586

(part 2)

This parable, this small anecdote, will tell you many things about how the ego can be thrown off-center.

[Sekkyo said to one of his monks: "Can you get hold of emptiness?"
"I'll try," said the monk, and he cupped his hands in the air.]

The master is playing a trick. The master asked: "Can you get hold of emptiness?" The question is tricky, and if the disciple was of any understanding, he would not have tried. The very effort to catch hold of emptiness is stupid. You can catch hold of something; you cannot catch hold of nothing. How can you catch hold of nothing?

The disciple still feels that emptiness is something; he still feels that emptiness is not empty - it is a name, a label of something which can be caught hold of. If he had a little understanding, even a little understanding, he would have done something else than catch hold of emptiness. That was the test.

There are stories where a master asks a disciple: "Can you get hold of emptiness?" and the disciple seizes the master's nose and gives it a great yank - that would have been absolutely right, because the question is absurd. Whatsoever you try it is going to fail from the very beginning. Nothing will help. These are the Zen koans. A Zen master gives you an absurd problem, which cannot be solved. There is no way to it.

I have heard about a toy-shop somewhere in America. A father was purchasing a toy puzzle for his child. He tried to fix it, and he tried and tried in many ways, but something was always wrong, it wouldn't work. So he asked the manager of the shop: "If even I cannot make head or tail out of this, how do you suppose that a small child will be able to?" The manager said: "Nobody can do it. This is just to give the child a taste of modern life. It is not meant to be, nobody can do it, it cannot be fixed. These parts, different parts, are not made to fix."

This was just to give a taste of modern life: whatsoever you do, nothing is of avail; in the end you will feel frustrated. Do this or that, there are millions of alternatives, but all are false, because they fail from the very beginning. The puzzle was not a puzzle, but an absurdity. A puzzle is that which can be solved by some intelligence. An absurdity is that which by its very nature is not solvable, cannot be solved. A koan is an absurd puzzle.

The master says: ["Can you get hold of emptiness?"]

Now, from the very beginning, any solution is debarred. In the very wording of the question he has created an absurdity. How can you catch hold of nothing? You can of course, catch hold of something. But nothing? Emptiness? All your efforts are doomed from the very beginning. And this is the whole thing: the master is trying to help the disciple to become aware, but the ego takes the problem immediately and starts trying to solve it. It becomes a challenge. That's why so many people try a crossword puzzle, this and that. Just looking at the newspaper their ego is challenged; they have to solve it, otherwise it will haunt them. They are so intelligent, how can this puzzle exist? They will have to solve it, it becomes an obsession. Millions of people waste millions of hours solving foolish things. The ego takes up the challenge.

When the master said: ["Can you get hold of emptiness?"] he was exciting the ego and ego is the most stupid thing in human life. You can excite it by anything -by anything. An advertisement in the newspaper: Do you have a two-car garage, or only a one-car garage? - immediately the ego feels disturbed because other people have a two-car garage, and you have only one. Your life is wasted. You existed for nothing, Move fast, borrow money. Do something! Even if you get ulcers on the way, it is okay. Cancer one can tolerate, but one cannot tolerate a one-car garage. Commit suicide, but you have to have a two-car garage. Ego is the most stupid thing, and the whole market of salesmen and advertisers depends on your ego. They excite the ego: they exploit you. And it is difficult to prevent them unless you drop the ego. They will go on and on. A big car becomes an ego symbol.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin went to America. In his town he had never seen a bigger car than a Fiat. When he saw such big cars he was simply puzzled: What to call them? Because they are not cars, and they are not buses; and in such a big car only one person sits or a dog. What is the matter? He saw such big houses - what to call them? In his town a two-storey house is called an atari, a palace. Then he saw a hundred-storied house. His mind boggled. You cannot call it a house, you cannot call it a palace - there simply exists no word for it. And then he saw the Niagara. He closed his eyes and he said: "It seems I am seeing a dream." He had seen small waterfalls, his town had a waterfall, but it ran only in the rainy season. What is this? And he became so puzzled that it was even impossible to appreciate such big, tremendous things; and he was not able to say anything to the guide. So then he started feeling guilty - he should say something. Then they came across a small river. So Mulla Nasruddin thought: This is the opportunity. And he said: "It seems somebody's car radiator is leaking."

