Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing Talks on the Enlightened Mind of Sosan, The Great Way

 

THE GREAT WAY IS NOT DIFFICULT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO PREFERENCES.

 WHEN LOVE AND HATE ARE BOTH ABSENT EVERYTHING BECOMES CLEAR AND UNDISGUISED.

 MAKE THE SMALLEST DISTINCTION, HOWEVER, ONE COMPLAINT AND HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE SET INFINITELY APART.

 IF YOU WISH TO SEE THE TRUTH THEN HOLD NO OPINION FOR OR AGAINST.

 THE STRUGGLE OF WHAT ONE LIKES AND WHAT ONE DISLIKES IS THE DISEASE OF THE DESIRE NATURE OF THE MIND.

 

 WE WILL BE ENTERING the beautiful world of a Zen Master's no-mind. Sosan is the third Zen Patriarch. Nothing much is known about him -- this is as it should be, because history records only violence. History does not record silence -- it cannot record it. All records are of disturbance. Whenever someone becomes really silent, he disappears from all records, he is no more a part of our madness. So it is as it should be.

 Sosan remained a wandering monk his whole life. He never stayed anywhere; he was always passing, going, moving. He was a river; he was not a pond, static. He was a constant movement. That is the meaning of Buddha's wanderers: not only in the outside world but in the inside world also they should be homeless -- because whenever you make a home you become attached to it. They should remain rootless; there is no home for them except this whole universe.

 Even when it was recognized that Sosan had become enlightened, he continued his old beggar's way. And nothing was special about him. He was an ordinary man, the man of Tao.

 One thing I would like to say, and you have to remember it: Zen is a crossbreeding. And just as more beautiful flowers can come out of crossbreeding, and more beautiful children are born out of crossbreeding, the same has happened with Zen.

 Zen is a crossbreeding between Buddha's thought and Lao Tzu's thought. It is a great meeting, the greatest that ever took place. That's why Zen is more beautiful than Buddha's thought and more beautiful than Lao Tzu's thought. It is a rare flowering of the highest peaks and the meeting of those peaks. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist, but it carries both within it.

 India is a little too serious about religion -- a long past, a long weight on the mind of India, and religion has become serious. Lao Tzu remained a laughingstock -- Lao Tzu is known as the old fool. He is not serious at all; you cannot find a more non-serious man.

 Then Buddha's thought and Lao Tzu's thought met, India and China met, and Zen was born. And this Sosan was just near the original source when Zen was coming out of the womb. He carries the fundamental.

 His biography is not relevant at all, because whenever a man becomes enlightened he has no biography. He is no more the form, so when he was born, when he died, are irrelevant facts. That's why in the East we have never bothered about biographies, historical facts. That obsession has never existed here. That obsession has come from the West now; then people become interested more in irrelevant things. When a Sosan is born, what difference does it make -- this year or that? When he dies, how is it important?

 Sosan is important, not his entry into this world and the body, not his departure. Arrivals and departures are irrelevant. The only relevance is in the being.

 And these are the only words Sosan uttered. Remember, they are not words, because they come out of a mind which has gone beyond words. They are not speculations, they are authentic experiences. Whatsoever he says, he knows.

 He is not a man of knowledge, he is a wise man. He has penetrated the mystery, and whatsoever he brings is very significant. It can transform you completely, totally. If you listen to him the very listening can become a transformation, because whatsoever he is saying is the purest gold.

 But then it is difficult too, because the distance is very very great between you and him: you are a mind and he is a no-mind. Even if he uses words he is saying something in silence; you, even if you remain silent, go on chattering within.

 

 It happened:

 There was a case against Mulla Nasruddin in the court. The court could not prove much. He was charged with polygamy, having many wives. Everybody knew about it, but nobody could prove it.

 The lawyer said to Nasruddin, "You remain silent, that's all. If you utter a single word you will be caught. So you simply keep quiet and I will look to the matter."

 Mulla Nasruddin remained silent -- deep down boiling, in turmoil, wanted to interrupt many times, but somehow managed and controlled himself. Outwardly looked like a Buddha, inside a madman. The court couldn't find anything against him. The magistrate, even though he knew that this man had many wives in the town, when there was no proof what could he do? So the magistrate had to release him.

