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#1 09/02/2000
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In this
issue:
Short
conversations Koan from
Lotos To the reader |
Brothers, if I shall hurt you, I'll do it regretfully. Zen Help Weekly Internet magazine |
Zen thoughts
At the beginning – just before getting wise – it is necessary to get a bit smarter, at first… I draw your attention that none of the wise men ever said: “If you want to grow wiser – send them all (especially Teachers) :))) right about!”
Wisdom is the top! The eight-thousand-meter peak! Forget about it for now – stay at the base camps, learn how to secure yourself, to clean spikes, to not lose your sunglasses and so on. If you are not lazy. If you are polite and attentive. If you learn from your comrades. From the elders. And from the younger ones. If you listen to the trainer’s words. And don't ignore him, thinking: I have everything inside myself already, so I will not search for anything in your words, you are on the outside! Then you will get it :)) But looking for it (for Wisdom) is useless! It will come by itself - when you are ready. That is why it is called – “Looking (emphasis on the word “looking”) for wisdom (emphasis on the word “wisdom”) outside yourself (emphasis on the word “outside yourself”) – that’s the bathos of stupidity! (emphasis on the exclamation mark)”.
It is easy to sit on a board (only one simple straightforward intelligible truth). But try to seat on a razor’s edge or on a flame – you will cut (or burn) your ass to death, or will crawl away to the earth (to a board). A razor's edge is a composite “truth”. This is when you have to do one thing and the opposite thing simultaneously. Am I speaking clearly enough? One thing. And the opposite thing. At the same time. And because not everyone (almost no one!) is capable of sitting (or runnunig) on a blade, the majority is sitting on their boards at the roadside with a wise expression on their faces.
Read carefully! And do not think that I am criticizing you. I DO NOT care about you! And if I really DID NOT care about you – I would not write it to you. I think that you trust me. I hope you understand me.
When you read Don Juan’s words, always remember (though if you remember this – it will give you next to NOTHING :)) , but anyway, do remember :))) that when a Teacher is instructing a Disciple:
Firstly, he is not telling the truth all the time.
Secondly, when he is not telling the truth – it is not possible to catch him.
Thirdly, he is often joking.
Fourthly, - he is often cheating (again, without any chance for the learner to catch him).
Fifthly, his words are always concrete, so they are a "board”. This is the fundamental reason why they are a "board” - because they are always concrete. Actually, they are not a "board”. But as long as the disciple cannot think (live, act) combining the oppositt things (like the Teacher does), he (by definition) lives in a world of boards, he perceives everything as a "board”, he is unable to do otherwise. This is why we say that they are a "board”.
Sixthly, he knows that it is impossible to teach by words, and words are just stones, as well as all other ACTIONS, which help to direct the disciple to the right path. And the main thing here is - is he on the path or not? If he is, than is he in the middle or at the roadside? If he's in the middle, is he running as hard as he can or still waiting for something?
Seventhly - seven is a beautiful number and I'd rather stop here…
When Gautama is “searching” – this is not in the least the same thing as when you are “searching” :))). When Gautama “stops searching” this is not the same thing AT ALL as when you “stop searching” :)))). “When two persons are doing the same thing – it doesn’t mean that they are doing the same thing.“ :)))))))))))))))))
I am not talking about a Guru-teacher. This is important. Guru is a different kind of teacher. The teacher I am talking about is a Don Juan kind of teacher. This is a Ch’an teacher. There are no other examples of a teacher that I am talking about, that I mean here, except ch’an masters or Don Juan. Only this kind of teachers I call the TEACHER.
The teacher’s presence.
“Information from everywhere” cannot be a Teacher. I'll explain my idea: imagine a little ball (a metal one, for example), a surface for it to roll on now, and a hole in this surface. For the ball to get into the hole – or to hit the target – it needs a proper impulse, i.e. (1) the power for rolling and (2) the right direction. If at least one of these components is missing, the ball will not get into the hole.
“Information from everywhere” (in my case) is one (only one!) of the types of power, that allows you (the ball) to keep rolling. The teacher gives the direction. He does a lot of things beside that – we'll talk about it later. “Giving the RIGHT direction”, and here we should make our model a little bit more complicated – imagine the surface is uneven, and shaking, and there are sudden distubances appearing all the time, which may slow you down or lead you a wrong way, and there are traps where you may be caught to death, that is slowed down to the dead speed :)) And in addition there are angles appearing on the ball, or the ball turns into an ellipsoid, or it is pulsing, or sticking and so on. This complication is several times (10, 100, 1000 times) simpler, than the real situation of a person moving along the Path.
So “Giving the RIGHT direction at ANY MOMENT OF TIME” – is the one of main functions :)) of a Teacher. The direction can be given by someone who knows (1) the RIGHT direction and (2) who can give it RIGHTLY. It can be only a concrete person: someone gives it to you or you give it to yourself. But in no circumstances it can be “information from everywhere”, it's a wind blowing from everywhere. This wind can fill your sails, but only the captain can steer the sails and the wheel.
