That is the whole...

God is such a mystery -- or call it life, or existence -- life is such a mystery that even if you enter into the innermost shrine of it you will not be able to believe it. It is unbelievably true. It is incredible.
I was reading a poem of Leopold Staff. Listen to it:
The Bridge

I DIDN'T BELIEVE,
STANDING ON THE BANK OF A RIVER
WHICH WAS WIDE AND SWIFT,
THAT I WOULD CROSS THAT BRIDGE
PLAITED FROM THIN, FRAGILE REEDS
FASTENED WITH BAST.
I WALKED DELICATELY AS A BUTTERFLY
AND HEAVILY AS AN ELEPHANT,
I WALKED SURELY AS A DANCER
AND WAVERED AS A BLIND MAN.
I DIDN'T BELIEVE THAT I WOULD CROSS THAT BRIDGE,
AND NOW THAT I AM STANDING ON THE OTHER SIDE,
I DON'T BELIEVE I CROSSED IT.

Even when you have known God, you will not be able to believe that you have known Him. That is what I mean when I say God is a mystery. Unknown, He remains unknowable. Known also, He remains unknowable. Unseen, He is a mystery; seen He becomes an even greater mystery. It is not a problem that you can solve. It is bigger than you. You can dissolve into it -- you cannot solve it.

I have heard that Wittgenstein, a great Western philosopher, who comes nearest to the Zen attitude, used to say that he did not solve philosophical problems -- he dissolved them. And he used to say: "We leave things as they are but perhaps for the first time we come to see them as they are." Nothing can be done about things as they are. All that can be done is to help you to see them as they are. "We leave things as they are but perhaps for the first time we come to see them as they are."

And again: "Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything -- since everything lies open to view, there is nothing to explain."Yes, life is a mystery, and there is nothing to explain -- because everything is just open, it is just in front of you.

Encounter it! Meet it! Be courageous! That is the whole standpoint of Zen.

NAMASTE

Now what is poetry...

"Now what is poetry?" He said, "If you say it is simply a matter of words, I will say a good poet gets rid of words. If you say it is simply a matter of meaning, I will say a good poet gets rid of meaning.'But,' you ask,'without words and without meaning, where is the poetry?' To this I reply: Get rid of words and get rid of meaning, and there is still poetry."

In fact, only then is there poetry. When words are no more there, when meaning is no more there, then suddenly poetry erupts, explodes. Poetry is a flowering of your being, and religion is more like poetry than like philosophy.
Philosophy tries to explain things -- never succeeds. At the most, it can succeed only in explaining away things, but it never succeeds in explaining them. Religion makes no effort to explain life. It tries to live it. Religion does not take life as a problem to be solved -- it takes life as a mystery to be lived. Religion is not curious about life. Religion is in awe, in tremendous wonder about life.
Just our being here is such a miracle. It cannot be explained why I am here, why you are here. Why these trees are here, why these stars are here. Why at all this universe exists, and goes on peopling itself with trees and birds and people. Why in the first place it is there, there is no way to know. It simply is there. But it inspires awe! It fills the heart with wonder. It is unbelievably true -- it is incredible! It is absurd, but tremendously beautiful.

Why it is there, there is no way to say -- but it is there. And religion says: Don't waste your time for the why. It is there: delight in it! Celebrate it! Be lost into it! And let it be lost into you. Meet it! Let the meeting be like two lovers entering into each other. Let it be an orgasmic experience.
But religion in the West has a very wrong connotation. It has almost reached to a point where the very word 'religion' creates a repulsion, where the very word 'religion' reminds one of dead churches and dead priests. It reminds one of serious looking people, long faces. It has lost the capacity to dance, to sing, to celebrate. And when a religion has lost the capacity to dance, to celebrate, to sing, to love, just to be, then it is no more religion -- it is a corpse, it is theology. Theology is dead religion.
In the West theology has overpowered religion. When theology overpowers religion, then religion is nothing but philosophy. And the philosophy is also not very philosophic -- because philosophy can exist only through doubt, and theology bases itself on faith. So it is impotent philosophy, not even philosophy in the real sense.

Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can't you dance? and why can't you laugh?
Nietzsche is right: God is dead... because theologians have killed Him. God can be alive only when a lover is dancing. When a theologian is trying to find arguments to prove God, He is dead. God is alive when two persons fall in love -- then God is throbbing and kicking. God is alive when you look at a flower and you cannot move from there -- something overpowers you, overwhelms you. When you look at the stars and you are one with the mystery, and your boat starts sailing towards the other shore, then God is alive. When you sing a song -- it may be meaningless, it may be just la-la-la -- it may not have any meaning, but God is alive in that sheer expression of joy.
God is alive when you are alive. If you are not alive, how can your God be alive? Your God is yours. If you are dead, your God is dead; if you are alive, your God is alive. Your God cannot be more than you, because your God is your innermost core of being. So if you want to know what God is, become more alive. If you want to know what God is, become more divine. If you want to know what God is, then don't try to know -- try to feel. He comes through the door of the heart.

You Have

YOU HAVE heard the story of Lazarus -- that is a story of man as such. It is said Lazarus died. Jesus loved him very much. His sisters informed Jesus; by the time the news reached him, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus came running. Everybody was crying and weeping, and he said, "Don't weep, don't cry! Let me call him back to life!"
Nobody could believe him. Lazarus is dead! And the sisters of Lazarus said, "He is now stinking -- he cannot come back. His body is deteriorating."
But Jesus went to the grave where the body was preserved for him to come. The stone was pulled aside. In the dark cave Jesus called out, "Lazarus, come out! " And it is said he came out.
It may not have happened that way; it may be just a parable -- but it is a beautiful parable about man. When I look into your eyes, that's all I can say: "Lazarus, come out!" You are dead and stinking. You are not yet alive. You are born, but you need to be reborn. Your first birth has not been of much help. It has brought you to a certain extent, but that is not enough. You have to go a little further. The birth that has already happened to you is only physical -- you need a spiritual birth.
It is said: One professor of Jerusalem university went to see Jesus. Of course, he went in the night. His name was Nicodemus; he was a very rich, respectable man, a great scholar, well known in the Jewish world. He was afraid to go to Jesus in the daylight, because what will people think? He was known to be a great, learned man, wise -- what will they think? that he has gone to this carpenter's son to ask something? He was older than Jesus -- could almost have been Jesus' father. No, it was not possible for him to go in the daylight. Cunning and clever, he went in the night when there was nobody else. And Jesus asked him, "Why didn't you come in the day?"
He said, "I was afraid."

Jesus must have laughed. He said, "Nicodemus, for what have you come? What do you want of me?"
He said, "I would like to know how I can know God, how I can know the truth."
Jesus said, "You will have to be reborn."
Nicodemus could not understand. Jokingly he said, "What do you mean? Have I to enter again into a woman's womb? Are you joking or something? Are you kidding or something?"
Jesus said, "No, I mean it -- I mean what I say. You have to be reborn. You are such a coward. This is not life. You don't have any courage. You will have to be reborn! You will have to become a new man, because only that new man can come to truth and realize it. Even to see me you have come in the night. How will you be able to go and see the truth? How will you encounter God? You will have to go naked. You will have to go in deep humility. You will have to drop all your respectability, all your scholarship. You will have to drop your ego -- that's what to be reborn means."
The first birth is only a physical birth; don't be satisfied with it. It is necessary but not enough. A second birth is needed. The first birth was through your mother and father; the second birth is going to be out of the mind. You have to slip out of the mind and that will be your rebirth -- you will be reborn.
And, for the first time, trees will be greener than they are, and flowers will be more beautiful than they are, and life will be more alive than you have ever known it, because you can know it only to the extent that you are alive. You cannot know life if you are not alive. Whatsoever you are, you know life only up to that extent.

Mind, and mind's hold on you, is the imprisonment. Get rid of the mind. The question is not how to know truth; the question is how to get rid of the mind, how to get rid of this constant ignoring, this ignorance; how to be just here naked, throbbing, streaming, flowing, overflowing, and meeting the truth that has already been there, that has always been there.
Somebody asked a very famous Chinese poet, Yang Wang-li:

Consciousness without thinking...

Mind is blind like a bat. It has no eyes. Mind can never be intelligent -- only no-mind is intelligent. Only no-mind is original and radical. Only no-mind is revolutionary -- revolution in action.
This mind gives you a sort of stupor. Burdened by the memories of the past, burdened by the projections of the future, you go on living -- at the minimum. You don't live at the maximum. Your flame remains very dim. Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises -- clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.
Consciousness without thinking: that's what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought. Try it! whenever you see thinking gathering, disperse it! pull yourself out of it! Look at the trees with no screens of thinking between you and the trees. Listen to the chirping of the birds with no chirping of the mind inside. Look at the sun rising and feel that inside you also a sun of consciousness is rising... but don't think about it, don't assert, don't state, don't say. Simply be. And, by and by, you will start feeling glimpses of awareness, sudden glimpses of awareness -- as if a fresh breeze has entered into your room which was getting stale and dead; as if a ray of light has entered into the dark night of your soul; as if, suddenly, life has called you back.