Things go on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger just because of the ego. They are not needed. There exists no necessity for them. Life becomes more and more complex because of the stupid ego. And once it takes the challenge, it is always ready to take it, without even asking if this is possible, impossible, rational, irrational.

[The Master Sekkyo said: "Can you get hold of emptiness?"
"I'll try," said the monk...]

This is the answer of the ego: "I will try." It takes all sorts of challenges and a koan is a great challenge. It is made in such a way that you cannot solve it. And trying to solve it, you will become aware that your very effort to solve it is idiotic. In trying to solve it, you will become aware that you have taken the challenge. That was wrong. The one who says within you: "I will try and I will do", is impotent. A koan is given to a disciple to feel the impotency - which you cannot do - to feel the helplessness, because the ego can disappear only in a helpless state, otherwise not. The ego can disappear only when it is a total failure; when not even a slight possibility of its success exists. Only then, otherwise it can go on hoping that it will do something else, or something else, and it will try this alternative and that. There must exist a possibility for the emptiness to be caught, for you to catch hold of it: I will try.

Remember always to watch before you say: "I will try." Don't allow the ego to come in. Just watch. Be intelligent, don't be egoistic. Intelligence is good. Being egoistic in fact hinders the functioning of your intelligence. Such a simple thing. The disciple should have hit the master, right then and there. What type of nonsense are you telling me? But people have tried to solve all sorts of nonsense, because the ego says: There must be some way. The ego says: If the problem exists, the solution must exist. What is the necessity? You can create a problem, but there is no necessity in nature for the solution to exist. And, as I have observed, ninety-nine per cent of the problems of philosophy are foolish. They cannot be solved, but great minds are involved in solving them.

For example, simple problems like: "Who created the world?" are foolish, but great theologians, religious people, scholars, waste their whole life on them. For thousands of years many have been worried about who created the world. And it cannot be solved; it is a koan. It is absurd, because the very question is such, the nature of it is such, that whatsoever you do, it will again jump up and stand on its feet, it will not be killed. For example, if you say: A created the world, immediately the question is there: Who created A? B created A. Then the question is there: Who created B? You go on, and on, and finally, just fed up with the whole thing, you will have to say: This Z, nobody created this Z. But why get to Z? Why not say in the first place that nobody created this world? Why go from A to Z? When you have to concede that nobody created God, then why say that God created the world? If God can exist without being created, then why not this existence? There seems to be no reason. But people go on, and they think that they are doing very serious religious thinking. This is not religious at all; in fact, no thinking is religious. Non-thinking is religious.

Can you get hold of emptiness? What nonsense! Emptiness is nothing, how can you get hold of it? It has no boundaries, no limitations to it, it is not possible, but the ego says: I will try.

["I'll try," said the monk, and he cupped his hands in the air.]

Not only did he say it, he tried - he cupped his hands in the air. You may think that you would have done better. What would you do? Whatsoever you do will be the same. Without knowing what you would do, I say it will be the same. You jump this way and that, and try to catch hold - you will simply look foolish.

[... and he cupped his hands in the air.
"That's not very good," said Sekkyo, "you haven't got anything there."]

There is something to be understood here - if your hands are open, emptiness is there; if your hands are not open, and you have made a fist, emptiness has disappeared. In a fist there is no space; in an open hand the whole sky is there, but it is in an open hand. The meaning is very subtle, but very beautiful - if you try to catch hold of it you will miss, if you don't try it is already there. If you don't try, in your open hand the whole sky exists; nothing less than that. If you try to catch hold of the sky, and you make a fist out of your hand, everything has disappeared. What is there in your fist? Maybe a little stale air - and that too shows that the fist is not exactly complete. That's why. If the fist is exactly complete, the whole sky has disappeared from it. The ultimate is already there; no effort is needed to get it. In the very effort you miss and lose and go astray.

One man came to Lin Chi, a great Zen master, and said: "I am very troubled. I would like to become a Buddha myself. What to do?" Lin Chi chased him out with his staff, out of the temple. He hit him hard, the man started running, and he chased him out of the temple.

Somebody who was standing by said: "This is too hard. The poor man has not asked anything wrong. He was simply asking a very religious question, and he looked very sincere - you should have looked at his eyes, his face. He had really travelled a long way to come to you, and he was asking a simple sincere, religious question: how to become a Buddha. And what you did seems to be too hard on the poor man, and unjustified." Lin Chi said: "I chased him out because he was asking an absurd thing. He is already a Buddha. If he tries, he will miss. And if he can understand why I hit him and chased him out, then he should leave all effort, there is nothing to be achieved, he has just to be himself. He has to be just whatsoever he is."

