Taoblog

Buddha entered a village. A man asked him as he was entering the village, "Does God exist?"

He said, "No, absolutely no."

In the afternoon another man came and he asked, "Does God exist?"

And he said, "Yes, absolutely yes."

In the evening a third man came and he asked, "Does God exist?"

Buddha closed his eyes and remained utterly silent. The man also closed his eyes. Something transpired in that silence. After a few minutes the man touched Buddha's feet, bowed down, paid his respects and said, "You are the first man who has answered my question."

Now, Buddha's attendant, Ananda, was very much puzzled: "In the morning he said no, in the afternoon he said yes, in the evening he did not answer at all. What is the matter? What is really the truth?"

So when Buddha was going to sleep, Ananda said, "First you answer me; otherwise I will not be able to sleep. You have to be a little more compassionate towards me too. I have been with you the whole day. Those three people don't know about the other answers, but I have heard all the three answers. What about me? I am troubled."

Buddha said, "I was not talking to you at all! You had not asked, I had not answered YOU. The first man who came was a theist, the second man who came was an atheist, the third man who came was an agnostic. My answer had nothing to do with God, my answer had something to do with the questioner. I was answering the questioner; it was absolutely unconcerned with God.

"The person who believes in God, I will say no to him because I want him to drop his idea of God, I want him to be free of his idea of God -- which is borrowed. He has not experienced. If he had experienced he would not have asked me; there would have been no need.

"The person who believed in God, he was trying to find confirmation for his belief from me. I was not going to say yes to him -- I am not going to confirm anybody's belief. I had to say no, I had to deny, just to destroy his belief, because all beliefs are barriers to knowing the truth. Theist or atheist, all beliefs, Hindu or Christian or Mohammedan, all beliefs are barriers.

"And the person with whom I remained silent was the right inquirer. He had no belief, hence there was no question of destroying anything. I kept silent. That was my message to him: Be silent and know. Don't ask, there is no need to ask. It is not a question which can be answered. It is not an inquiry but a quest, a thirst. Be silent and know. I had answered him also; through my silence I gave him the message and he immediately followed it -- he also became silent. I closed my eyes, he closed his eyes; I looked in, he looked in, and then something transpired. That's why he was so much overwhelmed, he felt so much gratitude, for the simple reason that I did not give him any intellectual answer. He had not come for any intellectual answer; intellectual answers are available very cheap. He needed something existential -- he needed a taste. I gave him a taste."

Dhyano means meditation. In English and in all the western languages, the words that can be used for dhyano fall short; they don't express its reality.

Meditation only hints at it; it does not express it totally, but that's the closest word that can be used. Meditation gives you a feeling as if you are meditating upon something, as if there is an object, and you are meditating on it -- meditating on a flame, meditating on God, meditating on the sunrise; but there is an object. The word "meditation" implies an object, and that's the difference: dhyano does not connote any object. It is simply a state of inner silence: no thought, no content, no object. One simply is.

There is nothing to be known, nothing to be felt, nothing to be contemplated upon, nothing to be concentrated upon, nothing to be meditated upon. The whole mind has to be put aside. One is simply the silence, the stillness which is left behind when the mind becomes quiet. That is dhyano, and that is true meditation. It is a very natural state. It does not need any effort. All that it needs is understanding, watching.

Concentration needs effort. Meditation in the western sense also needs practicing, but in the East they have come across a space which needs no effort, which is already ours. Just as inside the rosebud there is space, so inside you there is a beautiful space -- utterly quiet, calm, cool. We have not to create it; we have only to help the bud to open. And once the bud opens we will know the space; the space opens up.

All the methods are nothing but techniques to open the bud, to help the bud to open so that we can know the inner silence, the inner space, the inner peace.

Dhyana is a very small name, but it contains the whole secret of all the religions; it contains the experience of all the Buddhas. If you can have even a taste of it, just a drop of it will be enough to transform you.

So start sitting silently with closed eyes. Just being, not doing anything: no mantra, no chanting. Thoughts will go on passing; let them pass, watch. They will come and they will go; watch them coming, watch them going. Just like the breath comes in and goes out, just watch the breath too. As silence grows you will start hearing the heartbeat; watch that too. As the silence deepens, only the watcher remains.

That is meditation: when only the watcher is there and there is nothing to watch. Then the watcher turns upon itself, then the watcher watches itself, then the witness witnesses itself. Then the observer itself becomes the observed too. That is the pinnacle, the highest peak, that human consciousness can reach. Beyond that there is nothing. Beyond that the same silence, the same coolness, the same bliss, continues forever.

There are two types of religion. One which creates emptiness in you and around you so that a flowering becomes possible; you have created the situation, now the flower bubbles up automatically. Finding no resistance, the seed suddenly blooms into a flower. There is a jump in your being, an explosion. Buddhism and Zen follow this path -- they create emptiness in and around you.