I have heard...

I have heard:

A monk asked Joshu: "What is the Buddha?"
"The one in the hall."
The monk said, "The one in the hall is a statue, a lump of mud."
Joshu said, "That's so."
"What is the Buddha, then?" asked the monk again.
"The one in the hall," said Joshu.
Now what is this Joshu trying to do? He is saying: "Your question is absurd. Because you are asking an absurd question, I am answering it in an absurd way. Your question is stupid, and there can be no intelligent answer to a stupid question." He is trying to show to this monk that the very question: What is the Buddha? is nonsense, because there is no way to say anything about the Buddha. It is an awakening. It is an experience. It happens within you. You cannot read it through the scriptures, and you cannot ask those who have come to know it. The only way is: you have to go to it; you have to allow it to happen.
In the Buddhist terminology 'Buddha' is equivalent to 'truth'. They don't talk much about truth; they talk much more about Buddha. That too is significant, because when you become a Buddha -- 'Buddha' means when you become Awakened -- truth is, so why talk about truth? Just ask what awakening is. Just ask what awareness is -- because when you are aware, truth is there; when you are not aware, truth is not there.
So the basic and real question is about awareness. But that, too, cannot be asked and solved. One has to become aware -- there is no other way.
A disciple asked a Zen master, "If someone were to ask me a hundred years from now what I thought was your deepest understanding, what should I say?"
The master replied, "Tell him I said: This is it!"

Now what type of answer is this? -- This is it! He indicated to the immediate reality: This.
Vedanta, the greatest philosophical effort in India, talks about 'That': TATWAMASI Swetketu -- That art thou, Swetketu. Zen people talk about 'this'. Certainly their understanding is deeper -- because 'that' is again in the future, far away; 'this' is present. This is that. This shore is the other shore. This life is the only life, and this moment is eternity.
If you can live this moment, if you can be here this moment, then everything takes care of itself. Then you need not be anxious. Then there is no need to ask -- before you ask, the answer is delivered. The answer has been always there, but we are not aware. So the whole effort of Zen is how to bring awareness to you.
Man is as if asleep. Man lives in a stupor -- moves, works, is born, lives and dies, but almost fast asleep, snoring. Man's mind is very dull. Mind is dullness. Mind has no intelligence in it. There has never been an intelligent mind. I don't mean that there have never been intelligent people; there have been intelligent people, but there has never been an intelligent mind. Intelligence is something that comes when mind is dropped. Mind is never original, never radical. Mind is always orthodox. Mind is always repetitive, mechanical; it functions like a robot. It goes on repeating the same thing again and again. It is like a computer: whatsoever you feed into it, it goes on chewing it again and again.
Have you watched your own mind and its functioning? Nothing new ever happens to it. Nothing new can happen to it. And because of it you remain oblivious of all that is happening all around you; you go on ignoring it. You are too much attached to this mediocre, stupid instrument. It is good to use it; it is good as a reservoir, as memory; it is good to keep records -- but it is not a way to see into reality. It has no eyes.

A Sudden clash...

A sudden clash of thunder...

BUTEI, THE EMPEROR OF RYO, SENT FOR FU-DAISHI TO EXPLAIN THE DIAMOND SUTRA. ON THE APPOINTED DAY FU-DAISHI CAME TO THE PALACE, MOUNTED THE PLATFORM, RAPPED ON THE TABLE BEFORE HIM, THEN DESCENDED AND, STILL NOT SPEAKING, LEFT.
BUTEI SAT MOTIONLESS FOR SOME MINUTES, WHEREUPON SHIKO, WHO HAD SEEN ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED, WENT UP TO HIM AND SAID, "MAY I BE SO BOLD, SIR, AS TO ASK WHETHER YOU UNDERSTOOD?"
THE EMPEROR SHOOK HIS HEAD SADLY. "WHAT A PITY," SAID SHIKO. "FU-DAISHI HAS NEVER BEEN MORE ELOQUENT."

TRUTH IS. It simply is, Nothing can be said about it. And all that can be said about it will falsify it.

There is no need for any explanation. Unexplained, utterly immediate, truth is. It surrounds you. It is within you, without you. There is no need to come to any conclusion about it. It is already concluded! You are in it. You cannot be without it. There is no way to lose it. There is no way to become distracted from it. You may be fast asleep, unaware, but still you are in it.

