The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Chapter 5: Non-attainment

BELOVED OSHO,

THERE IS NOTHING TO ATTAIN

GENTLEMEN OF AFFAIRS OFTEN TAKE THE MIND, WHICH ASSUMES THERE IS SOMETHING TO ATTAIN, TO SEEK THE DHARMA, WHEREIN THERE IS NOTHING TO ATTAIN. WHAT DO I MEAN BY "THE MIND, WHICH ASSUMES THERE IS SOMETHING TO ATTAIN"? IT'S THE INTELLECTUALLY CLEVER ONE, THE ONE THAT PONDERS AND JUDGES. WHAT DO I MEAN BY "THE DHARMA, WHEREIN THERE IS NOTHING TO ATTAIN"? IT'S THE IMPONDERABLE, THE INCALCULABLE, WHERE THERE'S NO WAY TO APPLY INTELLIGENCE OR CLEVERNESS.

HAVEN'T YOU READ OF OLD SHAKYAMUNI AT THE ASSEMBLY OF THE LOTUS OF THE TRUE DHARMA? THREE TIMES SARIPUTTA EARNESTLY ENTREATED HIM TO PREACH, BUT THERE WAS SIMPLY NO WAY FOR HIM TO BEGIN. AFTERWARDS, USING ALL HIS POWER, HE MANAGED TO SAY THAT THIS DHARMA IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD BY THOUGHT OR DISCRIMINATION. THIS WAS OLD SHAKYAMUNI TAKING THIS MATTER TO ITS ULTIMATE CONCLUSION, OPENING THE GATEWAY OF EXPEDIENT MEANS AS A STARTING POINT FOR THE TEACHING OF THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY.

WHEN HSUEH FENG, A TRULY AWAKENED MASTER, HEARD OF THE TEACHING OF CHOU, MASTER OF THE ADAMANTINE WISDOM SCRIPTURE, ON TE SHAN, HE WENT TO HIS ABODE. ONE DAY HE ASKED TE SHAN, "IN THE CUSTOM OF THE SCHOOL THAT HAS COME DOWN FROM HIGH ANTIQUITY, WHAT DOCTRINE IS USED TO INSTRUCT PEOPLE?" TE SHAN SAID, "OUR SCHOOL HAS NO VERBAL EXPRESSION, NOR DOES IT HAVE ANY DOCTRINE TO TEACH PEOPLE." LATER HSUEH FENG ALSO ASKED, "DO I HAVE ANY SHARE IN THE BUSINESS OF THE VEHICLE OF THIS ANCIENT SCHOOL?" TE SHAN PICKED UP HIS STAFF AND IMMEDIATELY HIT HIM SAYING, "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" UNDER THIS BLOW HSUEH FENG FINALLY SMASHED THE LACQUER BUCKET OF HIS IGNORANCE. FROM THIS WE OBSERVE THAT IN THIS SECT INTELLIGENCE AND CLEVERNESS, THOUGHT AND JUDGMENT, ARE OF NO USE AT ALL.

AN ANCIENT WORTHY HAD A SAYING: "TRANSCENDENT WISDOM IS LIKE A GREAT MASS OF FIRE. APPROACH IT AND IT BURNS OFF YOUR FACE." IF YOU HESITATE IN THOUGHT AND SPECULATION, YOU IMMEDIATELY FALL INTO CONCEPTUAL DISCRIMINATION. YUNG CHIA SAID, "LOSS OF THE WEALTH OF THE DHARMA AND DESTRUCTION OF VIRTUE ALL STEMS FROM THE MIND'S CONCEPTUAL DISCRIMINATION."

ONCE YOU HAVE THE INTENT TO INVESTIGATE THIS PATH TO THE END, YOU MUST SETTLE YOUR RESOLVE AND VOW TO THE END OF YOUR DAYS NOT TO RETREAT OR FALL BACK SO LONG AS YOU HAVE NOT YET REACHED THE GREAT REST, THE GREAT SURCEASE, THE GREAT LIBERATION. THERE'S NOT MUCH TO THE BUDDHA DHARMA, BUT IT'S ALWAYS BEEN HARD TO FIND CAPABLE PEOPLE.