 He said, "Mulla Nasruddin, you are released. Now you can go home."

 Mulla Nasruddin looked puzzled and said, "Er -- Your Honor, which home?" He had many homes because he had many wives in the town.

 

 A single word from you will show the mind inside; a single word and your whole being is exposed. Not even a word is needed; just a gesture and your chattering mind will be there. Even if you are silent, your silence will not reveal anything other than the chattering monkey within.

 When a Sosan speaks, he speaks totally on a different plane. He is not interested in speaking; he is not interested in influencing anybody; he is not trying to convince you about some theory or philosophy or ism. No, when he speaks his silence blooms. When he speaks he is saying that which he has come to know and would like to share with you. It is not to convince you, remember -- it is just to share with you. And if you can understand a single word of his, you will feel a tremendous silence being released within you.

 Just hearing here... We will be talking about Sosan and his words. If you listen attentively, suddenly you will feel a release of silence within you. These words are atomic, they are full of energy. Whenever a person who has attained says something, the word is a seed and for millions of years the word will remain a seed and will seek a heart.

 If you are ready, ready to become the soil, then these words, these tremendously powerful words of Sosan -- they are still alive, they are seeds -- they will enter in your heart if you allow, and you will be totally different through them.

 Don't listen to them from the mind, because their meaning is not of the mind; the mind is absolutely impotent to understand them. They don't come from the mind, they cannot be understood by the mind. They come from a no-mind. They can be understood only by a state of no-mind.

 So while listening here don't try to interpret. Don't listen to the words but to the gaps between the lines, not to what he says but to what he means -- the significance. Let that significance hover around you like a fragrance. Silently it will enter you; you will become pregnant. But don't interpret. Don't say, "He means this or that," because that interpretation will be yours.


 Once it happened:

 Mulla Nasruddin was coming back, completely drunk, in the wee hours of the morning. As he was passing by a cemetery he looked at the signboard. On it was written in big letters, capital letters: RING FOR THE CARETAKER -- and that's what he did.

 Of course, so early in the morning, the caretaker was disturbed. He came out, staggering, angry, and when he looked at Nasruddin, absolutely drunk, he became even more angry.

 He asked, "Why? Why did you ring? Why did you ring for me? What is the matter? What do you want?"

 Nasruddin looked at him for one minute, silently, then looked at the signboard and said, "I want to know, why can't you ring that damn bell yourself?"

 

 It was written: RING FOR THE CARETAKER. Now how to interpret it? It depends on you.

 Don't interpret -- listen. And when you interpret you can't listen, because the consciousness cannot do two opposite things simultaneously. If you start thinking, listening stops. Just listen as you listen to music -- a different quality of listening because you don't interpret. There is no meaning in the sounds.

 This is also music. This Sosan is a musician, not a philosopher. This Sosan is not saying words, he is saying more -- more than the words. They have a significance but they don't have any meaning. They are like musical sounds.

 You go and sit near a waterfall. You listen to it, but do you interpret what the waterfall says? It says nothing... still it says. It says much, much that cannot be said.

 What do you do near a waterfall? You listen, you become silent and quiet, you absorb. You allow the waterfall to go deeper and deeper within you. Then everything becomes quiet and silent within. You become a temple -- the unknown enters through the waterfall.

 What do you do when you listen to the songs of the birds, or wind passing through the trees, or dry leaves being blown by the breeze? What do you do? You simply listen.

 This Sosan is not a philosopher, he is not a theologian, he is not a priest. He does not want to sell any idea to you, he is not interested in ideas. He is not there to convince you, he is simply blooming. He is a waterfall, or he is a wind blowing through the trees, or he is just a song of the birds -- no meaning, but much significance. You have to absorb that significance, only then will you be able to understand.

 So listen, but don't think. And then it is possible for much to happen within you, because I tell you: this man -- this Sosan about whom nothing much is known -- he was a man of power, a man who has come to know. And when he says something he carries something of the unknown to the world of the known. With him enters the divine, a ray of light into the darkness of your mind.

 Before we enter into his words, remember the significance of the words, not the meaning; the music, the melody, not the meaning; the sound of his soundless mind, his heart, not his thinking. You have to listen to his being, the waterfall.