So those who know truth know well that philosophy is not going to help. The more you try to know about truth, the more you be come asleep. The very effort to know leads you astray. Truth can be felt but cannot be known. When I say it can be felt, I mean you can be present to it, it can be present to you. There is a possibility of a meeting. There is a possibility of becoming one with it. But there is no way to know it.
Truth cannot be objectified. You cannot put it there and see it. You cannot hold it in your hand and see it. You cannot examine it from the outside -- only from the inside, only by becoming one with it, can you feel it. Feeling is the only knowledge possible. Hence, those who know say: Love is the way.

Knowledge is a sort of ignorance. The word 'ignorance' is very beautiful. Split it in two -- it becomes 'ignor-ance'. Truth can be ignored. That's what ignorance is; otherwise, truth is already present. Ignorance is nothing but ignoring the truth which is already there. And a man of knowledge becomes more ignorant, because the more he thinks he knows, the more he becomes capable of ignoring that which is. Lost in his theories, dogmas, creeds, scriptures, he no longer has any eyes to look at the reality. Lost in words, verbalizations, his vision is clouded. He cannot see that which is.

The more you are clouded by your thinking, the more you are a mind, the more you will be able to ignore the truth. Nothing like knowledge is needed -- only innocence, a childlike innocence. Vulnerable, open.... Not trying to know. In the very effort to know, there is violence. In the very effort to know, you have trespassed reality. In the very effort to know, you have become a voyeur. You have attacked reality, you are trying to rape reality.

That's why I continuously say science is a rape on reality. The word 'science' comes from a root which means 'to know'. Science is knowledge. Religion is not knowledge. Religion is love. The word 'religion' comes from a root which means binding together -- falling into love, becoming one.
Truth is felt. It is a lived experience. So whatsoever can be said about truth will be untrue. Just because it has been said, it becomes untrue.
All that has been said up to now, and all that will be said in the future, has nothing to do with truth. There is no way of expressing it. Truth is very elusive. You cannot catch hold of it in words. You cannot catch hold of it through the mind. Mind goes on missing it, because the very functioning of the mind is anti-truth. The functioning of the mind is non-existential: it functions in that which is not, either in the past or in the future. The past is no more, the future not yet, and the mind only functions either in the past or in the future. In the present there is no mind.
If you are herenow, suddenly you have slipped out of the mind. How can you think herenow? Thinking will take you away from the herenow. A single thought, and you are thousands of miles away from here and now. In the here and now there is no possibility, there is no space for thinking to arise.
Mind functions in the non-existential, in the fictitious, in the imaginary. Mind is a faculty of dreaming -- it is a dream faculty! Truth is not known by mind; that's why I say it is not known at all. Truth is felt by the heart, by your totality; by you, not by your head; by you as an organic unity. When you know truth, you know by the head and by the toes; you know by your bones and by your guts; you know by your heart and by your blood; you know it by your breathing -- just by your very being. Truth is known by being.

That is the meaning when I say truth is felt. It is an experience.

Think only of the waves...

"FORGET YOU ARE A WRESTLER AND BECOME THOSE HUGE WAVES SWEEPING EVERYTHING BEFORE THEM."
O-NAMI REMAINED. HE TRIED TO THINK ONLY OF THE WAVES..

Of course, it was difficult in the beginning: HE THOUGHT OF MANY THINGS. It is natural -- but he remained. He must have been very patient. THEN GRADUALLY HE DID THINK ONLY OF THE WAVES. Then a moment came.... If you pursue, if you persist, one moment is bound to come when the thing that you have been desiring for many lives happens -- but patience is needed.

THEN GRADUALLY HE DID THINK ONLY OF THE WAVES. THEY ROLLED LARGER AND LARGER AS THE NIGHT WORE ON

Now these are not the real waves of the ocean that are rolling larger and larger. Now there is no distinction between his waves of imagination and the real waves. That distinction is lost. Now he does not know what is what; what is dream and what is real he does not know. He has become a small child again. Only children have that capacity.

In the morning you can find a child weeping for a toy he had seen in the dream, and he wants it back, and he says, "Where is my toy?" And you go on insisting that it was just a dream, but he says, "Still, where is it now?" He makes no distinction between the dream and the waking. He knows no distinctions. He knows reality as one.
When you become very receptive, you become childlike.