“Giving the direction” can also be compared with a skeleton, the increasing blocks of your knowledge - with meat, information - with food, which is required for growing the meat - the live pulsing tissue – the knowledge.
The teacher can be internal or external. But I can tell you, that the real Teacher (external, I mean) – is a rare bird. And the real internal Teacher is the rarest of the rare birds. :))
Always staying calm :)))))
Osho often repeats something like “the infinite patience of the Teacher is equal only to the fathomless stupidity of disciples”…
What does “fathomless stupidity” mean? It means that when the disciples want, for example, to help the teacher - they do all kinds of wrong. Which is sometimes harmful, and sometimes it's just not very effective. What does “not very effective” mean? It means that the Teacher has to pull all this huge cart by himself.
Why am I speaking about a “cart”? Because if one “brightens” people, it must looks like “sort of crazy”, otherwise they will not become “brightened”. It has to look like “here is a person, who is for some reason happy to expend his life”, otherwise they will not become “brightened”! When I say “happy to expend his life” I don’t mean “the time of his life”, because this is actually a rubbish. I say “his life” – i.e. his precious blood and energy, nervous and physical strength. This is a really hard work, a heavy labor - pulliong this cart. Without outstanding abilities, power and honesty-nobility pulling this cart – pulling it CORRECTLY for them to “brighten”, to become better, to start understand anything at all, and for all this the Teacher has to pull this cart “joyfully” and “easily”, and knowing at the same time, that “the majority will not understand him” (which also does not add to his gladness and power) - without all that, pulling this cart is IMPOSSIBLE.
What is the “fathomless stupidity of the disciples”? It is their impotent inability, their laziness, their fucking self-importance that grows from the fact of their “closeness” to the Teacher, and – the main thing! – their inability to distinguish “it looks like” and “it is in fact”. They even don't see the cart! Actually, they know about the cart, sometimes they feel a certain - or may be major - discomfort caused by it's wheels, - a leg gets between the spokes or the beam hits their balls, or suddenly, on the contrary, they succeed to ride in it gratis for a while, but they DO NOT SEE it! Because if they could see it – they would not be such assholes, that is, “fathomlessly stupid”. But they are. :))))))))) Or Osho is wrong! :))))))))))))))))))
What is really needed (what is necessary, I mean) is a Teacher (internal or external one, do you remember?). :)))) “Psychotechnologies and spiritual practices”, books, education, flowers and trees, desert with sand and sun, Internet and databases, conversations, contemplation of the flowing water in zazen, mantras – tantras – sutras – shastras – mandalas – mudras (mudra is a configuration of fingers – a gesture analog of mantra) – will guide you nowhere by themselves. This is just food. Which becomes muscles under the Teacher’s management. Without a Teacher it turns into fat, or exhausted heart – into a wrong configuration, anyway. :))))))
Short Conversations
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Is the separate selfhood immortal in the term of locally universal
realization?
- I do not know exactly. But
this is not important.
-
Or is there a kind of posthumous transformation into the Common, with non-existance of a
separated one?
- It's not important what I think about this :)). Firstly, no one can know this before he is gets into it. Secondly, it is not a point here (because it is not related to the moving on the Path :)), so knowing it is not important at all.
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Does the ultimate aim of the Path consist in abandoning the obligatory, but in the end
unattractive cycles of death and birth?
- No.
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What changes does adherence to the Path cause, and for whom?
- There is no bargain on the Path. Absolutely no bargain. Even in the form of such innocent question “what does it change and for whom?” You can produce the sequence of questions to bring this question to the form of “What shall I get for it?” :)) Try to understand me :))
- Is thusness the same for Everybody and Everything, independently from separate models of perception of the Unknown?
- It is not important.
- Are cycles of death and birth for somebody or something eternal and irremovable?
- It is not important.
- What I
can imagine is complete out-of-body indifference of a separate Enlightened One…
What is my
mistake here?
- There is no indifference.
- If one stops to feel “bad” inside the cycle, and if “bad” is transient, why leave the cycles?
- Leaving and transition is a
secondary thing here, it is not important.
-
May be it does not matter, if there is a dance of changing outward forms
and if the change of incarnations for temporarily distributed selfhoods really
exists?
- Yes. It does not matter.
- But the suffering itself already contains the pledge of deliverance from it, doesn't it? (but if not... ufff:)
- The suffering can be endless :)) But “the suffering contains the pledge of deliverance from it” - this is not important. Thinking about the suffering is necessary (and permissible) only when you are solving a problem of choice, whether to step onto the Path or not. If you have made the choice (no matter which one), going on thinking about the suffering is senseless. But the reasons are different:))
Koan from Lotos
To those who searched Masters and Teachers, Ho Shi Zen was saying the following: “Old Fox will learn more from Young Simpleton than Young Simpleton hopes to learn from Old Fox”.
K.Benares. “Zen without a Teacher”
To the reader
Dear reader! When you comprehend – please write! And send it to me! All the best to you! Kl. :))))
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