Be loose and natural, what Tilopa says, and then Buddha is already there in the inner shrine. One has not to become a Buddha; one is always born a Buddha. Buddhahood is your innermost essential nature. You need not enquire about it: you need not try for it.

The poor seeker went to another master, thinking that this Lin Chi was mad: I ask a simple question and he hits me hard, and then chases me out of the temple. He is completely insane. He went to another master; a master who was opposed to Lin Chi. They had their monasteries nearby in the same hills. He went there. He felt: This man will be right, because he is opposed to Lin Chi. And now I know why he is opposed.

He went to the master, the other master and asked the same question. The master said: "Have you ever been before to any other master?" He said: "Yes. But it was wrong of me to go there. I went to see Lin Chi. He hit me hard, and chased me out of the temple." Suddenly, the master became very ferocious, as if he would kill him. He pulled his sword out of his sheath, and the man ran away. The master said: "What do you think? Do you think I am an ignorant man? If Lin Chi can do that, I will kill you completely."

He asked somebody on the way what to do. The man said: "You go back to Lin Chi, he is more compassionate." And he did. When he went back Lin Chi asked: "Why have you come back?" He said: "The other man is dangerous, more dangerous than you. He would have completely killed me. He seems to be a maniac, ferocious." Lin Chi said: "We help each other. It is a conspiracy. Now you be here and never again ask how to be a Buddha, because you are already. One has just to live. You live like a Buddha. You don't bother, don't try to become one." And he became enlightened.

This is the greatest teaching possible: you live it out. And this is what I would like you to do also. You live it out - you need not bother to become, you are already. And Buddhahood is a being, it is never a becoming. You can never become. How can you become a Buddha? Either you are, or you are not. How can you become? How can an ordinary stone become a diamond? Either it is or it is not; becoming is not possible. So you decide: either you are, or you are not. If you are not, forget everything about it. If you are, there is no need to think about it. In either way you simply be whatsoever you are, and in that very being everything is caught hold of - you can catch hold of emptiness without any effort.

["That's not very good," said Sekkyo, "you haven't got anything there."
"Well, master," said the monk, "please show me a better way."]

There are no ways better or worse. The way doesn't exist, because the way means that something has to become. The way means that some distance has to be travelled. The way means that you and the goal are separate. The way is possible if I am travelling to come to you, the way is possible if you are travelling to come to me, but how is the way possible if I am trying to be myself? There is no distance. If you are trying to reach yourself, the way is not possible. There is no space, no distance. You are already yourself, the way doesn't exist. That is why Zen is called the pathless path, the gateless gate. The gate is not there, and this is the gate. The pathless path - the path doesn't exist, and to understand this, is the path. The Zen effort is to throw you onto your reality immediately. There is no need to postpone.

["Well, master," said the monk, "please show me a better way."]

He is still in the same trap. The ego is asking: then something else may be possible; maybe something can be done and you can catch hold emptiness.

[Thereupon, Sekkyo seized the monk's nose and gave it a great yank.]

Why are Zen masters so rude? And only Zen masters are so rude. They have a real compassion, and you can be thrown to yourself only in such a way, there is no other way. You need shock treatment. Why shock treatment? Because only in a shock, for a small portion of time, does your thinking stop, otherwise not. Only in a shock you become aware, alert, your sleep drops. Otherwise you are a sleepwalker. Unless somebody hits you hard, your sleep cannot be broken.

[Thereupon, Sekkyo seized the monk's nose and gave it a great yank.
"Ouch!" yelled the monk, "you hurt me!"]

In this "Ouch!" is the whole mystery. Somebody yanks on your nose, what happens inside? The first thing is that it was never expected. He was expecting some intellectual answer. This is rather total. He was asking for some theory, some doctrine, some method, technique: he wanted a head-to-head communication. This is rather total. The total master jumps on him, just like a cat jumps on a mouse. A total thing. The whole cat jumps, not the head; and the whole mouse is caught, not the head. This is a total thing, unexpected. And unexpectedness is the key, because if the mind can expect, there will be no shock. If the mind can expect, then the mind is already dead. So if you go to Sekkyo, remember well - he will not do the same to you again, because you can expect it now. He will do something absolutely unexpected.

