CHAPTER 6
30 July 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
DOGEN SAID,
THE
BUDDHA SAID, IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE BUDDHA- NATURE,
YOU SHOULD CORRECTLY
UNDERSTAND ITS MOMENTARY
MANIFESTATIONS.
WHEN
THE RIGHT TIME COMES, THE BUDDHA-NATURE WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
DOGEN CONTINUED:
MANY MONKS, BOTH PAST AND PRESENT,
HAVE BELIEVED THAT THE PHRASE, ”WHEN THE RIGHT
TIME COMES,” MEANS TO WAIT FOR THE BUDDHA-NATURE TO MANIFEST ITSELF IN THE FUTURE. THEY THINK THAT IF THEY
CONTINUE TRAINING IN THE WAY, THE BUDDHA- NATURE WILL NATURALLY MANIFEST
ITSELF AT THE RIGHT TIME.
UNTIL THAT TIME COMES, THEY MISTAKENLY CONCLUDE THAT THE
BUDDHA-NATURE WILL NOT MANIFEST ITSELF, EVEN SHOULD THEY VISIT A MASTER IN SEARCH OF THE DHARMA OR TRAIN DILIGENTLY.
BASED ON THIS FALSE CONCLUSION, THEY
MEANINGLESSLY RETURN TO THE ORDINARY WORLD AND VAINLY WAIT FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO COME.
THE
WORDS, ”WHEN THE RIGHT TIME COMES,” MEANS THAT THE RIGHT TIME HAS ALREADY
COME. THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT
THIS. EVEN SHOULD DOUBTS ARISE,
THEY ARE NOTHING BUT THE MANIFESTATION
OF THE BUDDHA-NATURE IN OURSELVES. ”THE RIGHT TIME” MEANS THAT WE SHOULD MAKE THE MOST OF EVERY DAY.
IF THE RIGHT TIME WERE SOMETHING WHICH
CAME, THE BUDDHA-NATURE WOULD NOT COME.
THIS
IS BECAUSE THE RIGHT TIME HAS ALREADY
COME; THE BUDDHA-NATURE HAS ALREADY MANIFESTED ITSELF. THIS FACT IS QUITE CLEAR, FOR THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A RIGHT TIME THAT HAS NOT COME, NOR A
BUDDHA-NATURE WHICH HAS NOT MANIFESTED ITSELF.
Maneesha, man is by birth a buddha – every man, good or bad, right or
wrong, sinner or saint, it does not matter. As far as one’s buddhahood is concerned, it remains untouched
by what you do, by what is your behavior. Because this is
the case, the problem arises that if everybody is a buddha then why this effort and endeavor, this seeking and searching for buddhahood?
This question was asked not only to
Dogen, it was also asked to Gautam
Buddha himself, who is only one buddha in the long line of
buddhas who have passed before him and after him; but perhaps the most prominent,
perhaps the most recognized. To satisfy the ordinary questioner
Buddha said, ”It will come in its own time,” just as flowers come in their own time and clouds come in their own time and the sun rises in its own time.
In
existence there is a continuity of timing. It is not that today the moon will be a little
late or the sun will continue
a little longer. There is absolute
certainty that everything happens in nature when the right time comes, so the right time simply means the right
opportunity, the right climate, the right readiness,
receptivity. And then you need not be
worried about buddhahood, because as far as buddhahood
is concerned you already have it. What is missing is a recognition. You have
forgotten your name, that is all that
is missing. Perhaps a certain
situation is needed in which you can be reminded about your name.
Before I talk about Dogen’s sutra I
would love to share with you an incident in Edison’s life. He was such a prominent scientist, such a great
teacher, that nobody ever referred to him by name. His parents died early
and he was so involved in his work that he had no friends. All that he had were scientists who were studying under him. Obviously they could not call him by his
name, Edison. They all called him ‘Professor’.
Slowly slowly he himself forgot what his
name was. If for fifty years nobody uses your name and then suddenly somebody calls you by your name, it is possible
you will get a shock. You will feel that somehow
you remember this fellow ... a
memory, a faraway echo in the mountains. But
ordinarily this does not happen because every day you are reminded
of your name.
It was a special case with Edison. His parents died early, and he was a
genius from his very childhood. He alone was capable of inventing one
thousand things which had never existed in the
world. You will not be able to find anything
around you on which there is not Edison’s signature.
In the first world war the ration card
was for the first time introduced, and everybody had to go to the office to register.
Obviously every office where names were registered was crowded, people
were
standing in queues. Edison also stood
in a queue. When the man standing
ahead of him gave all the
information and got his ration card and went away, the clerk looking at the list
called the name loudly, ”Will Mr. Edison
come up now?” And Edison looked here and there. He could not remember
...
there was a certain memory that he used to know a fellow of the name
Edison, but not for fifty years had anybody called him by his name.
A man in the queue recognized that the
fellow standing in front was the famous Edison, and he was looking here and there. The man said, ”The one you are looking
for, you are. Have you forgotten your name, Professor?”