One of the greatest contributions of Gautam the Buddha to humanity is that religion is not to attain something. That which you want to attain you already have, so any effort to attain it is simply stupid. You have got your illumination within, you have got your enlightenment ready to explode at any moment, but the problem is you are never here and now. You are wandering and searching all over the world, and this search, this constant urge to achieve, has a certain psychology in it.

The mind is empty, and emptiness hurts like a wound. The mind cannot look back, it can only look ahead. To fill its emptiness it goes on achieving money, power, prestige, respectability. But nothing satisfies it because its emptiness is infinite. It may have any amount of money -- still more is needed. It may have any amount of power -- still more is needed.

The constant urge in the mind is for more and more, that's why it is never at rest. It cannot be at rest; it has to achieve more. No one in the whole history of mankind has ever said that his mind is satisfied; such a statement does not exist in the annals of history.

Mind means dissatisfaction, mind means complaints, mind means unfulfilled greed, mind means incomplete desire.

Mind is by its very nature a beggar.

Diogenes asked Alexander, "Are you satisfied with conquering so many lands?"

He said, "No, unless I conquer the whole world I will not be satisfied."

Diogenes said, "Remember my words. Even if you conquer the whole world, the mind will ask for more, and there is no other world to conquer. Remember... you have conquered the world that is, and there is no other world to conquer -- and mind is asking for more. You will be in such a frustration that you cannot conceive of it right now."

The day Alexander died, he remembered Diogenes. He had conquered the whole known world, and he was dying in utter frustration because the mind was not content.

Mind, by its very nature, cannot be content.

In fact, it is the name of your discontent.

Before his death, Alexander told his generals and ministers, "When you take my coffin to the grave, let my hands hang out of the coffin."

They said, "What kind of strange idea has come to you? That is not the way -- it has never been done! And what is the reason for it?"

He said, "I want everybody to know that even Alexander is going with empty hands. A whole life's effort, not a single moment's rest, running after more and more, and the ultimate result is just empty hands. Because millions of people will be standing by the side of the road to watch the procession, it will be the right moment to let them see and think. And when they ask, tell them why my hands are hanging out -- I am going as unfulfilled as I had come."

Gautam Buddha is very clear about the situation that, if you remain in the mind, you cannot get out of the trap of "more and more." The only way to get out of the trap of more and more is to get out of the mind.

Mind is the greatest disease.

Ta Hui is in a strange situation. Sometimes he rises and grasps something of immense importance, but it is still intellectual. His words don't sound authentic because immediately he says something else that spoils it completely. He certainly has a genius for understanding people, and he has been with many teachers and many masters.

In the first place, when somebody is with many teachers and many masters one thing is certain -- that he has not yet found the man to be with. Seeing someone, the bells of his heart do not start ringing. He is still searching. This is also because of the mind, which wants more and more. He has understood this teacher, now he wants something more. He goes to another teacher.

Ta Hui went on and on searching for teachers his whole life, but this too is in a strange way the same trip -- it is not different. Yes, once in a while he had come across a master, but he had not the eyes to recognize him. So he collected his words, but mixed them with the words of those who didn't know anything. His whole philosophy is a hodgepodge, but we can take out those beautiful diamonds that have fallen into the mud. A diamond is still a diamond although it may be covered with mud.

This sutra, there is nothing to attain, he must have heard from someone who really knows. But he has not been able to understand exactly why there is nothing to attain. That is possible to understand only when you are enlightened. That is possible only when you see that all that you had wanted to attain is already given to you; it is intrinsic in your self nature -- that's why there is nothing to attain.

He says, Gentlemen of affairs often take the mind, which assumes there is something to attain, to seek the dharma, wherein there is nothing to attain, but he does not give the reason why there is nothing to attain. Truth has to be attained, bliss has to be attained, beauty has to be attained, immortality has to be attained: mind can think only in terms of attainment.

