Maneesha, this is the last anecdote in this series, and you have chosen a very beautiful, meaningful, and significant dialogue for any seeker. The words are from a great master, hence you have to be very silent to understand it, as silent as if you are not. You can sit silently like a Gautam Buddha, but your mind goes on weaving strange and unnecessary thought patterns. And those patterns become the barrier to understanding what we are trying to do. It is not a mere lecture; it is a search together for your innermost being. […]
Nobody is absolutely here, because the moment you are absolutely here, you disappear and the buddha appears in your place. You will find yourself dispersing like a cloud; and a new image, a new golden image of pure consciousness will start arising in you, just like a mountain peak. Each silent moment is the only moment when you live.
In a seventy-year life span, if you can live only seven minutes as a buddha, that is enough. But unfortunately, even in seventy years you cannot manage seven minutes. The mind goes on and on like a stuck record, repeating the same thing. The mind can never be original, it only knows how to repeat. Have you seen a buffalo chewing? That’s exactly what the mind goes on doing. But all chewing is nothing but chewing gum; it is a stupid act. Even the bamboos are laughing. They know that although everyone thinks he is silent, underneath he is sitting on a volcano.
This anecdote can become a transforming force in your life. These few minutes here can create a new man out of you. Just a small thing has to be done: tell the mind to shut up, and be strong enough not to be involved or identified with the thinking process. It has become our habit. We have almost forgotten that we were born without any thinking. All thoughts are nothing but dust that has gathered upon you during the time you have been growing up, and this dust is preventing you from seeing yourself.
These anecdotes are small but very emphatic ways to remove the dust, to make the mirror clean, so that you can see your original face. It is the face that existence has given to you, not the face and the personality which the society has imposed upon you. Remember this, that your personality is an imposition by others on you. With all good intent, your parents, your society, your teachers have all been trying that you should not be yourself, you should be somebody else. And they provide the ideal – who it is that you have to be.
But unfortunately, it is impossible; you cannot be anyone other than who existence has intended you to be. But you can miss your destiny. You cannot be anybody else’s destiny, but you can miss your own destiny. And the way to miss it is very simple: try to be somebody else, and slowly, slowly a personality, a false mask which is not you – which consists of the expectations of others – will arise and cover your innocence. And that innocence is your only treasure, your very eternity, your deathless life.
Once, when Tozan was traveling with another monk, they saw a vegetable leaf floating down a valley stream. Tozan said, “If there were no-one in the deep mountains, how could there be a vegetable leaf here? If we go upstream, we might find a wayfarer staying there.” Making their way through the brush and going several miles up the valley, they suddenly saw the strange-looking, emaciated figure of a man. It was master Ryuzan.
A very famous name in the history of Zen.
His name meant “Dragon Mountain,” and he was also known as Yinshan, meaning, “hidden in the mountains.”
Because he was there in the mountains, far away from people, just sitting there doing nothing. The silent mountains . . .
If you are not doing anything, how long can your mind go on persisting with things which have become out of date, which do not relate to you anymore? As time passes the thoughts become thinner, and a moment comes when simply you are, without any thought. This moment when you arrive to the clearance, the opening of your consciousness, is the most precious moment, because it is your hidden nature. It is your splendor, it is your dance, it is your joy, it is your freedom. Once you have entered into it there is no way to be miserable, there is no way to be tense, there is no way to be in anguish – you have simply passed all those things, which used to be your constant companions.
Ryuzan, in his answers, proves his great understanding.
Tozan and the other monk put down their bundles and greeted Ryuzan.
Ryuzan then said, “There is no road on this mountain – how did you get here?”
Tozan said, “Leaving aside the fact that there is no road, where did you enter?”
Now these are great dialogues; they are no more talking about ordinary roads. Ryuzan’s question is not concerned with the ordinary road, but it appears on the surface as if he is asking, “There is no road on this mountain – how did you get here?” Tozan himself was a master. Anyone else in his place would have been a failure; he would not have understood the meaning that there is a place in our being which no road leads to – but still you can reach there, without any vehicle, without any road, without any guide, without any map. There is a point in our being which we can reach because we are there already – we don’t have to come. We just have to withdraw our thoughts and imaginations, to drop all that is false, and just remain together in the deep solitude.
Tozan understood it exactly, that Ryuzan is not talking about ordinary roads. He said, “Leaving aside the fact that there is no road, where did you enter? We can discuss the road later. For the moment . . . if you can enter here, why cannot we enter here, leaving aside the fact that there is no road?” He is showing his Zen understanding very clearly; if you can reach here without any way, why can we not reach? He is making such a great statement that can be translated in a thousand ways, with a thousand implications.
It means that if even one person can become a buddha, in his buddhahood he declares everybody’s buddhahood. His buddhahood means that man has the capacity and the potentiality of being a buddha. Whether you become the buddha or not, that is not the point; but your potential has been shown clearly, that this is the destiny of every human consciousness.
Ryuzan said, “I did not come by clouds or water.” Tozan then asked, “How long have you been living on this mountain?”
He dropped the subject because Ryuzan’s answer makes it clear that there is no way to say . . . all that he can say is that he did not come by clouds or water. There is no road, but he did come.
Tozn then asked, “How long have you been living on this mountain?”
Ryuzan said, “The passing of seasons and years cannot reach it.”
Time is not a measurement for consciousness. In your deepest being you have been always here, and you will remain always here; you never move from here. Everything else moves around you – the whole world moves; all the stars move. There is not a single thing except your consciousness which does not move. But your consciousness is the center of the cyclone. It simply remains here.
Ryuzan’s answer is so beautiful: “The passing of seasons and years cannot reach it.”
It is beyond time, so the passing of seasons and years . . . don’t ask stupid questions.