He said, ”My God, it is good
that you reminded me, otherwise I
would have lost my ration card. I was trying hard to remember; the name
seems to be familiar, but I could not connect it with myself. For fifty years people have been calling
me ‘Professor’, ‘Doctor’, but nobody has ... because I don’t have any friends,
I don’t have my parents.”
Buddhahood is nothing but another name
of your basic nature, your essential nature.
And nobody has ever pointed it
out to you. On the contrary,
everybody has been sticking names, degrees ...
creating a personality around you, and slowly slowly
you start accepting
it. If everybody is saying
that you are intelligent, very intelligent, you start believing
it.
We are all victims of a crowd. One of my professors, S.S. Roy, did not agree with me. He said, ”It is impossible to forget one’s own name. This story of Edison must be your creation.”
I said, ”Please
give me some time to prove it.” He said, ”What can you prove?”
I said, ”You just wait.” And after
two, three days, when things were forgotten, I went to his house, told his wife ... Rajendra Anuragi here knows professor S.S. Roy – he was also a
student in the same university at
that time. I told his wife, ”When
Professor Roy wakes up in the morning you just do a little kindness for me.”
She said, ”Whatever you want ... what do you want?”
I said, ”It is very small. You just ask him, ‘Why are you looking so
pale? Have you been suffering from fever? Could you not sleep well? Is
something bothering you? Are you
having a headache?’ And whatever he
says, just note it down exactly in
his own words, and I will collect
that note later on.”
She said, ”I don’t understand what you are doing.”
I said, ”It is just an experiment. Later on I will explain
to you, but right now don’t ask more than that.”
Then I told his gardener, ”When
he comes out, you ask him, ‘What
happened to you? You are looking so sick, and where are you going? Just go in and rest, and I will call the doctor.’”
And the gardener
said, ”But what is the purpose of all this? He is perfectly healthy!”
I said, ”That is not the point. I will
explain the whole thing to you later. Whatever he says, keep this card with you, write it down exactly in his own words.”
And this I did from his house up to
the philosophy department. The
postmaster used to live in between,
and another professor – I told them, ”Just be kind enough to participate in an
experiment.” And the final person was
the peon of the philosophy department. I told him, ”You don’t bother, you just ...” – he was a strong and big man –
”you just take hold of Professor Roy as he enters, and whether he struggles
or not, you lie him down on the sofa.”
He said, ”What are you saying? I will be kicked out from my service!” I said, ”Nobody
can kick you out. I make the guarantee.”
But he said, ”This is a strange kind of experiment. Is it an experiment on me or on Professor
Roy? I have children and a wife and old parents, and I am a poor man. Don’t disturb my job.”
I said, ”It is nothing to do with you. You simply do it.”
He said, ”Okay, if you say so.” He knew that I was so much loved by Professor
Roy. He said, ”If you are saying, I will do it, just because of you.”
And I said, ”Take this card.
Whatever he says, write it down, and I will collect it just within
a few minutes.”
I followed Roy from his house. As he
was moving onwards I started collecting the notes. To the wife he said, ”What? I am perfectly healthy. I
have slept well. Who said to you that
my face is looking pale?”
She said, ”There is no need for
anybody to say, I can see you are looking pale.” He said, ”All nonsense. Just female rubbish!”
But a doubt arose in him. As he was
getting ready to go to the university the gardener took his hand and told him, ”What are you doing? You cannot even walk rightly, you are
wobbly! Just go in and rest. I will go and call the doctor.”
And
to him he said, ”Yes, I think I need some rest. The whole night it seems I have not rested, and a
little fever also seems to be there, but it is not too much. At least I can go
up to the university, tell the head of the department and come back.”
And
the postmaster who was his great friend, he looked so much afraid, and said, ”No, I will not let you go alone. I’m coming with you.”
He said, ”I’m really sick. I am feeling very weak. It is very kind of you to offer.” The postmaster said, ”You can take my car.”
He said, ”No, there is no need
to take your car, I will manage. But if I need your car I will phone from the office.
But I am feeling a kind of trembling, strange.
In my whole life I have never felt such a trembling.”
All these notes I was collecting. And the peon did a great job. He jumped over professor S.S. Roy and he was struggling and saying, ”What
are you doing? You idiot!” And he put
him down on the sofa, pressed him
down, and he said, ”You need to be in bed. You
are so sick. Do you want to commit suicide?”
Professor S.S. Roy’s statement on the
peon’s note was, ”Yes, it was wrong for me to come out. You just phone the postmaster to bring his car
to take me back home, and inform the medical officer to come and check me. There seems to be something
very wrong. Everybody is able to recognize it.”
And then I entered the office where he
was resting on the sofa, almost ready to die.
I said, ”Wait!” And I told the
peon on the way, ”Don’t call anybody, for the car or for the doctor. There is
no need. I will take care.”
I said, ”There is no need to die right
now. One day you will have to die, but just take a few minutes’ time. You just look at these notes ... what you said to your wife.”
