Mind in its own purity is just a mirror, an empty mirror. It conatains nothing. It is a mirror because it is empty, because only emptiness call mirror. If something is contain already, then your reflection will not be the true reflection. When the mirror is absolutely empty, it is the most perfect mirror.
In meditation, the minds become more and more mirrorlike. Slowly, slowly all the dust of the thoughts disappears, all the clouds od desire disappear... and then there is nothing left, no-self, nothingness, MU. Mind in its purity is just a mirror, undisturb by passion and unclouded by thought. Everything appear As It Is.
Bodhidarma - Answered when questioned, ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. The true life of sage. Nothing in the mind: Nirvana.
The enlightened person has no ready made answer. He has no thought ready to throw into your heads. He responds. His utterances are his responses. He is a mirror. The disciple comes infront of the master and he responds; He responds to the needs of his disciple. He has no fixed idea. He is not concern with dishing something out and giving it out to everybody. He simply waits there like a mirror. You come and you see your face.
Hence tyhe contradiction of a master. A teacher is consistent, a master is bound to be contradictory, inconsistent. A mirror has to be inconsistent: one moment it is mirroring a cat, another moment it is mirroring a man; another moment it is mirroring a tears, another moment laughter. How can a mirror be consistent. You cannot tell the mirror: "Be consistent! Yesterday I saw tears in you, today I'm seeing laughter. Yesterday I looked in youand you were sad, and today you look very happy.Yesterday I saw you in deep meditation; today I see you were singing and dancing. This is inconsistent!"
Only a photograph can be consistent, not a mirror. The photograph is a photograph. If there are tears, they will remain there forever. The photograph is dead; it does not respond. If a monkey comes, the photograph will go on showing it's tears. If a sage comes, the same. But remember, with a master it is different. If you are a monkey, then the maaster will show your face; then his answer will be in response to your being. He responds. He does not reply, he respond.
That's why it happen when 2 great indian masters met and sat together for 2 days continuously - not a single word was exchanged. Two mirrors reflecting each other, what can they reflect? Just put 2 mirrors infront of each other: one mirror will mirror the other mirror and so on and so forth... mirror and mirror and mirror but nothing will be mirrored. there is nothing.
Two silences sast together,(masters) looked into each other. There was no question, hence there was no answer. There was nobody. hence there was no responce.
Yes, that is the mind of a master - he has nothing in his mind. To have something in his mind is to remain unenlightened. To have nothing in mind is to become enlightened. Even if you haveenlightenment in your mind, then you are not yet enlightened. To have nothing in the mind is to be enlightened. Remember it.
If you have the idea that you have become enlightened, then you are not yet enlightened. Even this ideais enough to keep you move to the road which leak and also the world of desires.
Just the other day, somebody wrote me a letter. He thinks he has become enlightened, so he wants to come and shake hands with me. shaking hands is perfectly good, but the very idea that you have become enlightened will keep you unenlightened. Wait, when you are ready, I will shake hand s with you. You just wait, have a little patience. Let all ideas disappear, even the idea of enlightened.
The day you come like a mirror, I will shake my being with your being - Why hands? Hands won't do.
Ordinarily, we are walking bundles of solutions to problems that do not exist. Everybody is so. You are carrying thousands of solutions for problems which are no more existent - and you call it knowledge. It is hindering your capacity to know . It is not knowledge.
Drop all the solutions that you are carrying. Drops all the answers that you are carrying. Just remain silent. And whenever a question arise out of that silence you will hear the answer - and thatwill be the answer. It will not come from you, it will not come from scriptures, it will not come from anywhere - it will come from nowhere and it will come from nobody. It will come from your inner most nothingness.
Other religions call that nothingness 'God'. Buddha often emphasizes the word nothingness - and significantly so, meaningfully so. Because once you use the word 'God', people start getting attached to it. Then they have some idea; they ask what God looks like. You cannot ask what nothingness looks like - or can you? Once you have the word GOD, You start asking: How to make the image? How to create a temple? How to pray? What name to give Him? And there are many names and many images... and then the fight ensues.