Tozan asked, “Were you here first, or was the mountain here first?”
From the point where he was rebuffed, he tried another way to bring time in, and to bring it in such a way that Ryuzan would be caught. He asked, “Were you here first, or was the mountain here first?”
Ryuzan answered, “I do not know.”
Who was here first – “I live here without bothering about the mountain and the forest, or who came first and who came second.”
It has been a question constantly asked by all theologians and philosophers: who came first? The Bible says that in the beginning was the Word – it was first, and then came God; but seeing the foolishness of it, whoever wrote that statement immediately added that God and the Word are one.
Because the question will be – without anybody else, how can there be a Word? The Word needs somebody to speak it. But if you put God first, the question remains the same … for centuries it has been discussed. Zen never discusses that question in the old way, with words like ‘god’, ‘creation’ . . . […]
Zen does not talk about God. It is the only religious phenomenon which has no God, no prayer, and yet has attained to the highest peaks, unavailable to any other religion in the world.
This question, “Were you here first, or was the mountain here first?” was asked to Jesus also. “If you think you are the son of God, were you here before Abraham, the father of the Jews? Were you before him? If you are the son of God, you must have been.”
Jesus said, “Yes, I have been before Abraham.”
This is the difference between other religions and Zen. When Tozan asked, “Were you here first, or was the mountain here first?”
Ryuzan answered, “I do not know.”
Only a man of great understanding and realization can say innocently, “I do not know.”
Tozan said, “Why not?”
Ryuzan said, “I don’t come from celestial or human realms.”
I don’t come from gods – the celestial realm – and I don’t come from human realms. My consciousness has no designation, no categorization, it is simply universal. I really don’t come from anywhere; I have been here.
Tozan said, “What truth have you realized that you come to dwell here on this mountain?”
Ryuzan said, “I saw two clay bulls fighting, go into the ocean, and up till now have no news of them.”
In a very symbolic way, he is saying, “I saw, amongst humanity, that people are fighting over clay bulls.” What are your gods, except clay bulls? Seeing that everybody is fighting about thoughts and concepts and scriptures and statues and temples, Ryuzan said, “Seeing that . . . and they have not yet settled. I have heard no news about them.”
For the first time, Tozan bowed with deep respect for Ryuzan, seeing that he cannot be entangled in any controversy, he cannot be forced to say things which should not be said.
He knows; that’s why he can say “I do not know.”
Ordinarily, people who know nothing go on claiming their wisdom. All your Shankaracharyas and all your popes – not a single one is enlightened, but they are religious heads. Now what kind of guidance will these people give? They are going to poison people’s minds. But Ryuzan, a man who has the dignity and courage to say, “I do not know,” is declaring his innocence, his childlike purity. This made Tozan bow down with deep respect to Ryuzan.
Then he asked Ryuzan, “What is the guest within the host?” These are traditional Zen questions, which decide whether the master is really a master or just a teacher, a man of realization or just a man who has gathered knowledge from others, from scriptures.
“What is the guest within the host?”
Ryuzan said, “The blue mountain is covered by white clouds.”
The white clouds are the guests. The blue mountain is the host, because it will remain, and the clouds will come and go. That which comes and goes is the guest, and that which remains is the host. But he said it in a very beautiful poetic way. Zen is sheer poetry: “The blue mountain is covered by white clouds.”
Tozan asked, “What is the host within the host?” That is another traditional question. Ryuzan answered very beautifully. He said, “He never goes out of the door.” The host never goes outside the door. That which goes outside is the mind; it goes around everywhere, Bangkok . . . where are you going right now, L.A? […]. In you, in everybody, the consciousness always remains in; it never goes out of the door.
The mind travels around the world. The moment the mind stops traveling, you come to a great realization: that you are not the one who has been traveling. You are the one who has not moved even a single inch, who is always inside you at the deepest center, never leaving that place.
In our meditations we are searching for the host. We have all become guests and gone too far away from our own beings. In our meditations we are trying to come back and let the guest merge into the host. The moment you enter into your very interiority, there is a great explosion of light. You are no more a human being; you have become a buddha. You have become pure awareness, unconfined, unlimited.
Ryuzan’s answer is so beautiful:
“He never goes out of the door.”
Tozan then asked, “How far apart are host and guest?”
Ryuzan said, “Waves on a river.”
He must be a great master, of tremendous understanding. He is saying that just as a river has waves, those waves are the guests. And when the waves have disappeared, the guest has disappeared in the host. The river remains; the waves come and go.
Ryuzan said, “Waves on a river.”
Tozan then asked, “When guest and host meet, what is said?”
Ryuzan said, “The pure breeze sweeps the white moon”
Nothing is said.
“The pure breeze sweeps the white moon.”
Just a tremendous beauty, a blissfulness, a benediction arises. Nothing is said, not even a hello.
Tozan took his leave and departed.
Hakuyo has written:
Over the peak-spreading clouds,
At its source the river is cold.
If you would see,
Climb the mountain top.
If you want to see you will have to climb the mountain top. If you want to see you will have to reach to the highest point of your consciousness.
Another Zen poet:
For long years, a bird in a cage,
Today, flying along with the cloud.
These small statements defeat the great scriptures of other religions. In what a beautiful way he says everything that needs to be said!
For long years, perhaps many, many births,
A bird in a cage,
Today, flying along with the cloud.
Freedom is the ultimate goal. We are all living in cages, not only of body and mind, but of all kinds of concepts, superstitions. Unless we drop all these cages, scatter them, burn them, and become free – just like a bird on the wing, flying away with the clouds – we will not know what is possible. We will not know what our destiny is. We will not be able to realize the joy, the ultimate experience of truth.
-Osho
From Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt, Discourse #13
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