He said, ”You are a strange student,
you would have killed me. Just
another two persons more ... And if they had said, ‘You have died,’ I would have believed
it.”
I said, ”This is just in answer to our controversy.”
If people go on saying something to you again and again you start believing it in spite of yourself.
You may doubt the first time, but when it goes on being said
continuously a belief arises in you, and you forget the doubt.
You have been told that you are
sinners. You have been told that you are born in sin, and strange arguments have been provided to you why
you are born in sin: because Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Now the Christian theologians say that although six
thousand years have passed since Adam and Eve were removed by God from their place in the Garden of Eden, because they had disobeyed
...
He had told them not to eat from two trees: one tree was the Tree of
Knowledge, and the other was the Tree of Eternal Life.
I think Adam and Eve did exactly what
anybody with any intelligence would do. These
are the two things: wisdom and
eternal life – what else do you want? And God is providing you with everything else, that means just chew like the
buffalos, sit under trees. And the tree he had prohibited was an apple tree.
In the very fact of God’s prohibiting,
God dies as love, God dies as compassion. Otherwise, if God were the Father, he would have told the
children, ”These are the two trees that you should not forget: wisdom and eternal life.” But this was
reminded to Eve by the devil. The devil seems to be the first revolutionary in the world. He persuaded
Eve.
I looked at this story from many
angles. Why did he not persuade Adam? Because even if Adam is persuaded
he will be obstructed. If Eve insists on not eating it, poor Adam is after all only the poor
husband. Rather than persuading the husband he persuaded the wife. And since that time every advertisement is for the wife. Every church functions
because of the support of the woman.
But his argument was right, and he had
chosen the right person to persuade. He
said, ”God has prohibited you. Do you know the reason why? If you eat these two fruits, wisdom will
make you enlightened, and eternal life
And you will be just as powerful
and as potent as God himself. And
God is jealous of that; he does not want you to become gods. He wants you to remain worshippers
– saints, sinners,
but never gods. But these two fruits can make you real gods.”
Strangely enough the religions
which do not believe in God, their ultimate goal is freedom.
And the religions that believe in God, their ultimate goal is salvation. A savior will come, you yourself are absolutely helpless. A messiah will come who will save you. They have been waiting for six thousand years, and he does not come. And
once in a while if somebody gets insane enough and proclaims, ”I am the one you are waiting for,” they kill him.
It is a strange
humanity. You are waiting for the person
and if somebody tries It was not only
Jesus. Jesus has become more prominent
because a great religion arose behind him. There were other people: John the Baptist
was killed because
he proclaimed not even, ”I am the prophet,” but simply, ”I am creating the right
atmosphere for the prophet to come.” He was beheaded. He proclaimed Jesus as
the prophet for whom he had been making the way. And Jesus was crucified. The same has been the behavior all around the world.
Religions don’t want you to be
intelligent. The fruit of
intelligence has been abandoned. If
you become wise it is going against
God. That’s why all religions which believe in order and obedience don’t preach meditation. These are very intricate matters.
Why does Christianity not preach meditation? Why is there no place in Mohammedanism for meditation? For the simple reason that meditation is really both those
trees together. It will bring you enlightenment and it will bring you an absolute, indubitable certainty that
you are God, that everything is divine. In your godliness even the smallest grass leaf becomes
divine, just as the biggest
star. The whole universe becomes
just a vibration of divine
dance. But you have to feel it first in your heart, and all your so-called
religions are driving you away from it: Pray to God!
I have heard about Michelangelo .... He was painting the ceiling of a famous
cathedral. It was getting a little dark, and an old woman
was praying to God, not knowing at all that above her on the ceiling
Michelangelo was doing some painting.
And he was getting tired lying on the long ladder. He listened to what this old woman was saying. She was asking God, ”A little money won’t be bad. I
need it, because I don’t have anybody to support me. You have taken everybody
away.” She was praying particularly
to Mary, Jesus Christ’s mother, because being a woman she will understand the troubles
of an old woman.
Michelangelo, tired of his work, just
wanted to enjoy the moment. He said,
”I am listening to you. I am Jesus Christ.”
The woman must have been a great
woman. She said, ”Shut up! I am talking to your mother directly!”
Michelangelo has written, ”I could not
believe it. I had offered, but she
simply refused. She said, ‘Shut up!’ In the darkness
she could not even see.”
All these religions are trying to
humiliate humanity. Their whole
business and exploitation and oppression
depend on you, your fear, your greed, your death, your disease. If you start feeling yourself divine and can enjoy not only life
but death too, with the same dance, what will be the purpose of the priests? And
there are millions of them all over the world, just living like parasites. They may be Hindu, they may be Mohammedan,
they may be Christian, they may belong to any
religion, but priesthood is the ancientmost profession of parasites.
If you enter into yourself and find
the truth, you will be surprised to see that what was within you was ignored with every effort, so that the exploitation could continue.