That's why emphasizes the word nothingness so much - because it is really beautiful. It does not allows any games to be played with it. It does not allow itself to be corrupted by you. But if you understand rightly, nothingness means God, God means nothingness.
Our Mind, Without End,
Without beginning,
Thought it is born, Thought it dies,
The Essence of Emptiness.
Mind has to be understood in 2 ways. One with a capital 'M'. That is the Universal mind, the Mind of the whole - the whole itself, the consciousness that pervades existence. It is a conscious existence. It is alive, alive to the very core. Everything is alive. You may know it, you may not know it. It may not be tangible to you, it may not be visible to you, but everything is alive. Only life exist.
And death is a myth. Death is an illusion. So is unconsciousness. Even the rock is not unconscious - it is consciousin it's own way. It may not be available to us, it may not be possible for us to know whether it is conscious or not, because there are millions of ways of being conscious; man's way is not the only way. Trees are conscious in their own way, and birds in their own, and animals and the rocks.
Consciousness can be expressed is as many ways as possible. This universe has infinities of every expression.
Mind with a capital 'M' is a cosmic mind - that has to be attained. That's what Buddha call 'nothing', that's what he call mirrorlike emptiness.
Then there is another mind that we go on talking about with a lower case 'm', the small mind. Then my mind is different, your mind is different; man's mind is different from the trees minds, and the trees minds are different from the rocks' minds. Then there are differences. And each mind has it's own limitation; it is tiny.
One has to disappear from the tiny to the infinite. The lower case 'm' has to be dissolved into the capital 'M'. The lowercase 'm', the small mind, is part of the time, and the capital 'M', the cosmic mind, is eternity. The lowercase 'm' is also part of the capital 'M'. Eternity penetrates into time - just as the moon is reflected in the lake; not really there but reflected.
In meditation, the minds become more and more mirrorlike. Slowly, slowly all the dust of the thoughts disappears, all the clouds od desire disappear... and then there is nothing left, no-self, nothingness, MU. Mind in its purity is just a mirror, undisturb by passion and unclouded by thought. Everything appear As It Is.
Bodhidarma - Answered when questioned, ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. The true life of sage. Nothing in the mind: Nirvana.
The enlightened person has no ready made answer. He has no thought ready to throw into your heads. He responds. His utterances are his responses. He is a mirror. The disciple comes infront of the master and he responds; He responds to the needs of his disciple. He has no fixed idea. He is not concern with dishing something out and giving it out to everybody. He simply waits there like a mirror. You come and you see your face.
Hence tyhe contradiction of a master. A teacher is consistent, a master is bound to be contradictory, inconsistent. A mirror has to be inconsistent: one moment it is mirroring a cat, another moment it is mirroring a man; another moment it is mirroring a tears, another moment laughter. How can a mirror be consistent. You cannot tell the mirror: "Be consistent! Yesterday I saw tears in you, today I'm seeing laughter. Yesterday I looked in youand you were sad, and today you look very happy.Yesterday I saw you in deep meditation; today I see you were singing and dancing. This is inconsistent!"
Only a photograph can be consistent, not a mirror. The photograph is a photograph. If there are tears, they will remain there forever. The photograph is dead; it does not respond. If a monkey comes, the photograph will go on showing it's tears. If a sage comes, the same. But remember, with a master it is different. If you are a monkey, then the maaster will show your face; then his answer will be in response to your being. He responds. He does not reply, he respond.
That's why it happen when 2 great indian masters met and sat together for 2 days continuously - not a single word was exchanged. Two mirrors reflecting each other, what can they reflect? Just put 2 mirrors infront of each other: one mirror will mirror the other mirror and so on and so forth... mirror and mirror and mirror but nothing will be mirrored. there is nothing.
Two silences sast together,(masters) looked into each other. There was no question, hence there was no answer. There was nobody. hence there was no responce.