THEY ROLLED LARGER AND LARGER AS THE NIGHT WORE ON. THEY SWEPT AWAY THE FLOWERS IN THE VASES BEFORE THE BUDDHA, THEY SWEPT AWAY THE VASES. Not only that -- EVEN THE BRONZE BUDDHA WAS SWEPT AWAY.

This is beautiful! It is very difficult for a Buddhist to imagine that the Buddha is being swept away. If he had been too much attached to his religion, that would have been the point where he would have been completely cut off from his imagination. He would have said, "Enough is enough! Buddha being swept away! -- what am I doing? No, I am no more a wave. " He would have stopped at the feet of the Buddha, he would have touched the feet of the Buddha, but not more than that.
But remember: one day, even those feet that have helped you tremendously on the path, they have to go; Buddhas also have to be swept away. Because the door can become a hindrance if you cling to it.

So stay in this temple...

IN HIS TROUBLE HE WENT TO A ZEN MASTER WHO WAS STOPPING AT A NEARBY TEMPLE BY THE SEA, AND ASKED FOR COUNSEL.
"GREAT WAVES IS YOUR NAME, " SAID THE MASTER, "SO STAY IN THIS TEMPLE TONIGHT AND LISTEN TO THE WAVES OF THE SEA."

A MASTER IS ONE who can create devices for everybody. A master is one who has no fixed device. He looks at the man, this man O-nami, Great Waves -- just his name and he creates a device around his name.
That's what I go on doing: I give you a name and create a device around it. I give you a name so that you can remember your device, you can remember your technique, so that it becomes a constant mindfulness for you, a reminder, an arrow pointing out your path continuously.
Just coming to know that his name is O-nami, Great Waves, the master said:

"GREAT WAVES IS YOUR NAME, SO STAY IN THIS TEMPLE TONIGHT AND LISTEN TO THE WAVES OF THE OCEAN."


Listening is one of the basic secrets of entering into the temple of God. Listening means passivity. Listening means forgetting yourself completely -- only then can you listen. When you listen attentively to somebody, you forget yourself. If you cannot forget yourself, you never listen. If you are too self-conscious about yourself, you simply pretend that you are listening -- you don't listen. You may nod your head; you may sometimes say yes and no -- but you are not listening.
When you listen, you become just a passage, a passivity, a receptivity, a womb: you become feminine. And to arrive one has to become feminine. You cannot reach God as aggressive invaders, conquerors. You can reach God only... or it will be better: God can reach you only when you are receptive, a feminine receptivity. When you become yin, a receptivity, the door is open. And you wait.

Your ears are nothing but passages, just holes -- nothing else. Your ears are more feminine than your eyes; your eyes are more male. Your ears are a yin part; your eyes are a yang part. When you look at somebody, you are aggressive. When you listen to somebody, you are receptive.

"GREAT WAVES IS YOUR NAME, SO STAY IN THIS TEMPLE TONIGHT AND LISTEN TO THE WAVES OF THE SEA."

"You just become ears," said the master. "You just listen. There is nothing else to do -- just go on listening with no idea why, with no idea of what is happening. Just go on listening with no interpretation, with no activity on your part." And then:

"IMAGINE YOU ARE THOSE WAVES."

"First listen, get in tune with the waves, and when you feel that now you are completely silent and receptive, then imagine that you are those waves. That is the second step. First: don't be aggressive; become receptive. And when you have become receptive, then just melt into those waves, start imagining that you are those waves."

The master is giving him a device so that he can forget his self, the ego. First step is receptivity, because in receptivity ego cannot exist -- it can exist only in conflict. And when you are receptive, suddenly your faculty of imagination becomes tremendously powerful.

Imagination is the one faculty you have which comes closest to God. God must have a great imagination -- mm? -- just look at His world! Just to think! -- such an imaginative world, with so many flowers and so many butterflies and so many trees and so many rivers, and so many people. Just think about His imagination! With so many stars, and so many worlds -- worlds beyond worlds, non-ending.... He must be a great dreamer.

Great wave was inmensely strog...

A WRESTLER NAMED O-NAMI, GREAT WAVES, WAS IMMENSELY STRONG...

Everybody is immensely strong. You don't know your strength; that is another matter. Everybody is immensely strong -- has to be, because everybody is rooted in God, everybody is rooted in this universe. However small you may look, you are not small-you cannot be by the very nature of things.