Buddha’s attitude is that you are a buddha,
it is not a question
of achieving buddhahood. You are a buddha, all
that you need is a mirror to see your face, your original face – a recognition,
a remembrance. You have forgotten
who you are.
This
ignorance is being exploited by the churches,
by the temples, by the priests, by the rabbis, by the pundits, by all kinds of theologians.
They are creating barriers which are arbitrary, which if you want you can throw off in a single moment.
But they have made you so much afraid – not believing
in God means you will fall into hell.
I have come upon stories
that in the Middle Ages priests used to be so emphatic
about the tortures
of hell, that you will be burned in an eternal fire; and yet you will
not die – that solace they cannot give.
You will be pulled out and put in the oven again, this side burned and that
side burned ... there are cases on record
that many women used to faint just listening to these preachers. The whole idea was so ferocious, that you will
never die and always in and out of the oven, a little rest and then back ...
I have heard a story that Morarji
Desai died. In a way it would be
good. Since the Supreme Court has made him homeless, that would be one
way to find a home. And thinking himself
a great mahatma, he was convinced
that he would reach to heaven, but what he saw was that he was being dragged into hell. He shouted,
he tried hard to convince
them, ”I am the ex-prime
minister of India,
a great follower of Mahatma Gandhi. The
whole day I have been spinning on the wheel.
What do you mean? Hell is for sinners,
not for mahatmas.”
But the devils wouldn’t listen. They said, ”Be silent. You will be given a choice because you
have been a prime minister. This much favor we can do. There are three layers of hell, you can
choose the one you want.”
Seeing no possibility of escaping, Morarji agreed. They took him to the first section, and what he saw he
could not believe: people were being beaten, blood was flowing. Death is
impossible in hell, remember. That
point you have always to remember: death is impossible, only torture. You
cannot commit suicide. In hell that is not possible.
You cannot escape, there is no exit.
Seeing that bloody place, people being
tortured, beaten, he said, ”I would rather like to see the other two before I choose.”
In the second place, the Christian
oven ... People are being pulled in and out and cooked, and they are still alive! He said, ”This is not
possible for me. I am a vegetarian. I cannot even look at such a scene.”
He was taken to the third. It looked a little better, not very much, but compared to the other two ....
People were standing up to their neck in all kinds of shit, and drinking
coffee and tea and Coca-Cola.
Everybody had to choose, whichever he
wanted. He said, ”This is not good,
but what else to do? Those other two
...” And he was a confirmed urine drinker for sixty years, so it was not very
bad. It was good that he was
accustomed and had rehearsed well. He had done his homework. He said, ”I will choose this.”
But he was not aware that it was only a coffee break. Just as he finished his coffee a bell rang and a devil shouted, ”Now everybody
stand on your head!”
All kinds of fear ... if you don’t believe in God. People think it is better to believe
rather than to get into trouble.
Sardar is thinking to himself about which of the three he would choose.
Unfortunately there is no fourth, you have to choose between the three. And they were all nasty.
Man has been told by all religions
that he is not what he should be. So
try hard to be virtuous, try hard to be austere,
try hard and pray continuously – a Mohammedan prays five times a day. And do all kinds of distortions of the body
in the name of yoga, which is already a section of hell. The difference is just
that here you are doing it on your own, in hell the devils do it for you –
distort you, somebody is pulling your leg, somebody
is giving you a neck stretch ...
And I know perfectly well what it means because my neck has been stretched. You have to say that it
is absolutely okay, just to get them to stop. Otherwise if they go on
stretching, soon your head will be
off the body! You are suffering and you have to say that you are cured. They
have put my body in traction.
Traction was used for the first time by Christian missionaries and Christian
churches in the Middle Ages for poor
women who were declared to be
witches. And finally that strategy of traction ....
By chance it happened that somebody
was suffering from a bad back when her body was stretched. For thirty years she had suffered from a
bad back, suddenly her back settled down and there was no pain, and she could not believe it. From the church the traction machine has moved to the hospitals.
Here
one of my very loving doctors, Dr. Hardikar – his name in English means Dr. Hard – worked on me. He is nice, but the things that he does
The whole body is pulled, legs are pulled to one
side, the head is pulled to the other
side. Soon you start feeling that you
are going to break up somewhere in
between. That’s why I say it is absolutely certain that in hell they have very
primitive traction mechanisms – you
don’t die there. And my feeling is that the people who say they are cured are not really cured. It is my own
experience. You have to say it, otherwise they are ready to give you more traction. Either you die or you say that you are cured – you don’t have any other alternative.
Religion has been living on fear. And
it has been creating disciplines like fasting – torture yourself in every possible way. The more you torture,
the more God is happy with you. It is a strange argument, why does my being tortured make God happy? Is he a sadist? Is he mad, or what? My
fasting makes him happy. I am
suffering, I am hungry, my whole body is asking for food, and God is feeling very happy. I don’t see any relationship between this and the idea that God
is love – what kind of love? – that God is compassion. What kind of compassion? To achieve to him you have to go through
all kinds of torture unnecessarily.