Yes, that is the mind of a master - he has nothing in his mind. To have something in his mind is to remain unenlightened. To have nothing in mind is to become enlightened. Even if you haveenlightenment in your mind, then you are not yet enlightened. To have nothing in the mind is to be enlightened. Remember it.
If you have the idea that you have become enlightened, then you are not yet enlightened. Even this ideais enough to keep you move to the road which leak and also the world of desires.
Just the other day, somebody wrote me a letter. He thinks he has become enlightened, so he wants to come and shake hands with me. shaking hands is perfectly good, but the very idea that you have become enlightened will keep you unenlightened. Wait, when you are ready, I will shake hand s with you. You just wait, have a little patience. Let all ideas disappear, even the idea of enlightened.
The day you come like a mirror, I will shake my being with your being - Why hands? Hands won't do.
Ordinarily, we are walking bundles of solutions to problems that do not exist. Everybody is so. You are carrying thousands of solutions for problems which are no more existent - and you call it knowledge. It is hindering your capacity to know . It is not knowledge.
Drop all the solutions that you are carrying. Drops all the answers that you are carrying. Just remain silent. And whenever a question arise out of that silence you will hear the answer - and thatwill be the answer. It will not come from you, it will not come from scriptures, it will not come from anywhere - it will come from nowhere and it will come from nobody. It will come from your inner most nothingness.
Other religions call that nothingness 'God'. Buddha often emphasizes the word nothingness - and significantly so, meaningfully so. Because once you use the word 'God', people start getting attached to it. Then they have some idea; they ask what God looks like. You cannot ask what nothingness looks like - or can you? Once you have the word GOD, You start asking: How to make the image? How to create a temple? How to pray? What name to give Him? And there are many names and many images... and then the fight ensues.
That's why emphasizes the word nothingness so much - because it is really beautiful. It does not allows any games to be played with it. It does not allow itself to be corrupted by you. But if you understand rightly, nothingness means God, God means nothingness.
Our Mind, Without End,
Without beginning,
Thought it is born, Thought it dies,
The Essence of Emptiness.
Mind has to be understood in 2 ways. One with a capital 'M'. That is the Universal mind, the Mind of the whole - the whole itself, the consciousness that pervades existence. It is a conscious existence. It is alive, alive to the very core. Everything is alive. You may know it, you may not know it. It may not be tangible to you, it may not be visible to you, but everything is alive. Only life exist.
And death is a myth. Death is an illusion. So is unconsciousness. Even the rock is not unconscious - it is consciousin it's own way. It may not be available to us, it may not be possible for us to know whether it is conscious or not, because there are millions of ways of being conscious; man's way is not the only way. Trees are conscious in their own way, and birds in their own, and animals and the rocks.
Consciousness can be expressed is as many ways as possible. This universe has infinities of every expression.
Mind with a capital 'M' is a cosmic mind - that has to be attained. That's what Buddha call 'nothing', that's what he call mirrorlike emptiness.
Then there is another mind that we go on talking about with a lower case 'm', the small mind. Then my mind is different, your mind is different; man's mind is different from the trees minds, and the trees minds are different from the rocks' minds. Then there are differences. And each mind has it's own limitation; it is tiny.
One has to disappear from the tiny to the infinite. The lower case 'm' has to be dissolved into the capital 'M'. The lowercase 'm', the small mind, is part of the time, and the capital 'M', the cosmic mind, is eternity. The lowercase 'm' is also part of the capital 'M'. Eternity penetrates into time - just as the moon is reflected in the lake; not really there but reflected.
Our small minds are only reflections of the great mind. When the moon rises, the full moon. millions of lakes on the earth will reflect it, and the seas and the rivers and the ponds. wherever there is some waters it will be reflected. But the moon is one and reflections are millions... so are our small minds. The mind is one - you can call it the Buddha Mind. you can call it the mind of the whole. the cosmic Mind, or the Mind called GOD. These are just different names for the same reality.
This small mind has a beginning and an end. That great Mindhas no beginning and no end.
Next Chapter 6
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