And suddenly they were puzzled - out of season a beautiful blue lotus. It was out of season, and it has its own story.Ī shoemaker had a pond behind his house. Zen is religion in the sense that it helps you to drop the false, the sleepy, the fake, that which up to now you believed was your personality.Ī great king, Prasenjita, came to Buddha. And that cuts you off from a world you have been in for six hours. But in the morning, the moment you wake up, suddenly you realize you were asleep and you were dreaming. If you sleep eight hours, then six hours are devoted to dreaming, only two hours for dreamless sleep. Have you ever asked what happened to the dream when you have been dreaming the whole night? Strange, so much time is devoted to dreaming. Zen proclaims your god is your innermost being, and the moment you reach to your innermost being all your personality disappears as if it was a dream, and now you are awake. All other religions live with the idea of a god far away beyond the clouds. It is religion in the sense that it brings you to your godliness, which no other religion has been capable of doing. The master makes many devices, but the aim is the same. He declares your potential buddhahood, and unless your potential buddhahood is declared you may never think that in the innermost core you are a buddha. He gives you a beauty that no mirror can give to you. He teaches you simply a different way of being graceful. He may not be aware of his thirst, may not be aware of the truth, but he starts moving towards the master. The seeker may not know even where he is going. But if you have found the truth, if your innermost lotus has blossomed, wherever you go seekers will come. He removed himself deep into the forest just to avoid seekers. I have not given any speciality to him, for the simple reason that he avoided speciality, uniqueness, some higher quality. I have entitled this series, KYOZAN: A TRUE MAN OF ZEN. And when all the present buddhas here breathe in tune, in a rhythm, even the impossible becomes possible. You are not only hearing my words, you are also hearing me, and that is the true hearing: my heartbeat. Words have to be discarded by words themselves, just as poison has to be destroyed by more poison. No other religion has been so strong on the point. Maneesha, it hurts me to disturb your silence by using words, but I hope a day will arrive when we will be sitting together allowing the silence to become deeper - because whatever can be said only touches the periphery, it never goes beyond the periphery. 'FORTUNATELY, YOU HAVE NOW ATTAINED TO PATRIARCHAL ZEN.' ON HEARING THIS VERSE, KYOZAN COMMENTED, 'WHAT YOU HAVE GOT IS JUST NYORAI ZEN, NOT PATRIARCHAL ZEN.' 'LAST YEAR MY POVERTY WAS NOT REAL POVERTY WHEN KYOGEN HAD FINISHED RECITING THE VERSE, HE SAID, 'WE WILL LEAVE IT READY FOR SOME LEISURE TIME,' AND HE THEN PROCEEDED TO MAKE ANOTHER VERSE: PLEASE LET ME HEAR IT AND I WILL STUDY IT.' KYOZAN WAS UNCERTAIN AS TO THE VALIDITY OF KYOGEN'S ENLIGHTENMENT SO, BY WAY OF TESTING HIM, HE SAID TO KYOGEN, 'I HAVE HEARD THAT YOU COMPOSED A VERSE EXPRESSING YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT.

Color zen chapter 4