Just a morning walk Nansen The Point Of Departure #9

Maneesha, there exists in world literature nothing comparable to Zen anecdotes. They are so pregnant with meaning that even a child can understand them, although even the oldest person may not understand them. To understand these anecdotes you have to learn the whole language of Zen. It has a world of its own.

It speaks of course in your languages but it gives a totally new color, a totally new meaning to the same old words or gestures. Most often it speaks in gestures. People who are outside the stream of Zen will find it a little eccentric, crazy, but it is utterly sane; just its meaning has to be explained to you. The people who have been studying and meditating in Zen don't need any explanation; they immediately pick up the gesture. But that is not true about the people outside the Zen circle. This anecdote is a beautiful illustration.

NANSEN ONCE WENT INTO THE GARDEN AND, SEEING A MONK THERE, THREW A PIECE OF BROKEN TILE AT HIM AND HIT HIM. WHEN THE MONK TURNED HIS HEAD, NANSEN LIFTED UP ONE LEG. Now there is something Nansen wants to convey through the gesture, but the monk missed.

THE MONK MADE NO RESPONSE. NANSEN RETURNED TO THE TEMPLE AND THE MONK FOLLOWED HIM AND ASKED TO BE TAUGHT, SAYING "THE MASTER JUST THREW A PIECE OF TILE AT ME AND HIT ME. DID HE NOT DO THIS AS A MEANS OF AROUSING ME?"
NANSEN SAID, "HOW ABOUT RAISING THE LEG?"
THE MONK WAS SILENT.

The gesture is ancient. The monk turned only halfway when he was hit, he turned halfway and looked at the master. That's why the master raised one leg. He is saying, "Turn totally; halfway will not do. Halfhearted you cannot enter into yourself. Have a complete about-turn." That was the meaning of raising one leg: "You are doing it, but very halfheartedly."

There are things which can be done halfheartedly. In the whole world whatever we are doing, nothing requires your total being to be involved in it. But as far as the inner pilgrimage is concerned your total being is needed. Nothing has to be left behind. You have to gather your whole consciousness. In that very gathering you are coming closer to the center.

Right now we are living on the circumference, completely forgetful about the center, yet the center is the source and the center is the goal. At the very center of your being is the connecting link with the universe. There you are not you. At the very center you disappear, there only remains a pure consciousness, a fragrance.

People are afraid to go in, for the simple reason they can feel, unconsciously of course, that they can exist only as personalities on the circumference. If they go deeper into their own being, they will have to leave their personalities, their egos, their respectabilities; all that they have gathered will have to be left. They will have to go alone as consciousness, pure consciousness.

And the ultimate fear of dissolving oneself into the universe... When a river reaches to the ocean, they say that it stops for a moment, thinks twice, looks backward -- all those beautiful valleys and the mountains -- hesitant, fragile, afraid to take a jump into the ocean, because that jump means you will not be anymore. But that is only half the truth. That jump also means that you will become the ocean.

I have told you about a great Indian mystic, Kabir. In his youth he wrote a small poem in which he said, "When I reached to my very center I felt as if a dewdrop has slipped from the lotus leaf into the ocean." It was a beautiful statement. But at the time of his death, he called his son and told him, "Change it please because now I know more. That was my first acquaintance with the ocean. And I had felt at that time that the dewdrop had disappeared in the ocean. Please change it; write down that the ocean has disappeared in the dewdrop. Now I can speak with authority."

The fear is one-sided. You have not taken into account the whole realization.

Nansen hit the monk with the tile. Nansen was the man who started hitting, slapping, beating, just to wake you. We are according to Zen half asleep, half awake. Our waking is not authentic and total. We are almost somnambulists, sleeping, and also working with closed eyes, and if you become more watchful, you will see it in yourself that many of your actions you are doing like a robot; you have done them so many times.

George Gurdjieff used to say that man's mind has the function of a robot. In the beginning you have to learn, you have a little awareness. Once you have learned something, you don't need any awareness; once you have learned something, it is transferred to the robot part of your mind. Then it becomes computerized; then you can go on sleeping and the mind will go on working.

Nansen's starting to hit monks is very symbolic; because if somebody is hit for no reason, naturally for a moment he wakes up. For a moment he comes out of his thick crowd of thoughts, because it is so unreasonable. If it had been reasonable it would not have disturbed; the man would have rationalized why Nansen did it.

But because he could not rationalize -- there was no reason, he has not done anything wrong; he is simply working in the garden, and the master suddenly takes a broken tile and hits him hard -- the mind stops for a moment.

He turned to look at the master; at that moment the master raised one leg. That he could not understand. The master is saying, "You have turned only half; turn totally, and turn in, not towards me. I'm just an object outside."

No authentic master wants his disciples to turn towards him, because that is taking them away from their own selves. Only the false master, the pseudo master, tries to get people to look up to him, to surrender to him, to be dedicated to him, to be devoted to him; his whole concern is that the disciples' consciousness should be arrowed towards him.

