a leaky road. Man simply waste himself here. Nothing is gain out of it, never . In fact, you come as emperor and you die as beggars. Each child is born as an emperor and soon the kingdom is lost, the purity, the innocence is lost. Each child is Adam in the Garden Of Eden, and each child has to be expelled from the Garden. And he starts moving to the world of desires.
Ten thousands of desires are there. They cannot be finished, they cannot be fulfilled. They bring only frustration and more frustration. Each desire is a new trap of frustration. You hope again and you are trapped, and each desire only bring greater frustration. But by the time it comes, you start desiring again. You move from one desire to another desire. You can go on moving for millions of lives. In fact, that's how we have been moving.
In Zen, this is the most foundamental meditation: to search for the face that you had before you were born, or, to search for the face after you are dead. Just to think about it brings great realizations. Just to meditate upon it constantly - and one starts feeling somethingfaceless. That is your original face: facelessness. You had no face before you were born, you had no body, no mind, no name, no form - You were, but you were not identified with anything.
To realize it again, amidst all this noise of the Leaky Road, admist all these people who are just running after desires, chasing one desire and then another and then another; to recognize and to realize the original face when you were neither a body nor a mind, but only a pure consciousness, a witness, is the goal of all meditations. If you can remain in that state, your life energies will not leak.
And the way back is to return to the source, to that original face. All religions are the way back. Religion means a hundred and eighty degree turn, an about-turn, an absolute about-turn. We are rushing away from the original source, we are rushing from ourselves. We have to return back. We have to come to our original source - because only there is peace and contentment and bliss. Only there is fulfillment.
The source is the goal - they are never seperate. Only the source can be the goal! When one has come back to one's original source, one has achieved all that life can give, all that life is meant to give.
Life is losing the paradise; religion is regaining it. Rushing into the world of desires is the Adam who is falling from grace; returning back is Christ. They are the same person! Adam and Christ are not two seperate persons. They are the same person, only their direction has changed. Adam is on the leaky road, going away from the source, farther and farther away from the source. Christ is returning back, has taken the turn.
Next Chapter Three
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