I have been talking to thousands of people and so many times people have come to tell me, "You insist on meditation, but you never say what we will attain by it. Even if we meditate, we have to be certain what we are going to attain."

I said, "You don't understand. Meditation is not for attainment; meditation is just to discover who you are. Whether you discover it or not, you are the same from eternity. It is not an attainment, only a discovery."

Ta Hui, listening to the masters, starts talking against the mind, but in a way which only a man of mind can do. You can see it in his language, his way of stating

... WHAT DO I MEAN BY "THE MIND, WHICH ASSUMES THERE IS SOMETHING TO ATTAIN"? IT IS THE INTELLECTUALLY CLEVER ONE, THE ONE THAT PONDERS AND JUDGES. WHAT DO I MEAN BY "THE DHARMA, WHEREIN THERE IS NOTHING TO ATTAIN"?

But he himself is not aware of why there is nothing to attain -- because you already have it!

I have said many times that my function is to take away from you all that you don't have, and to give you all that you already have. Just a thin layer of unconsciousness is covering your treasures. But because the mind becomes worried about its emptiness, its ignorance, naturally it starts seeking and searching somewhere to be somebody. But it can never be somebody. Just behind it, it is already a god, already a buddha, already the awakened one. It is a very strange situation that the emperor is so much surrounded by beggars that slowly, slowly you only know the beggars and you can't see the emperor behind them.

IT'S THE IMPONDERABLE, THE INCALCULABLE, WHERE THERE'S NO WAY TO APPLY INTELLIGENCE OR CLEVERNESS.

My difficulty with Ta Hui is that I can seen he is simply repeating like a parrot. He himself does not understand what he is saying. He is intelligent enough to grasp the words spoken by the awakened ones, and his memory is good -- he can repeat them. But I don't feel at all that he understands what he is saying.

Even when he relates an incident of tremendous importance like this... Every year Gautam Buddha used to have a special assembly called the lotus assembly of the authentic religion. This was a special occasion, when all the wandering monks would gather together, thousands of monks. In one assembly this incident really happened.

Sariputta was one of his most intimate disciples, and Sariputta was the head of the lotus assembly. He asked Gautam -- entreated him three times -- to preach, but Gautam Buddha remained silent. Ta Hui has not understood that silence is his preaching.

It was an assembly of people who could understand why he remaines silent. Buddha had said all that was needed to be said: Become silent and you will know it. He did not say it, because by saying it, it is defiled, contaminated; he was simply showing it by his own silence. And certainly when Buddha was utterly silent with his eyes closed, the whole assembly became as if there was nobody -- a `pin drop' silence.

Sariputta asked again and again, and Buddha remained silent. In fact, he had preached, he had given the golden key; he had blessed the whole assembly by his silence.

That reminds me of Jesus. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, wanted somehow to release Jesus because he could see he was innocent, he had not done any harm to anybody. He said things which hurt the traditional people -- but that was their problem. And they were not able to convince him... that would have been the human way.

If you disagree with me, it is perfectly okay. Disagreeing does not mean that you have to crucify me; that is not an argument, and that does not prove you right. In fact, on the contrary, it proves you wrong! Because you could not answer the man, you became angry -- so angry, so bloodthirsty, that you killed the man.

By crucifying Jesus, his contemporaries sealed his truth, recognized his truth. Crucifixion is a recognition that they accepted their defeat. But before it happened, Pontius Pilate tried to talk to Jesus... and Jesus answered everything. Finally Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?"

Jesus looked into his eyes and remained silent. Pontius Pilate asked again, "What is truth?" -- exactly three times. And Jesus went on looking into his eyes, but not saying a word. Those who don't understand may think Jesus does not know the truth; otherwise why is he silent? But the reality is: he is silent because that is the only language in which truth can be expressed.