And once you have been convinced
that God is a difficult
goal to achieve.................................... millions have tortured
themselves that way, and not a single one of them has ever reached to any realization of bliss.
Those who have reached are a different
kind of people. They don’t say God is a goal – God is your nature! Just be natural; and silently,
without even making the noise of footsteps, the buddha within you awakens.
Dogen says, quoting Buddha,
IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE MEANING
OF THE BUDDHA-NATURE, YOU SHOULD CORRECTLY UNDERSTAND
ITS MOMENTARY MANIFESTATIONS.
You are all its momentary
manifestation. Everything in the world
is its momentary manifestation. Somewhere
nature has blossomed into a rose, somewhere it has become a bird flying in the
sky, somewhere it is a pine tree
reaching to the stars, and somewhere it is a human being. These are all momentary
manifestations of the same nature.
The word ‘buddha’ comes from the
Sanskrit root buddh. ‘Buddh’ means awareness. In any form you can become aware. But the human form is
the easiest one from which to become aware. If you miss this opportunity you are missing something that you may find
only after millions of years of search. Being a pine tree or a mountain rock – these are all manifestations. But no mountain
has become a buddha, and no pine tree in its
tremendous beauty has ever become enlightened. No animal, no bird, no tree, no sun, no moon, in all
their beauty ... they are manifestations of the same nature, but only man is capable of becoming aware of
this self-nature. This double awareness – awareness of awareness – is man’s grandeur.
It is his treasure.
In the whole existence only man is
capable, and if you miss this you don’t know what you have missed. You have missed the greatest
blissfulness that is possible, the greatest peace and silence and understanding, the greatest fearlessness and freedom.
Buddha’s statement is that everything
correctly understood is only a momentary manifestation of the same nature. A buddha is a recognition of
this innermost life that throbs in everything – in the grass, in the water, in the clouds, in human
beings. Wherever there is life, it is God in some form. This is a great declaration.
Buddha says,
WHEN
THE RIGHT TIME COMES, THE BUDDHA-NATURE WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
It has been a long tradition and controversy amongst
the followers of Buddha – ”What does he mean by the right time?”
It can be misunderstood, as Dogen says.
It can be misunderstood, that if
it is going to happen at the right time then just enjoy your rented bicycle,
why waste your time unnecessarily? Find a girlfriend or a boyfriend or any kind
of friend, or just go to the movie. Do anything stupid, because at the right time
buddhahood will appear – it does not matter, meanwhile, what you are doing.
People have used this statement to do
anything they want – gambling, accumulating possessions, being rich, being
powerful – because there is no need for them to make any special effort. At the right time the buddha-nature will manifest itself. This is one kind of misunderstanding.
By
‘right time’ Buddha does not mean that you have to postpone
this moment, that when the right time comes It never comes. It is always the same time. And it is not something from outside that
happens to you, it is something
that blossoms within you.
So what is the meaning
of ‘the right time’? One misunderstanding is that you just go on doing the mundane
activities. The other
misunderstanding is to bring the right time close by austerities, by fasting, by prayer, by going to
the church or to the temple, by
standing on your head, by doing all kinds of contortions, by torturing yourself
unnecessarily – to bring the right time close.
That is another distortion, another misconception of Buddha’s statement.
What is the right time? Dogen says,
MANY MONKS, BOTH PAST AND PRESENT,
HAVE BELIEVED THAT THE PHRASE, ”WHEN THE RIGHT
TIME COMES,” MEANS TO WAIT FOR THE BUDDHA-NATURE TO MANIFEST ITSELF IN THE FUTURE. THEY THINK THAT IF THEY
CONTINUE TRAINING IN THE WAY, THE BUDDHA- NATURE WILL NATURALLY MANIFEST
ITSELF AT THE RIGHT TIME.
UNTIL THAT TIME COMES, THEY MISTAKENLY CONCLUDE THAT THE
BUDDHA-NATURE WILL NOT MANIFEST ITSELF, EVEN SHOULD THEY VISIT A MASTER IN SEARCH OF THE DHARMA OR TRAIN DILIGENTLY.
There
is no need, according to this misconception, to go to a master.
But the whole misunderstanding
is about the right time, what is the right time. Every moment is the right
time. Just you need a little courage
to risk your knowledgeability, to
risk your ego, to put at stake
everything that you think is
valuable. Search within yourself for the only thing that you can neither borrow
from anybody, nor give to anybody.
That is your nature. And that nature is always in the present. Hence the present is the right time. Neither yesterday nor tomorrow – today! This very moment you can become a buddha.
BASED ON THIS FALSE CONCLUSION, THEY
MEANINGLESSLY RETURN TO THE ORDINARY WORLD AND VAINLY WAIT FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO COME.
The right time is not to come. It has always been here. Dogen says,
THE
WORDS, ”WHEN THE RIGHT TIME COMES,” MEANS THAT THE RIGHT TIME HAS ALREADY
COME.