 How to listen? Just be silent. Don't bring your mind in. Don't start thinking, "What is he saying?" Just listen without deciding this way or that, without saying whether he is right or wrong, whether you are convinced or not. He does not bother about your conviction, you also need not bother about it. You simply listen and delight. Such persons as Sosan are to be delighted in; they are natural phenomena.

 A beautiful rock -- what do you do with it? You delight in it. You touch, you go around it, you feel it, the moss on it. What do you do with clouds moving in the sky? You dance on the earth, you look at them, or you just keep quiet and lie down on the ground and look at them and let them float. And they fill you. Not only the outer sky -- by and by, the more you become silent, they fill your inner sky also. Suddenly you are not there, only clouds are moving, in and out. The division is dropped, the boundary is no more there. You have become the sky and the sky has become you.

 Treat Sosan as a natural phenomenon. He is not a man. He is God, he is Tao, he is a Buddha.

 Before we try to move into his significance, a few things have to be understood. They will give you a push.

 

 MIND IS A DISEASE. This is a basic truth the East has discovered. The West says mind can become ill, can be healthy. Western psychology depends on this: the mind can be healthy or ill. But the East says mind as such is the disease, it cannot be healthy. No psychiatry will help; at the most you can make it normally ill.

 So there are two types of illness with mind: normally ill -- that means you have the same illness as others around you; or abnormally ill -- that means you are something unique. Your disease is not ordinary -- exceptional. Your disease is individual, not of the crowd; that's the only difference. Normally ill or abnormally ill, but mind cannot be healthy. Why?

 The East says the very nature of mind is such that it will remain unhealthy. The word 'health' is beautiful. It comes from the same root as the word 'whole'. Health, healing, whole, holy -- they all come from the same root.

 The mind cannot be healthy because it can never be whole. Mind is always divided; division is its base. If it cannot be whole, how can it be healthy? And if it cannot be healthy, how can it be holy? All minds are profane. There is nothing like a holy mind. A holy man lives without the mind because he lives without division.

 Mind is the disease. And what is the name of that disease? Aristotle is the name, or if you really want to make it look like a disease then you can coin a word: ARISTOTLITIS. Then it looks exactly like a disease. Why is Aristotle the disease? Because Aristotle says, "Either this or that. Choose!" And choice is the function of the mind; mind cannot be choiceless.

 Choose and you are in the trap, because whenever you choose you have chosen something against something else. If you are for something, you must be against something; you cannot be only for, you cannot be only against. When the 'for' enters, the 'against' follows as a shadow. When the 'against' is there, the 'for' must be there -- hidden or not hidden.

 When you choose, you divide. Then you say, "This is good, that is wrong." And life is a unity. Existence remains undivided, existence remains in a deep unison. It is oneness. If you say, "This is beautiful and that is ugly," mind has entered, because life is both together. And the beautiful becomes ugly, and the ugly goes on becoming beautiful. There is no boundary; no watertight compartments are there. Life goes on flowing from this to that.

 Mind has fixed compartments. Fixedness is the nature of mind and fluidity is the nature of life. That's why mind is obsession; it is always fixed, it has a solidness about it. And life is not solid; it is fluid, flexible, goes on moving to the opposite.

 Something is alive this moment, next moment is dead. Someone was young this moment, next moment he has become old. The eyes were so beautiful, now they are no more there -- just ruins. The face was so roselike, now nothing is there -- not even a ghost of the past. Beautiful becomes ugly, life becomes death, and death goes on taking new birth.

 What to do with life? You cannot choose. If you want to be WITH life, with the whole, you have to be choiceless.

 Mind is a choice. Aristotle made it the base of his logic and philosophy. You cannot find a man more distant from Sosan than Aristotle, because Sosan says, "Neither this nor that -- don't choose." Sosan says, "Be choiceless." Sosan says, "Don't make distinctions!" The moment you make a distinction, the moment choice enters, you are already divided, fragmentary; you have become ill, you are not whole.

