Life and Death

Beloved Osho, Kassan and Jozan were going along, talking together, when Jozan said, “If within life-and-death, there were no Buddha, there would be no life-and-death.”

Kassan said, “If the Buddha were within life-and-death, there would be no delusion with regard to life-and death.”

They argued back and forth, and there was no end to it. Finally, they decided to ask Daibai. Kassan said to him, “Of these two opinions, which is the more familiar?”

Dabai said, “One is familiar, one is distant.”

“Which is the familiar one?” said Kassan.

“Go away and ask me again tomorrow,” responded Daibai.

The next day Kassan came again and asked. Daibai said, “A familiar one does not ask. One who asks is not familiar.”

Kassan afterwards said, “At that time, when I was with Daibai, I lost my Buddha-eye.”

On another occasion, Hogen asked Hakuyo, “Where is the dwelling place of the Buddha?”

Hakuyo answered, “No fixed place.”

Hogen objected, “If this is the absolute Buddha, how can it not be fixed, no special place?”

Hakuyo said, “If it were in a special place, it would not be the absolute Buddha.”

Hogen agreed.

At another time, a monk said to Kyosei, “What is the meaning of ‘the Bhagavat in the ten directions is one road to nirvana’?”

Kyosei said, “In a house, there are not two masters.”

Maneesha, in a world full of insanity, you few are fortunate to discuss the great matter of inner journey. These anecdotes contain so much, although they are so small. It is almost like a dewdrop containing the whole ocean. In fact, it does contain the whole ocean, because the taste is the same.

These anecdotes are not only to be heard, but to be lived moment to moment. As I go in, you also go in yourself. These are strategies of Zen to bring the unaware to awareness.

Kassan and Jozan were going along, talking together, when Jozan said, “If within life-and-death, there were no Buddha, there would be no life-and-death.”

A perfect statement. If in life and in death there was no consciousness, no buddhahood, there would be no life and no death. It is absolutely and categorically true. Our birth is the birth of the buddha and our life is the life of a buddha, whether we remember it or not. And our death is going to be the death of a buddha. But remember: although on the screen it appears that there is a beginning and there is an end, existence has no framework; it is not a window, it is not enclosed by death and life. The buddha within you just comes like a breeze from eternity and moves through your heart, again into eternity. From the outside it may appear that somebody is born, somebody dies. From the inside, if you are aware, nothing is born, nobody dies. Only forms change, but the center of all our activities remains the same forever.

To experience this center is the whole effort of all meditation, because once you know it you are relaxed; you cannot be miserable. Even if you try, you cannot be tense, you cannot be angry, you cannot be greedy, you cannot have a lust for power. Once you know your own center, you reach to heights from where even the clouds are far below. You have touched the blueness of empty space.

This traveler is called by Kassan and Jozan ‘the Buddha’.

Kassan said, “If the Buddha were within life-and-death, there would be no delusion with regard to life-and death.”

Right, but not perfect. There is nothing wrong in it, but even to say there would be no delusion with regard to life-and death, is unnecessary. Awakening to your buddhahood, all that is false disappears, just like when you bring a lamp into a dark room – the darkness disappears. You don’t say that the darkness has gone away, because nothing goes.

The darkness was never there in fact; there was only an absence – the absence of light. The moment you bring light in, of course, the absence of light cannot remain. Nothing has gone out, only light has come in. As the buddha is awakened within you, it is not that delusion or darkness or hallucination disappears. Your buddha is awake, and all around, from infinity to infinity, there is only consciousness and nothing else.

They argued back and forth, and there was no end to it. Finally, they decided to ask Daibai. Kassan said to him, “Of these two opinions, which is the more familiar?”

Dabai said, “One is familiar, one is distant.”

“Which is the familiar one?” said Kassan.

“Go away and ask me again tomorrow,” responded Daibai.

The next day Kassan came again and asked. Daibai said, “A familiar one does not ask. One who asks is not familiar.”

What a great statement. “You ask only because you don’t know. You ask only because it is not your experience. The one who asks is not familiar with the truth. It is not his experience, he is just repeating sutras, scriptures. Where is the other one, with whom you were discussing? He has not come to ask, because he knows.

“Knowing brings a silence where no question arises, because question is another name for doubt.

One who knows simply knows it is so. The other one has not come back to ask – he must be familiar.

He knows, so what is the point of harassing the master? Because you have come, it shows that you don’t know; you are very distant.”

Kassan afterwards said, “At that time, when I was with Daibai, I lost my Buddha-eye.”

What he means by this is that being with Daibai, the master, he lost all his knowledge, all his intelligence, all his mind – he lost everything, including the Buddha-eye. He used to think that he knew. He used to think that he had got the Buddha-eye.

The Buddha-eye means the same as the expression ‘the third eye’; it is just a symbol of looking inwards. Your two eyes open outwards; just between them there is a point where you look inwards.