In fact it never comes, never goes. It is always here. The ocean remains, the fish is born and one day disappears. Just like a wave – a little more solid, but just like a wave. The sky remains;
once in a while it is clouded,
but those clouds come and go, leaving the sky unscratched.
Talking about our buddha-nature is
talking about our inner, interiormost being, our very sky. Our thoughts are just clouds, they come and go. Our emotions are just smoke
momentary. Everything
is momentary. Our childhood goes, our youth goes, our
old age goes, our life itself
goes. In all this only one thing remains the same, and that is the present
awareness. On this account Dogen is saying that the right time has already been here. You don’t have to wait for it.
THERE
CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS. EVEN SHOULD DOUBTS ARISE, THEY ARE NOTHING
BUT THE MANIFESTATION OF THE BUDDHA-NATURE IN OURSELVES.
These are the beautiful contributions
to the world of those who are seekers of the mysteries. Even doubts are our nature, so they are nothing
to be condemned. If a doubt arises it is a cloud that has come into the sky, but the sky is not going to be scratched
by the cloud. The cloud will disappear;
as it has arisen it will be gone.
And anyway, whatever happens in the
world is part of the universe. It is
immensely significant to understand that even doubts are our buddha-nature.
IF THE RIGHT TIME WERE SOMETHING WHICH
CAME, THE BUDDHA-NATURE WOULD NOT COME.
Because if it is a question
of coming and going, like seasons ... the rain comes and goes, the winter comes and goes,
the spring comes and goes. If buddha-nature is dependent on time, then as
it will come it will go. It cannot be
dependent on any causality, it cannot
be dependent on any time. The fact is it is already there,
only you have to be awake enough
to recognize it. The right
time is this time, this moment! Zen’s
insistence on this moment is immense. It
does not allow any postponement.
THIS
IS BECAUSE THE RIGHT TIME HAS ALREADY
COME; THE BUDDHA-NATURE HAS ALREADY MANIFESTED ITSELF. THIS FACT IS QUITE CLEAR, FOR THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A RIGHT TIME THAT HAS NOT COME, NOR A
BUDDHA-NATURE WHICH HAS NOT MANIFESTED ITSELF.
It is really saying .... An ancient Zen story: A man was known as a master thief, because
he had never been caught in his life,
and he had stolen from every palace, from every rich house. In fact the situation
had come to such a point that people bragged about it – that the master thief has entered in their house.
This
master thief met Rinzai, who looked into his eyes and said, ”Don’t be worried. Whatever
you are doing, do it totally, and you are expressing buddha-nature.”
But
the man said, ”You don’t know what I am doing.”
He said, ”Don’t bother. Whatever you
are doing ... I know you – you are a master thief. I am really jealous of you. I am not such a great
master as far as meditation is concerned. You are a greater master as far as stealing is concerned.
Just do it totally, and you will find your buddhahood in your totality.”
There have been butchers who have
become masters, and their masters did not prevent them from the profession of butchery because they
were so perfect, they were so total in whatever they were doing. This
is the only religion in the whole world which allows you everything. Do it totally, with absolute awareness, and all your activities become
buddha-activities. There is no need
to change what you are doing. If you
are painting, then be a painter so deeply that you disappear and only the painting remains. If you are a musician,
drown yourself in your music, so that the music remains but you are not. And your buddhahood will manifest in thousands of ways.
This
is the only religious approach
in the whole world and the whole
of man’s history
that accepts all man’s activities without rejecting
anything. You can make everything a
prayer, everything a meditation, everything your offering to the universe.
A Zen poet:
THE RAGING WIND’S COMPANION:
IN
THE SKY,
THE
SINGLE MOON.
These are pictorial haikus. Sitting silently, a meditator opens his
eyes and sees the raging wind’s companion
in the sky: the single moon. But the moon does not move, does not waver because of the raging wind. If you can find yourself the center of the cyclone you have
found the moon – no raging wind, no thought, no emotion, nothing can disturb it. It is undisturbable.
A haiku by Issa:
LOST
IN BAMBOO,
BUT
WHEN MOON LIGHTS – MY HOUSE.
Just fragments of experience. Nobody
will call them great poetry; they are not of the same category. They have their own category.
What he is saying is,
”In silent meditation, I saw ... LOST IN BAMBOO, BUT WHEN MOON LIGHTS – MY HOUSE.”
Just a picture ... and one becomes a
mirror. This haiku is just a mirror of a house, hidden in the thick grove of bamboos; and the moon comes, and
suddenly the house that was hidden in the darkness becomes light.
A haiku by Basho:
A CLOUD,
TRYING TO ENWRAP THE MOONBEAMS, A MONSOON SHOWER.
Enjoying everything – the moon, the cloud, the monsoon
shower – because
everything to the meditator becomes
so divine that it is an expression and manifestation of the same original source.
Question 1 Maneesha has asked:
OUR
BELOVED MASTER,
IT DOES NOT SEEM SO DIFFICULT TO DROP
THE NOTIONS OF RIGHT AND WRONG AS FAR AS
SOME SOCIETY’S MORALITY IS CONCERNED. MORE TRICKY IS TO DROP THE FEELING THAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS ”RIGHT,” AND THAT UNTIL I REALIZE
IT, I AM SOMEHOW ”WRONG.”