 Remember, if you ask a Christian... who does not really belong to Jesus, who basically belongs to Aristotle. Christianity is more Aristotle-based than Christ-based. Jesus was more like Sosan. He says, "Don't judge. Judge ye not!" He says, "Don't make any choice. Don't say, 'This is good and that is bad!' That is not your concern. Let the whole decide. Don't you be a judge." But Christianity is not really Jesus-oriented. The founders of Christianity were more Aristotelian than Christian.

 You cannot make a church out of Sosan or Jesus. How can you make a church if you remain choiceless? A church has to be for something and against something; it has to be for God and against the Devil. And in life God and the Devil are not two, they are one. The Devil is one face and God is another face of the same energy -- they are not two.

 Sometimes he comes as a Devil and sometimes he comes as a God. And if you can go deep and look, you will find they are the same. Sometimes he comes as a thief and sometimes he comes as a virtuous man. Sometimes you will find him in respectable quarters and sometimes with those who are not respected but condemned. He MOVES, he is a movement. And no shore is too distant for him to reach, nobody is beyond him -- he moves in everybody.

 Jesus makes no distinctions, but Christianity makes distinctions because a religion has to -- a religion has to become a morality. And once a religion becomes a morality it is no more a religion. Religion is the greatest daring possible. It takes the greatest courage to be choiceless, because the mind says, "Choose!" The mind says, "Say something! This is wrong, that is good. This is beautiful, this is ugly. I love this, I hate that." Mind says, "Choose!"

 Mind has a temptation to divide. Once you divide, mind is at ease. If you don't divide, if you say, "I'm not going to to say anything. I'm not going to judge," mind feels as if it is on its deathbed.

 Aristotle says A is A and cannot be not A -- the opposites cannot meet. Sosan says there are no opposites -- they are already meeting, they have always been meeting. This is one of the most fundamental truths to be realized, that the opposites are not opposites. It is you who say they are opposites, otherwise they are not opposites. Look existentially and you will feel they are the same energy.

 You love a person...

 

 One woman came to me and she said, "For ten years I have been married to a person and we never quarreled. And now suddenly, what happened? He has left me."

 Now, she thinks that if they never quarreled it shows they were in deep love. This is foolish -- but this is Aristotelian; the woman is absolutely logical.

 She said, "For ten years we have been married. We never quarreled, we were never angry at each other." She is saying, "We were in such deep love that we never fought about anything. There was not even a single moment of conflict. And now, what happened? Suddenly he has left me! Has he gone mad? Our love was so deep." She is wrong.

 If love is deep then there is bound to be some quarrel. Sometimes you will fight. And the fight is not going to break the love, it enriches it. If love is there, it will be enriched by fighting; if love is not there, then you part, you separate. Ten years is a long time -- even twenty-four hours is too long to be constantly in one state of mind, because mind moves to the opposite.

 You love a person; sometimes you feel angry. Really, you feel angry only because you love. Sometimes you hate! Sometimes you would like to sacrifice yourself for your lover, and sometimes you would like to kill the lover. And both are you.

 If you never quarreled for ten years, it means there was no love at all. It means it was not a relationship. And you were so afraid that any anger, any conflict, any slight thing could break down the whole thing. You were so afraid you never quarreled. You never believed that the love could go deeper than the quarrel, that the quarrel would be momentary and after the quarrel you would fall into each other's arms more deeply. No, you never trusted that. That's why you managed not to fight. And this is not something to be surprised about, that the man has left. I said, "I am surprised that he remained with you for ten years. Why?"

 

 One man came to me and he said, "Something has gone wrong with my son. I have known him for twenty years -- he was always obedient. Such a good boy you cannot find anywhere. He never disobeyed, he never went against me. And now suddenly he has become a hippie. Now suddenly he doesn't listen. He looks at me as if I am not his father at all. He looks at me as if I am a stranger. And for twenty years he was so obedient. What has happened to my son?"

 Nothing has happened. This is what was to be expected, because if a son really loves his father he disobeys also. Whom else should he disobey? If a son really loves his father and trusts him, sometimes he goes away also -- because he knows the relationship is so deep that by disobeying it is not going to be broken. Rather, on the contrary, it will be enriched. The opposite enriches.