Everybody is immensely strong because everybody is immensely divine. Everybody is strong because everybody is rooted in God, in the very origin of existence. Remember it

We are all great waves of the ocean. We may have forgotten it, but the ocean has not forgotten us. We may have so much forgotten it that we have no idea of what an ocean is -- still we are in the ocean. Even if a wave forgets and becomes oblivious of the ocean, it is still in the ocean -- because the wave cannot exist without the ocean. The ocean can exist without the wave -- maybe it can exist without the wave -- but the wave cannot exist without the ocean. The wave is nothing but waving of the ocean; it is a process, it is not an entity. It is just the ocean delighting in its being.

HE WAS HIGHLY SKILLED IN THE ART OF WRESTLING. IN PRIVATE HE DEFEATED EVEN HIS OWN TEACHER...

but in private, because in private he must have been capable of forgetting his self.
Remember this sutra: When you remember your self, you forget God; when you forget your self, you remember God
In privacy he must have been completely forgetful of his own self, the ego. Then he was tremendously powerful. In public he must have been becoming too self-conscious. Then he was weak. Self-consciousness is weakness. Self-forgetfulness is strength

Listen to the waves

A WRESTLER NAMED O-NAMI GREAT WAVES, WAS IMMENSELY STRONG AND HIGHLY SKILLED IN THE ART OF WRESTLING. IN PRIVATE BE DEFEATED EVEN HIS VERY TEACHER, BUT IN PUBLIC HIS OWN YOUNG PUPILS COULD THROW HIM.
IN HIS TROUBLE HE WENT TO A ZEN MASTER WHO WAS STOPPING AT A NEARBY TEMPLE BY THE SEA, AND ASKED FOR COUNSEL.
"GREAT WAVES IS YOUR NAME, " SAID THE MASTER, "SO STAY IN THIS TEMPLE TONIGHT AND LISTEN TO THE WAVES OF THE SEA. IMAGINE YOU ARE THOSE WAVES. FORGET YOU ARE A WRESTLER, AND BECOME THOSE HUGE WAVES SWEEPING EVERYTHING BEFORE THEM."
O-NAMI REMAINED. HE TRIED TO THINK ONLY OF THE WAVES, BUT BE THOUGHT OF MANY THINGS. THEN GRADUALLY HE DID THINK ONLY OF THE WAVES. THEY ROLLED LARGER AND LARGER AS THE NIGHT WORE ON. THEY SWEPT AWAY THE FLOWERS IN THE VASES BEFORE THE BUDDHA; THEY SWEPT AWAY THE VASES. EVEN THE BRONZE BUDDHA WAS SWEPT AWAY. BY DAWN THE TEMPLE WAS ONLY SURGING WATER, AND O-NAMI SAT THERE WITH A FAINT SMILE ON HIS FACE.
THAT DAY HE ENTERED THE PUBLIC WRESTLING AND WON EVERY BOUT, AND FROM THAT DAY NO ONE IN JAPAN COULD EVER THROW HIM.

This is a story of self-consciousness and how to lose it, and how to drop it, and how to get rid of it. We will try to enter into it step by step.


of the A Sudden Clash of Thunder Osho

There is a famous Zen story...

A Zen master was making a painting, and he had his chief disciple sit by his side to tell him when the painting was perfect. The disciple was worried and the master was also worried, because the disciple had never seen the master do anything imperfect. But that day things started going wrong. The master tried, and the more he tried, the more it was a mess.

In Japan or in China, the whole art of calligraphy is done on rice-paper, on a certain paper, a very sensitive paper, very fragile. If you hesitate a little, for centuries it can be known where the calligrapher hesitated -- because more ink spreads into the rice-paper and makes it a mess. It is very difficult to deceive on rice-paper. You have to go on flowing; you are not to hesitate. Even for a single moment. split moment, if you hesitate -- what to do? -- missed, already missed. And one who has a keen eye will immediately say, "It is not a Zen painting at all" -- because a Zen painting has to be a spontaneous painting, flowing.

The master tried and tried and the more he tried -- he started perspiring. And the disciple was sitting there and shaking his head again and again negatively: 'No, this is not perfect.' And more and more mistakes were being made by the master.
Then the ink was running out so the master said, "You go out and prepare more ink." While the disciple was outside preparing the ink, the master did his masterpiece. When he came in he said, "Master, but this is perfect! What happened?"

The master laughed; he said, "I became aware of one thing: your presence. The very idea that somebody is there to appreciate or to condemn, to say no or yes, disturbed my inner tranquility. Now I will never be disturbed. I have come to know that I was trying to make it perfect and that was the only reason for its not being perfect."

Try to make something perfect and it will remain imperfect. Do it naturally and it is always perfect. Nature is perfect; effort is imperfect. So whenever you are doing something too much, you are destroying.