BELOVED MASTER, COULD YOU PUT ME RIGHT?
Maneesha, you are right. Nobody can
put you wrong! As you are, you are the buddha. It does not matter that you are sitting in a different
posture. It does not matter that you are a woman and not a man. It
does not matter that you don’t walk like Buddha, you don’t talk like Buddha. Whatever you do, you cannot do anything
that is not a manifestation of buddhahood.
To understand this point is to reach a
great height of consciousness. The thief is fulfilling his part, he just has to do it perfectly. And if you
are not a buddha – that is just an idea, a cloud that has covered the moon; it will pass away. Clouds don’t remain forever.
And I can understand, Maneesha. It will remain difficult until you become
enlightened. But every night you become enlightened, and again you forget. What to do with your impossibility, your stubbornness, your insistence that ”No, I am not a buddha”?
It is up to you. If you insist, that too is a manifestation of buddhahood. That is what Zen is all about – to tell you that whatever
you do, just do with full awareness. You are a buddha, you cannot be otherwise. It is impossible
not to be a buddha. You can doubt it, you can deny it, but the doubt
and the denial are all potentialities of your buddhahood.
No tree denies, no bird denies, no
animal doubts. It is only man who has doubts, who cannot accept, ”Such a poor creature like me, and a
buddha?” He is perfectly ready to worship a buddha. He is perfectly ready
to pray before man-made stone statues. But
this seems to be too much, to accept the fact that, ”I am a buddha.”
And I say unto you that it is simply a
question of getting tired of not being a buddha – that’s how it happened to me. I tried and tried and
tried, and then finally I said, ”It is better to be a buddha without effort.”
And since then I have been a buddha. Not for a single moment have I been otherwise. Not for a single moment has any doubt arisen.
It just takes a little courage.
Traditionally you have been discouraged, you have been humiliated. All that is needed is to revolt against all humiliation, to revolt against all false ideas imposed upon you, to express
your dignity with joy. And to be a buddha
is not a comparison, so there is no question
of ego. It is not that if Maneesha becomes a buddha, then Chitten will
become an ordinary human being sitting by the side of Maneesha, a buddha. Chitten
is a buddha from the very beginning.
He is a senior buddha! If you
become a buddha today, there will be many who have become a buddha days ago.
Yesterday a few became, the day before yesterday a few became. There is still time to give recognition to yourself, and express
your dignity, and reject all ideas of humiliation and all ideas of destroying your dignity.
My whole effort here is not to train you for being buddhas, but just to give you courage so that you can accept your buddhahood
without any fear.
And as the fear disappears, the clouds disappear,
and the full moon in the night ....
Maneesha, I will try again today. Let us see whether I can put you right or not. I have been trying for thirty years continuously. I put people right and the moment I am
gone they fall apart. In my presence they recognize that they are
buddhas. In my absence a doubt arises. Maneesha sitting in her room, ”My God, I, a poor girl, and a
buddha? I have not renounced a kingdom, I have not done great austerities, I have not tortured myself,
I have not disciplined myself.”
Just
today Shunyo told me that Zareen wanted
her to wear a sari. Now the sari fits perfectly well with the Indian woman’s curvature. It is very rare for a Western woman to look graceful in a sari – she
looks a little weird. I cannot help
it, it does not mean that I am
denying, just the buddha has gone a little weird. And I had told Shunyo
long ago, because once before she had tried a sari, and I had told her, ”This is not for you. You
are too long for it, and too straight!” On Zareen it fits. In fact, Zareen cannot use a robe. In the commune she had come to see me in a robe, and she looked like a balloon!
I could not believe it – what has happened
to her?
No Indian woman will look right in a
robe, particularly a Zareen-type woman. The
sari is a very inventive art on the part of Zareen-type women.
It hides all unnecessary growth
and keeps them tied
together, otherwise they may fall and spread all over the place! And out of love she insisted – she told Shunyo, ”It will take only five
minutes.” And Shunyo was telling me, ”It took one hour to put the sari on me.” And Zareen afterwards said to me, ”She is exaggerating, it takes only five minutes!”
You are a buddha. It takes only five minutes! But you go on insisting every day, again
and again asking, ”Do you think I am also a buddha?” Or, ”Do you think I am still a buddha?”
You were a buddha yesterday, you are a buddha today, you
will be a buddha tomorrow. Whatever
you do, it does not matter. Your buddhahood is your very life.
You can change your clothes, you can
change your accents, you can change your behavior, it does not matter. So many manifestations of buddhahood – it is a beautiful
variety. If all looked like Buddha, just sitting under every tree,
think of the boredom. Wherever you go
you meet the same Buddha; wherever
you look, under every tree, Buddha is sitting! You would commit suicide – that it is better to die than to live in a city where everybody
is behaving like Buddha.