That point is symbolically called ‘the third eye’. Remember, it is only a metaphor.

To be with a master it is absolutely necessary to lose your mind; to be so innocent that no question arises; to be filled with wonder, but not with knowledge; to be just trust and love, not a questionnaire.

On another occasion, Hogen asked Hakuyo, “Where is the dwelling place of the Buddha?”

Hakuyo answered, “No fixed place.”

Hogen must have been a very intellectual person.

He said, “If this is the absolute Buddha, how can it not be fixed, no special place?”

Hakuyo said, “If it were in a special place, it would not be the absolute Buddha.”

To be in a special place is to be imprisoned. To have an address is to be limited. To have a name is to be confined. And the very word ‘buddha’ means the unlimited, the unconfined, the overwhelming, the whole universe. It cannot have a special place.

But Hogen was not just an intellectual, because later on he himself became a great master.

Listening to this, Hogen agreed. But it is still agreement, it is not realization. To agree with me is one thing, to experience with me is another. Agreement is of the mind, experience is of the beyond, where I am no more and you are no more – just a pure silence blossoms.

Two awakened persons cannot be in the same room for the simple reason that two awakened consciousnesses will immediately merge into each other.

At another time, a monk said to Kyosei, “What is the meaning of ‘the Bhagavat in the ten directions is one road to nirvana’?”

You have to understand first the meaning of Bhagavat. You have called me Bhagwan. The word ‘Bhagwan’ comes from ‘Bhagavat’. Bhagavat means ‘the blessed one’, ‘the blissful one’; and when somebody reaches to this blissfulness, the pure quality of being Bhagavat takes a form. That form we have called, in the East, Bhagwan. It has nothing to do with God. Anybody who has translated Bhagwan as God is absolutely wrong. Bhagwan is concerned with Bhagavat – the infinite consciousness.

When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no more an ordinary human being – you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no more separate – you have found your roots. Otherwise, ordinarily, everybody is moving without roots, not knowing from where their heart goes on receiving energy, not knowing who goes on breathing in them, not knowing the life juice that is running inside them. And the moment this life juice goes out, you will be left an empty shell, a corpse.

It is not the body, it is not the mind – it is something transcendental to all duality, that is called Bhagavat – the Bhagavat in the ten directions.

Ordinarily, people talk about four directions. But some people became aware that between each two directions, there is also a possibility of another one. So – north, south, east, west: these directions are commonplace, accepted and agreed upon. Then there are four directions more, one between each two directions. Eight directions have been accepted by the philosophical people, but ten directions include something more, because one direction must go deeper, which is neither south nor north, which is not any out of the eight. And one direction should go upwards, vertical; that, too, is not included in the eight directions. These two directions – the vertical height of Everest and the depth of the Pacific – are, in fact, the spiritual directions. The other eight are geographical.

These two have nothing to do with geography. They are your inner experiences of heights and depths, and they come together. By the side of each great mountain, there is a great valley. The valley and the mountain are always together. Your inner being, when it opens, first experiences two directions: the height, the depth. And then slowly, slowly, as this becomes your established situation, you start looking around, spreading into all other eight directions. The Bhagavat is the ten directions … still, it is said that it “is one road to nirvana.”

It seems to Kyosei that there is a contradiction: one road and ten directions? Obviously it is contradictory, but only for those who are just thinking about it. Those who are experiencing, they know that the road is one – that it is of height and depth. And once you have attained to the point where your height and your depth meet, then you can look around to the very circumference of the universe. Then your consciousness starts unfolding in all ten directions, but the road has been one.

Kyosei said, “In a house, there are not two masters.”

There cannot be. You bring two nothingnesses and they will become one, because what will be dividing them? There cannot be any fence between two nothingnesses. Between two zeros … how can you make them two? They will jump into each other and become one. The moment someone becomes enlightened – it is not that, in the history of enlightenment, one more enlightened person is added – he simply disappears in the ocean. Enlightenment simply means losing your number, your personality, your ego, your “I am,” and just becoming part of a tremendous isness.

Kassan said to his monks:

Find me in the tips of a hundred grasses.
Recognize the prince in a noisy market!

These were Kassan’s last words before he died: “Now you will not be able to find me here, in this body, but don’t be sad – find me in the tips of a hundred grasses.”

Just look silently and deeply and you will find your master everywhere. The whole existence will become suffused with your master. And of course the moment a master dies, he makes the whole existence sacred for his disciples. In the stones they will touch him, in the flowers they will see his colors, in the rainbows they will see his beauty. A disciple becomes so deeply immersed in the consciousness of the master, that when the master’s consciousness spreads all over existence, the disciple at least can see it. That’s why in Zen when a master dies the disciples dance; they make a ceremony of it, because their master is freed from all boundaries of body and mind. This freedom of their master is an indication of their own freedom. This freedom has to be respected, recognized, through their ceremony, through their songs and dances.

Osho, Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt, Ch 9, Sutra