Ta Hui has not got the point. He thinks that, afterwards, using all his power, he managed to say that this dharma is not something that can be understood by thought or discrimination. Buddha never said that; it is not part of authentic history. He remained silent. The assembly was dispersed for that day, and Sariputta declared to the assembly, "I have asked your question -- it was not my question. My question he has answered long ago. It was your question, you wanted to know. I asked on your behalf three times, and he has answered three times. I am grateful, and I thank him. The assembly is dispersed for today."

What Ta Hui is saying is really to fill the loophole in his own nonunderstanding with some words. This has never happened: afterwards, using all his power, he managed to say that this dharma is not something that can be understood by thought or discrimination. This is Ta Hui's own invention, and the reason why he has to invent it is that he himself must be feeling uneasy about the incident with the three silences. He could not understand that Buddha has said it, and now there is nothing else to be said.

The assembly was dispersed, and Sariputta knew that this was the answer. There are things which cannot be said, but can be understood. Truth is one of them.

THIS WAS OLD SHAKYAMUNI TAKING THIS MATTER TO ITS ULTIMATE CONCLUSION, OPENING THE GATEWAY OF EXPEDIENT MEANS AS A STARTING POINT FOR THE TEACHING OF THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY.

Again he falls back to the true teaching of the nature of reality. There cannot be any teaching of a true nature: all teaching is philosophizing, all teaching is thinking, all teaching is diametrically opposite to the reality.

It is true Buddha went on teaching for forty-two years, but what he is saying is not the truth. Then why he is teaching? He is teaching just to attract people who are entrapped in their intellects. Once they are convinced intellectually, they come closer to him, they become intimate with him. And in that intimacy is the transfer, in that intimacy the silence can be heard. So the forty-two years' teaching should not be taken at face value... he was doing it only as a device.

I am not teaching you anything at all.

I am simply preparing you to listen to my silence.

Certainly teaching can be used to create silence, just as sound can be used to create silence. But the sound is not the real music... the real music is between the sounds, the gaps, the intervals. Ta Hui has not got the point at all.

TE SHAN SAID, "OUR SCHOOL HAS NO VERBAL EXPRESSION, NOR DOES IT HAVE ANY DOCTRINE TO TEACH PEOPLE." LATER HSUEH FENG ALSO ASKED, "DO I HAVE ANY SHARE IN THE BUSINESS OF THE VEHICLE OF THIS ANCIENT SCHOOL?"

TE SHAN PICKED UP HIS STAFF AND IMMEDIATELY HIT HIM SAYING, "WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?" UNDER THIS BLOW HSUEH FENG FINALLY SMASHED THE LACQUER BUCKET OF HIS IGNORANCE.

But Ta Hui is not able to convey correctly the incident that has happened, to tell what has transpired. Hitting him with the staff, do you think ignorance can be dispelled?

Te Shan was one of the most famous masters of China, and Hsueh Feng was also a truly awakened master, so there is no question of his ignorance being dispelled by hitting him with the staff.

Hsueh Feng went to Te Shan and asked him, "What doctrine is used to instruct people?"

The master said, "Our school has no verbal expression, nor does it have any doctrine to teach people."

Hsueh Feng also asked, "Do I have any share in the business of the vehicle of this ancient school?"

At this point, the master took his staff and immediately hit him saying, "What are you saying?"

This was just playfulness between two enlightened people; it has nothing to do with destroying his ignorance. Nobody can destroy anybody's ignorance by hitting him with a staff; otherwise things would be so easy! I can just call each of you and give a good hit, and your ignorance disappears and you become enlightened.

No, this was simply a playfulness. The master hit just to show Hsueh Feng, "You cannot deceive me... you are asking in a different way so that I may say something which is not right. I have answered you already: we don't have any doctrine, and we don't have any expression in our school. It is an absolutely silent school. We don't talk, we don't read scriptures, we don't worship Buddha -- we simply sit silently on this mountain. Slowly, slowly the mind disappears. It has nothing -- no work, no possibility of ambition, no question of achieving anything -- it disappears."