Because Zen masters hit, throw people out of the window, jump on them, do anything, it has sometimes happened in the history of Zen that people will come completely ready. Dimensions are limited. What can you do? You can hit, you can throw, you can jump on the man. Just a few alternatives are there. So people will come completely ready. But you cannot deceive a master - he will not do anything; he will simply sit silently - and that will be unexpected.

Unexpectedness is the key, because in an unexpected moment the mind cannot function. That's what "Ouch!" means. The mind has simply stopped. This voice doesn't come from the mind; it comes from your totality. It is not manipulated by the ego, because there is no time for the ego to manipulate, it has happened so suddenly, the master has jumped upon you so suddenly, there was no time to prepare, to get ready, to do something. This "Ouch!" comes from your whole body, mind, soul; from your very depth of emptiness it comes, it has a flavor of the total. And there is no manipulator, nobody has done it - it has happened. And when something happens and the doer is not, that is how you catch hold of emptiness. This is emptiness. This "Ouch!" comes from the inner emptiness. Nobody is a doer of it. The disciple has not done it: it has simply happened. And in that happening, in that "Ouch!" mind is not functioning. It has passed through the mind, but it has not come from the mind. And it has passed through the mind at such a fast speed, in fact, if you are really hurt on the nose, yanked, the "Ouch!" that happens breaks the sound-barrier. You go and ask the physiologists: it moves faster than sound. It has a total energy in it and it is beautiful, because this man may have completely forgotten the spontaneousness of being. He is thrown back to his spontaneousness. He is thrown from the mind deeper into his own innermost shrine: from there comes this "Ouch!" Unexpected, not doing it, it happens. It happens out of emptiness, you have caught hold.

["Ouch!" yelled the monk, "you hurt me!"]

And immediately comes back the echo: "You hurt me." It lasts only for a single moment, not even a single moment, a minute part of it, a glimpse, a lightning, and immediately the mind takes control again: You hurt me. Look at these three words - you, hurt, me. This is the whole of life: you and me and the hurt. Immediately the whole mind is back, with all the basic elements; you, me and the hurt.

["That's the way to get hold of emptiness," said Sekkyo.]

He has revealed it. He has not explained, he has already given it. He has not only indicated, he has created a situation in which it happened. That's what a master is for: to create a situation in which things happen to you, to create a situation in which you can become aware of the mechanicalness of the mind, and of the spontaneousness of your inner no-self. And then you can move, by and by, from the mind to the inner spontaneousness. You can become loose and natural. You have to understand that everything can go on without your mind trying to manipulate - everything in fact goes on very beautifully. The trouble starts when you take hold, when you try to manipulate, when you want the mind to be in the saddle - then the trouble starts. Otherwise everything goes on, and goes on so beautifully. There is no need to improve it, and you cannot improve it.

The master gave him a glimpse of his inner being, because the "Ouch!" came from the very center. It was not of the body, not of the mind. It was of the total, and in that moment he functioned as a spontaneous being, not as a doer. This functioning can become your whole life - that's what religion should be. A religious life is a functioning of the spontaneous being.

There are situations every moment. You act, but not as a doer, you act spontaneously. Somebody smiles, what do you do? You can smile as a doer, you can manipulate; you can smile because it will be impolite if you don't smile; you can smile, because in a society you have to exist and this man is very important. In fact, it is greatly flattering that he smiled at you, so you have to. It may be a bargain, a business, a trade, a social mannerism, or it may be simply an unconscious habit. Somebody smiles - you react, you smile. A push button smile, your being is absolutely unaffected. In fact, you are not in your smile at all. It is just on the lips, a painted thing: just an exercise of the lips, nothing in it, absolutely empty. You manipulate.

Somebody is dead, you weep. It happened once I stayed in a house and the man of the house died. He had no wife, so his sister came to help arrange things. And I was staying there and was simply watching what was happening.

Whenever somebody came the sister would look out of the door and immediately she would start crying and weeping and saying things about the dead man: that he was so beautiful and he is gone and her whole life will be now sad, a light has disappeared - and everything! And she would do it so mechanically; immediately saying something if somebody was coming. She in fact told me: You sit more outside in the garden. If somebody comes, simply give me a knock.

And when the person had gone, she was perfectly okay. Tears were flowing down her cheeks when she was crying and weeping, but as soon as the man was out of the house, his back towards the house, the tears would disappear and she was perfectly okay, talking and chatting and doing things. I was simply surprised. I asked: How do you do it? You could have been a perfect actress. You simply do it so perfectly that even the tears come down! Manipulation.

