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.