There is another path also, a second type of religion, which creates love in you, which creates devotion in you. Meera and Chaitanya love, and they love the total so deeply that they find their beloved everywhere; on every leaf, on every stone, is the signature of the beloved. He is everywhere. They dance because there is nothing else to do but celebrate. And everything is ready -- only the celebration has to start on your part. Nothing else is lacking. A bhakta, a lover, simply celebrates, enjoys. And in that enjoyment of love and celebration, the ego disappears and emptiness follows.

Either you create emptiness, like a Buddha, Tilopa, Sekkyo, and others; or you create love, like Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus. Create one and the other follows, because they cannot live separately, they don't have any separate existence. Love is one face of emptiness; emptiness is nothing but love in another aspect, they come together. If you bring one, you invite one, the other follows automatically as a shadow of it. It depends on you. If you want to follow the path of meditation, become empty. Don't bother about love -- it will come of its own accord. Or, if you find it very difficult to meditate, then love, then become a lover, and meditations and emptinesses will follow you.

This is how it should be because there are two types of human mind: the feminine and the male. The feminine mind can love easily but to be empty is difficult. And with feminine mind I don't mean females, because many females have male minds, and many males have feminines minds. So they are not equivalent. With feminine mind I don't mean the feminine body -- you may have a feminine body, but not a feminine mind. The feminine mind is the mind that feels love easier, that's all. That is the definition of the feminine mind: it is one who feels love easily, naturally, who can flow into love without any effort. The male mind is one for whom love is an effort -- he can love but he will have to do it. Love cannot be his whole being -- it is just one thing of many other things, not even the most important. He can sacrifice his love for science, he can sacrifice his love for the country, he can sacrifice his love for any trivial affair, for business, for money, for politics. Love is not such a deep thing with him, a male mind. It is not as effortless as it is for a feminine mind. Meditation is easier. He can become empty easily.

Who is filled with harmony is like a newborn.
Wasps and snakes will not bite him;
Hawks and tigers will not claw him.
His bones are soft yet his grasp is sure,
For his flesh is supple;
His mind is innocent yet his body is virile,
For his vigour is plentiful;
His song is long-lasting yet his voice is sweet,
For his grace is perfect.
But knowing harmony creates abstraction,
And following abstraction creates ritual.
Exceeding nature creates calamity,
And controlling nature creates violence.

Nature is complete because it does not serve itself.
The sage places himself after and finds himself before,
Ignores his desire and finds himself content.
He is complete because he does not serve himself.

A nation is like a hierarchy, a marketplace, and a maiden.
A maiden wins her husband by submitting to his advances;
Submission is a means of union.
So when a large country submits to a small country
It will adopt the small country;
When a small country submits to a large country
It will be adopted by the large country;
The one submits and adopts;
The other submits and is adopted.
It is in the interest of a large country to unite and gain service,
And in the interest of a small country to unite and gain patronage;
If both would serve their interests,
Both must submit.

Failure fails, success fails too. To see this is to let hope evaporate. It does not matter whether you die rich or poor. It does not matter whether you die as a sinner or a saint. It does not matter whether you die well-known or unknown, famous or notorious. Death comes and destroys everything.

Death is very democratic; it does not believe in hierarchies. It does not bother whether the person was a peon or a prime minister. It simply comes! and dust falls into dust and disappears. It won't help you in any way that you are rich; it won't help you in any way that you are famous; it won't help you in any way that you are a great emperor, this or that.

If you can see it while you are alive, then something i possible -- something which is beyond life and death.

There was a fellow, an army man, posted in the South Pacific, who happened to contract, in the usual way, a very strong and particularly annoying venereal disease -- and moreover, it was not the ordinary type of venereal disease either, but something completely out of the ordinary in every respect.

To begin with, this fellow's private parts became so swollen he had to wear pants fourteen sizes larger than usual. And they turned the most peculiar shade of purple, and also orange -- with polka-dots and stripes all around as well! It was, in short, a mess, and nobody knew what to do. The doctors he consulted had no idea how to treat it -- the best they could offer was to cut it off, which the fellow said he would absolutely never allow. So it came to the point when he decided to go back to the island from where he had got this peculiar disease, because he figured they would be familiar with it, which it turned out was correct. They knew exactly what it was -- boy, was he relieved!

"You mean you won't have to amputate it?" he asked the island doctor.

"That's right," the doctor said.

"I knew it, I knew those doctors in the States were full of baloney!" he told the doctor. "They all said that it would have to be amputated.''

"Oh, no," the doctor soothed, "it will fall off by itself in a few days."

But what consolation is that?

Success fails, failure fails -- all fails. And the ultimate is death. It is not a consolation that you will be dying rich. It is not a consolation that you will be dying famous. It makes no difference. Beggar or king, poor or rich, death comes and simply effaces your whole life.