And because he asked again -- Te Shan had answered completely -- now to ask him again in a different way, in a tricky way.... It was a tradition in Zen that masters used to go to each other -- Zen is a very joyful, playful, nonserious religion -- and as Te Shan saw that Hsueh Feng was trying to bring the question again from a different angle, he hit him with his staff and said, "What are you saying? Have you not heard -- we don't have any verbal expression, we don't have any doctrine, so in what way can you serve? In what way can you be a vehicle for this ancient school? The only way to be part of this school... you cannot be a vehicle, you cannot be a messenger, you cannot be a missionary because we don't have any message and we don't have any doctrine. You can participate in the school, you can be part of it, but to be part of it means just to fall into utter silence."

But Ta Hui could not understand what happened, so he says... and this kind of translation in the Western world is creating a very strange impression. People think that perhaps there was a special way of hitting with the staff, because it is absolutely absurd that by hitting with the staff all his ignorance is dispelled.

This is not the case. Hsueh Feng is already an awakened master, he is just being playful. But Te Shan has a direct insight... you cannot be playful with him, you cannot catch him in some way so that he goes against what he has said. He has hit Hsueh Feng with the staff just to tell him, "It is enough! I have said everything, now the only way I can put your questions to silence is by hitting on your head. We don't need your head, we don't need your mind." By hitting his head Te Shan is saying, "Your mind should not be here at all. These people are living in a state of no-mind, and that is our school."

From this we observe... you can see the words that Ta Hui is using are the words of a school teacher. From this we observe that in this sect intelligence and cleverness, thought and judgment, are of no use at all. Observe? He is still behaving like a student who is studying, observing -- what is the doctrine of this school, what is the philosophy of that school? He himself is not a participant.

Once you have the intent to investigate... just look at his words. They are words of a man who writes a thesis; they are not the words of a master who knows his own illumined nature.

The enlightened masters have never used such phrases, such paragraphs, such long complicated sentences. This is the intellectual approach.

One Zen master was sitting on the seashore, and a man came and said to him, "I have been looking for you, but life has so many responsibilities that I could never come to you. It was just by coincidence I was passing and I saw you. I thought, `This is an opportunity I should not lose.' I want to ask -- just explain to me in a very simple way the master key of your religion."

The master remained sitting just like a marble statue, not saying anything, not even blinking his eyes. The man was a little bit afraid. He asked loudly, "Have you heard me or not?"

The master laughed and said, "This is the question I should have asked you. Have you heard me or not?"

The man said, "But you have not said anything."

The master said, "That's what my teaching is: there is nothing to say, but only to experience."

The man said, "That does not help me. Just give me a little more; I may not be able to come to you again."

So the master wrote in the sand with his finger: "DHYANA... `meditation.'" The man said, "That's perfectly right, but it doesn't make much sense to me. Can't you explain it a little bit more?" So the master wrote DHYANA, in bigger letters. The man said, "Smaller letters or bigger letters, it is not going to help me."

The master said, "I cannot lie just to help you. I have gone as far as truth will allow. Beyond that, you please forgive me. I have told you everything that my religion consists of: silence is its flowering, and meditation is its root. Now get lost!"

Zen masters, or any enlightened masters, don't speak like intellectuals, like the intelligensia. They have their own way... a very special way. Only those who are ready to open their hearts to them can be filled with their energy, can allow a few rays of light to enter into their being, may have some flowers showered on them -- because it is not in the words that the transmission happens. It is possible only when both persons, the master and the questioner, are moving on the same wavelength, in the same state of silence.

Ta Hui says, The great liberation, the great rest, the great surcease... And still he goes on: "There is not much to the Buddha Dharma, but it's always hard to find capable people."

He is expressing his own understanding. All that is possible in Gautam Buddha's approach to reality; in fact, it is the richest religion in the whole world. No religion has come to such heights, such peaks, and no religion has been able to produce so many enlightened beings in the world. Most of the religions have remained very mundane, very worldly.