 Really, the opposite is not opposite. It is just a rhythm, a rhythm of the same; you obey and then you disobey -- it is a rhythm. Otherwise, just going on obeying, obeying, everything becomes monotonous and dead. Monotony is the nature of death, because the opposite is not there.

 Life is alive. The opposite is there, a rhythm is there. You move, you come back; you depart, you arrive; you disobey, then you obey also; you love and you hate. This is life, but not logic. Logic says if you love you cannot hate. If you love, how can you be angry? If you love in this way then you love in a monotonous way, the same pitch. But then you will become tense, then it is impossible to relax.

 Logic believes in linear phenomena: in one line you move. Life believes in circles: the same line goes up, comes down, becomes a circle.

 You must have seen the Chinese circle of YIN and YANG. That is how life is: opposites meeting. That circle of YIN and YANG is half white, half black. In the white there is a black spot, and in the black there is a white spot. The white is moving into the black, and the black is moving into the white -- it is a circle. The woman moving into the man, the man moving into the woman... this is life. And if you observe minutely, you will see it within you.

 A man is not a man twenty-four hours a day, cannot be -- sometimes he is a woman. A woman is not a woman twenty-four hours a day -- sometimes she is a man also. They move to the opposite. When a woman is angry she is no more a woman; she becomes more aggressive than any man and she is more dangerous than any man, because her manhood is purer and never used. So whenever she uses it, it has a sharpness no man can compete with. It is just like soil which has not been used for many many years; then you throw the seeds -- and a bumper crop!

 A woman sometimes becomes a man, but when she becomes then no man can compete. Then she is very dangerous; then it is better for the man to submit. And that's what all men do -- they become submissive, they surrender. Because immediately the man has to become the woman, otherwise there will be trouble. Two swords in one seat -- there will be trouble. If the woman has become the man, if she has changed the role, immediately the man becomes the woman. Now everything is reestablished. Again the circle is complete.

 And whenever a man becomes submissive and surrenders, that surrender has a purity no woman can compete with -- because ordinarily he is never in that posture, in that game. Ordinarily he stands and fights. Ordinarily he is a will, not surrender. But whenever he surrenders it has an innocence that no woman can compete with. Look at a man in love -- he becomes just a small child.

 But this is how LIFE moves. And if you understand it then you are not worried at all. Then you know: the lover has departed, he will come back; the beloved is angry she will love. Then you have patience. With Aristotle you cannot have any patience, because if a lover has departed, he has departed on a linear journey -- no coming back, it is not a circle. But in the East we believe in the circle; in the West they believe in the line.

 The Western mind is linear, the Eastern mind is circular. So in the East a lover can wait. He knows that the woman who has left him now will come back. She is already on the way, she must be already repenting, she must have already repented, she must be coming; sooner or later she will knock at the door. Just wait... because the opposite is always there.

 And whenever a woman comes back after anger, then love again is fresh. Now it is not repetition. The gap of anger destroyed the past. Now she is again a young girl, a virgin girl. Again she falls in love -- everything becomes fresh.

 If you understand this, then you are not against anything. You know even anger is beautiful, even a quarrel here and there gives tone to life. And everything helps the richness. Then you accept, then deep in acceptance you are patient, then there is no impatience and no hurry. Then you can wait and pray and hope and dream.

 Otherwise, if life is linear, as Aristotle thinks or -- as Western thinking has moved from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell -- as Bertrand Russell thinks, then life has much impatience. Nobody is going to come back; then you are always trembling, afraid, and then you become suppressive. Then you may stay with a woman for ten years or for ten lives, but that staying is with a stranger. You are controlling yourself, she is controlling herself, and there is no meeting. Life is not logic. Logic is just a part -- of course, very clean cut, categorized, compartmentalized, divided -- but life is messy. But what to do? It is so. It is not so compartmentalized, so clear-cut, divided -- it is a chaos. But logic is dead and life is alive, so the question is whether to choose consistency or to choose life.

 If you are too much for consistency you will become dead, and deadlier and deadlier, because consistency is possible only if you drop the opposite completely. Then you love and only love and only love and are never angry, never hate, never fight. You obey, only obey -- never disobedience, never rebellion, never going away. But then everything becomes stale, then the relationship becomes poisonous -- then it KILLS.

 

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