This is the only way of finding out whether the master is authentic or pseudo. The authentic master tries in every possible way to turn you inwards. Everything outside is objective: it will never give you an insight into your subjective reality; it will never allow you to know your interiority, which is your temple, where is hiding your buddha, where you will reach to the highest point of consciousness.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK CAME AND STOOD BEFORE NANSEN WITH FOLDED HANDS. NANSEN SAID, "A GREAT LAYMAN!"

A layman is not a disciple but has deep gratefulness, respectfulness towards those who have arrived, who have reached to the point of ultimate explosion. Folded hands in the East are the symbol of respectfulness. It also represents humbleness.

NANSEN SAID, "A GREAT LAYMAN!"
THE MONK CLASPED HIS HANDS.
NANSEN SAID, "A GREAT MONK!"

On the surface all these statements look irrational, absurd. What the monk is saying by clasping his hands is, "My hands are not dead, they are not like a statue. My love and my gratitude is alive. You should not call me just a layman, I am a fellow traveler." The movement of the hands signifies that the hands are not made of stone or wood, they are alive.

And Zen is the religion of the people who worship only life, no stone gods, no statues, no God in the heaven. All those are fictions for Zen. Zen loves this life in total affirmation. For Zen there is nothing more to existence than this life; you just have to go deeper into it, where space and time are both left behind, where you enter into the transcendental. Zen has no god, Zen has no prayer; there is nobody to whom to pray. Zen is absolutely concerned with the inner, not with the outer.

All of the religions are concerned with the outer: a god somewhere above the clouds. Zen laughs at such gods. Man has created them out of fear: man needs a protection, he feels alone, he feels afraid of death, he needs a protector god. All the gods are fictions; but they have a certain utility: they console. Zen does not believe in consolation, it believes in realization.

And if you want to know what life is... from the outside you can only know the surface. Only digging deep into your own being will you be able to know life from within and the moment you know life from within your whole existence becomes a dance, a joy, a bliss, a gratitude to existence. Zen has a totally different approach to any other religion. As far as I'm concerned, Zen is the only religion, others are pseudo substitutes.

Nansen has thousands of disciples. One of the disciples, Sekiso, wrote a small poem:

A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT
BUT IT NEVER MOVES AT ALL.
WILD AND SOLITARY,
SHARP AND FULL OF POWER,
IT SOARS LIKE A BIRD'S FEATHER.
I GIVE MY ASSENT ONLY TO ONE
WHO HAS CLIMBED TO THE SUMMIT.
WALKING, SITTING, LYING DOWN,
HE DOES EVERYTHING AS THOUGH
HE WERE OUT FOR A STROLL.

A beautiful piece, describing exactly the state of a man who has reached to the sunlit peaks of consciousness. Everything for him is just playfulness, as if he has gone for a walk in the morning, as the sun is rising; just a morning walk: no goal, he can turn anywhere, he's not going anywhere, no purpose, just the sheer joy of the morning and the cool breeze, and the rising sun, and the singing birds, and the opening flowers, and the fragrant air. But no purpose of his own, no goal of his own, just a sheer joy.

Unfortunate are the people who never look to the sunrise, to the sunset, to a starry night. These are all non-utilitarian things, and such people are so much concerned with money, power. Their whole concern is with small and mediocre things.

In Zen, nature in all its forms: whether it is raining, or there is a thundercloud, or lightning, whether it is morning, or evening, or a deep night when everything becomes silent... Zen goes on watching all this, witnessing all this. For the man who has found the witness, this whole existence becomes an immense wonder.

Sekiso said, A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT, against the witness, BUT IT NEVER MOVES AT ALL; the witness has never moved. It is the only immovable part in the world. Everything moves and changes; only one thing never changes, that which is hidden inside you at the center.

Heraclitus said, "You cannot step twice in the same river." But unfortunately in the West, philosophers, theologians, the so-called religious people have never inquired about the witness. If I meet Heraclitus somewhere -- and one never knows, in this vast universe I may meet him -- I would like to tell him, "It is true you cannot step twice in the same river because the river is continuously moving. But you have forgotten one thing, you have forgotten yourself."

The same witness can step in thousands of rivers. The changing rivers don't change the witness. A mirror can reflect thousands of things; those reflections don't change the mirror. Reflections come and go without leaving a trace behind, no footprints, just the mirror. And this mirror has been the search of the East. When I say `witness', I mean a mirror-like quality of your consciousness, which simply reflects.

A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT
BUT IT NEVER MOVES AT ALL.
WILD AND SOLITARY,
SHARP AND FULL OF POWER,
IT SOARS LIKE A BIRD'S FEATHER.
I GIVE MY ASSENT ONLY TO ONE
WHO HAS CLIMBED TO THE SUMMIT.
WALKING, SITTING, LYING DOWN,
HE DOES EVERYTHING AS THOUGH
HE WERE OUT FOR A STROLL.