Buddha stands out completely alone as far as the growth of human consciousness is concerned; he is the greatest contributor. Most of the enlightened people have come out of his insight, so it is stupid to say, "There's not much to the Buddha Dharma." And why is he saying this? Because buddha dharma, the religion of Gautam Buddha, does not have great philosophical treatises, but simple things: silence, no-mind, meditation, living totally, witnessing. Just on two hands... ten fingers may be enough to count the whole buddha dharma.

Naturally, to an intellectual this does not seem to be much. But the intellectual does not understand that you can have a huge mountain made only of rocks; it will be great as far as weight is concerned, but just one Kohinoor is enough... it is far more valuable than your whole mountain. Other religions have great doctrines.....

Buddha has said again and again, "I am just a finger pointing to the moon, and my insistence is: `Don't look at my finger but look at the moon.' My finger does not mean anything; the reality is there in the moon. Forget my finger, and look at the moon." So even whatsoever little he has said, he has insisted that it is only an arrow showing you the path and the direction. Naturally, for an intellectual, a philosopher, this is not much.

Ta Hui's whole approach is such that it is mixed. To sort out what he has got from enlightened people, what he has got from learned people, and what he has made up himself is not difficult for me, but it will be difficult for you. And that's the reason I have chosen the book. This will give you the idea that whenever you are reading someone or listening to someone you must be very alert. Has the man the presence, the depth, the silence, the authority that comes out of one's own experience? Or is he just a knowledgeable person? And ask people, "Do you know it yourself?" and you will immediately find... if they hesitate even for a single moment or are taken aback, they were not expecting that you will ask this.

From my very childhood that has been the most interesting game that I have been engaged in. I have never played with the boys of my age. My whole time was involved in a different kind of game. One swami, Swarupananda, used to come to the town often, and he used to stay with one of my father's friends. The friend was very rich and was well known as a wise man; all the saints used to stay in his guest house. But he was very angry with me, because whenever he arranged a meeting for his saints, I was always in the front row.

I always used to take my grandfather with me, and my grandfather was really, even in his old age, a very juicy man. He would go on hitting me, saying "Start! Do something."

And I would suggest, "But let him speak, let him say something that I can find fault with." And in the middle I would stand up and ask just a single question, "Is this your own feeling, your own experience? And remember, you are in the temple of God" -- these meetings used to happen in the most beautiful temple in the city -- "so you cannot lie!" And the man would hesitate, and I would say, "Your hesitation is saying everything! Either you know, or you don't know. Where is the space for hesitation?"

Intellectuals can talk about all kinds of things. Catch hold of their necks and ask them, "Is it your own experience?" -- and just look in their eyes. You will be surprised that out of a hundred perhaps you may find one man who is speaking out of some experience; otherwise, all is borrowed. And all that is borrowed is simply crap. These people have harmed humanity more than anybody else because they speak beautiful words, but those beautiful words are dead. And because of these people it has become difficult to find a real master, because there are so many fake teachers all over the world.

This is the greatest dishonesty that man can do to humanity. You can cheat people out of money, there is nothing much in it; you can be a con-man and do all kinds of deceiving... it is all okay with me because it does not matter whether the money is in one's pocket or in somebody else's pocket; the money is in the pocket -- that's all. It is not a great loss in any way.

But the people without experience who are pretending to be masters are really harming you spiritually. They are giving you words which are dead -- they mean nothing -- and they are preventing you from finding the right man. When there are so many fake people, the greater is the possibility that you will get caught by some fake person. And the fake person is always nicer, more persuasive; he talks in a way that supports your prejudices.

The master does not care about your prejudices... he is out to destroy them. He cannot be nice like the fake people, he has to be hard. Only those who have a real longing -- like a thirst -- to become enlightened, to reach to the source of their life, can tolerate the hardness, the strange behavior of the master. He is not going to be according to you. You have to be according to him. The fake master is always ready to be according to you -- that fulfills your ego.

But the real master can not be according to you. He is bent upon destroying your ego completely, he is bent upon taking away your mind completely. He leaves you only a clean space. In that silent, clean space is your realization. It is not an achievement, it is only a discovery.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Zen

The Great Zen Master Ta Hui

Chapter-5

Non-attainment