But still I insist that you are a
buddha. I am not saying to you that you have to behave like Buddha; you have to be spontaneously yourself. And honestly and totally being yourself is
what buddha- nature means.
Before we again enter into our
buddha-nature, a little laughter will be alright. Before risking, it is always
good to laugh, because you may die when I say die. If you are really total, you
will die. Then Nivedano can go on hitting his drum ... you will not come back. But you come back so quickly that I
suspect you don’t die. You try hard,
that I know, and everybody is managing to get in the right comfortable position. That is not allowed.
When you are dying, die! That does not mean, ”Now what comfortable position ...” Others will take care when you are
finished. But you know perfectly well
that it is only a rehearsal, the
real drama has not started yet, and there is no hurry. Anyway you can die tomorrow.
Zabriski takes Gorgeous Gloria out on
a date. They are sitting in a quiet corner of the bar, sipping martinis,
when Zabriski leans over and whispers in Gloria’s ear, ”What would you say if I asked you to marry me?”
”Nothing,” replies Gloria. ”I can’t talk and laugh at the same time!”
It is monsoon in Poona, and Swami Deva Coconut meets Swami Veet Herschel on M.G. Road.
”Hi, Coconut!” says Herschel. ”I have been meaning to ask you, can I
have back the umbrella that you borrowed
from me?”
”Oh, sorry,” says Coconut.
”I lent it to a friend of mine. Did you want it?”
”Not for myself,” replies Herschel. ”But the swami I borrowed
it from says the owner wants it back!”
A Polack is badly injured in a car
crash and he has to have a brain transplant.
A team of surgeons put him to
sleep, remove his brain, and go into the next room to get a new one. But when
they return to the operating room, the Polack is gone.
The police search everywhere for him
but without success – he has vanished. The
doctors contact the international police and they check throughout the world for a brainless
Pole.
Finally, five years later, they find
him. He is wearing silly robes and a
big hat and is living in the Vatican!
General Brahmachapatti has been in
Ruby Hall Clinic for a couple of weeks for a minor operation. The nurses are fed up with him. He is always complaining about the food and the service, waking
up the nurses in the middle of the night, demanding cups of hot chocolate, and so on.
One morning a nurse comes into his
room and says, ”Good morning, general.
Please take down your pyjamas and turn over – I need to take your temperature.”
”But nurse,” protests the general, ”I always have the thermometer in my
mouth, not my ass. Why this change?”
”This morning,” explains the nurse,
”we need a really accurate temperature, so that the lab can make an analysis.”
The general grumpily agrees, takes down his pyjamas,
turns over, and raises his bum in the air.
”Now,
general,” says the nurse, making the insertion,
”this is a special thermometer and it needs to be left quite a long time to get an accurate result. So don’t move until I come back.”
In the next few hours many people come
into the general’s room, but all of them just gasp and leave quickly in embarrassment. Finally, the general’s
wife comes to visit him.
She walks in and stares at him in amazement, not knowing what to say.
”What is the matter with you, woman?”
thunders the general. ”Haven’t you
ever seen someone having their temperature taken before?”
”Yes, darling,
I have,” stammers
his wife, ”but not with a banana!”
Now,
Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat)
Be silent ...
Close your eyes ...
Feel
the body frozen,
no movement. Collect
your consciousness inward,
close to the very center.
The deeper you go,
the
more you will find the realization, the recognition of a buddha.
In this silent moment
there are only ten thousand buddhas sitting
here.
Make this experience as deep as
possible. And keep it alive in your
ordinary activities twenty-four hours. Every action
should be a reminder
that you are a buddha ... and your action is a manifestation of your nature.
Don’t act unnaturally,
don’t
act artificially, don’t be a hypocrite. Just be natural and you are a buddha.
So gather your consciousness more deeply,
to crystallize it. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Rest ...
relax
... really die.
Don’t
be worried what happens afterwards. The world will continue ... you don’t be worried,
just die.
As the body is lying dead,
you
can enter into yourself more easily.
Unidentified with the body
you can see the open sky inside.
This is your eternity.
This is your reality. This is it.
All else is commentary.
This
experience is the only truth.
Such a beautiful silence ...
Such a blissful evening ...
You are the most fortunate
beings on the earth this moment.
Realize the dignity of it and the honor of it.
Here
my work is not for you to search for the buddha,
so stop searching
... and just look within.
He is sitting there inside you. Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) Come back,
but
not in a hurry. Somebody
may have died. Just don’t disturb the dead. Those who are still alive,
come
back. And sit silently for a few minutes to remind yourself
of the experience
you have passed through. You are a rare assembly.
It used to be in the past ... those days were golden,
when
there were hundreds
of assemblies like this ...
recognizing their nature and remembering it
in their actions
and manifestations. That golden world has disappeared.
But at least for you
this moment opens up the whole glory
of being. Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Beloved Master. I have put you right? Yes, Beloved Master.
Now can we celebrate this great
gathering of buddhas? Yes, Beloved Master.