You are not only manipulating another's body, you are manipulating your own body - and this goes on and on continuously. All spontaneity is lost; you become a robot. This is how life becomes ugly, crippled; this is how a hell is created. Then your love is false, your hate is false, your smile is false, your tears are false. And how do you suppose to live in such falsity and think of bliss; to live in such falsity and think of truth; to live in such falsity and think of liberation, moksha? There is no moksha for a false being. Falsity should drop.

Be spontaneous, there is nothing to lose and everything to be gained. In the beginning you may sometimes feel a little awkward because you wanted to smile, it was needed as a social mannerism but a spontaneous smile was not there. But only in the beginning. Soon your authenticity will be felt by others also, and soon your authenticity will start paying you. It pays so tremendously, that when a real smile comes to your lips, it will be as total as the "Ouch!" - the whole being smiles, the whole being becomes a smile.

All around you your smile spreads like ripples in consciousness. Everybody who is near you will feel a purity, a bath-like purity, and you will feel a tremendous bliss happening to you. A simple act of authentic spontaneity, and immediately you are transported from this world to another world. Love - or even anger...

I tell you that even positive emotions, false, are ugly; and even negative emotions, authentic, are beautiful. Even anger is beautiful when your whole being feels it, when every fibre of you being is vibrant with it. Look at a small child angry - and then you will feel the beauty of it. His whole being is in it. Radiant. His face red. Such a small child looks so powerful that it seems he could destroy the whole world! And what happens to a child once he is angry? After a few minutes, a few seconds, everything is changed and he is happy and dancing and running around the house again.

Why doesn't this happen to you? You move from one falsity to another. Really, anger is not a lasting phenomenon, by its very nature it is a momentary thing. If the anger is real, it lasts for a few moments; and while it lasts, authentic, it is beautiful. It harms nobody. A real, spontaneous thing cannot harm anybody. Only falsity harms. In a man who can be angry spontaneously, the tide goes after a few seconds and he relaxes perfectly to the very other extreme. He becomes infinitely loving. On the contrary, it creates it again and again, renews it.

If a wife and husband never get angry, you can be certain there exists no love between them. That's absolutely certain. But if sometimes they get angry, really angry, that anger refreshes everything. In fact, after the anger is gone they will again have a new honeymoon. Now everything is fresh, the storm has passed, it has cleaned everything. Again they are new. They moved away, now they fall in love again. To fall in love again and again and again is the eternity of love.

If there is no anger, real anger, if you are boiling within and just go on with a smile on the face because you are a husband and she is a wife and anger will create trouble - if now you smile, that smile is false. And the wife knows that your smile is false; and you also know that her smile is false. In the house you live a false life. And this falsity becomes so ingrained that you have completely lost track of what a real smile is, of what a real kiss is, of what a real embrace is, you have completely lost track. Then you go through the motions, you embrace your wife, you kiss her, and you think of other things. You move through the motions but they are gestures, impotent, dead. How can your life be a fulfilment?

And I tell you that even negative emotions are good, if real; and if they are real, by and by, their very reality transforms them. They become more and more positive and a moment comes when all positivity and negativity disappears. You simply remain authentic: you don't know what is good and what is bad; you don't know what is positive and what is negative. You are simply authentic. This authenticity will allow you to have a glimpse of the real. Only the real can know the real, the true can know the truth; the authentic can know the authentic that surrounds you.

That's the way to get hold of emptiness. The master created a situation, allowed the disciple to move in a spontaneous act, howsoever small - just "Ouch!" and lightning happens. This can become a satori, the first enlightenment.

So remember a few things. One: you have to move from the mechanical to the spontaneous. Two: from the mental, the verbal, to the non-mental, the non-verbal; from the part to the total; from the false to the real; and from the ego to the non-ego - from the self to the no-self.

Already the no-self exists by the side of yourself. Just a change of attention, a change of gear is needed. The non-mechanical exists by the side of the mechanical, the real is always waiting by the side of the false - just a change of gestalt, just a look towards the spontaneous is needed.

Try it for twenty-four hours. Whenever you have an opportunity to move from the false to the real, from the mechanical to the authentic, immediately change the gear. And remain floating as if you are emptiness; don't try to control yourself too much. Remain loose and natural.

Enough for today.