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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 2
Chapter 10: The Bridge but not the Water Flows
Question 3
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
Question 3
WHY IS ZEN CALLED THE PATH OF PARADOX?
Religion as such has to be paradoxical, there is no other way -- because life consists of contradictions. They look like contradictions to us -- they are not, in fact. They help each other.
Have you not seen it in an arch? The architect does the same -- he puts bricks against each other. If you put the bricks not against each other, you cannot make an are -- the house will fall. Half the bricks face this way, and half the bricks face that way, and they both are there. They are the same bricks -- you can put them facing in one line, the house will fall. But when they are put against each other, great energy is created. And that great energy becomes a strength.
That's why man and woman create the child. Man alone cannot create, woman alone cannot create. Bricks put opposite to each other become a great are; great energy is created.
Life and death, put against each other, create the whole game, the whole play, the LEELA. Life, in every dimension, is paradoxical. So religion has to be paradoxical. If a religion is not paradoxical then it is just poor philosophy. Then it is just man-made, mind-created, just a theology -- not religion.
One day, the emperor Liang Wu Ti invited Master Fu Ta Shih to expound the Diamond Sutra. As soon as he had ascended to his seat, the master knocked the table once with a ruler and descended from his seat. As the emperor was startled, the master asked him, 'Does Your Majesty understand?'
'I do not,' replied the emperor.
The saintly master said, 'The Bodhisattva has finished expounding the sutra.'
He has just hit the table with a ruler. And he says, 'I am finished with my discourse. I have said all that can be said on the Diamond Sutra.'
The Diamond Sutra is the most precious Buddhist scripture. Only a Zen master can do this -- such strange behaviour. But it is very meaningful; he has said all. Because the whole Diamond Sutra goes on repeating only one thing, only one thing, again and again: Be aware. Be aware. Be aware. That is the whole message of all the Buddhas: Be aware, don't be sleepy.
Now, this is a Zen way. He hits the table with a ruler. The emperor must be sitting there -- sleepy, dreamy, mind somewhere else, in a thousand and one places except there where he was sitting. Now, by this beating of the table, suddenly the emperor is startled -- he must have become alert for a moment. And the message has been given. This is a non-linguistic way of giving messages.
And not only this -- the master says, 'The Bodhisattva has finished expounding the sutra.' He does not say, 'I have finished.' He says, 'The Buddha has finished.' Only a man who has disappeared into utter silence can say that -- 'Buddha has spoken through me.'
Another day, the emperor again asked, 'Sir, come. I could not understand that great exposition -- come again.' So the master came.
Wearing a robe, a hat and a pair of shoes, the Bodhisattva came to the palace, where the emperor asked him, 'Are you a monk?'
Because monks don't wear shoes, Buddhist monks don't wear shoes -- and the Bodhisattva is wearing shoes, so the emperor asks, 'Are you a monk?'
In reply, the Bodhisattva pointed a finger at his hat. 'Are you a Taoist?' asked the emperor. In reply, the Bodhisattva pointed his finger at his shoes. 'Are you a lay man?' asked the emperor. In reply, the Bodhisattva pointed his finger at his monk's robe.
What he is saying is: 'I am all and I am none. You see, I have the hat of the monk. You see, I have the shoes of a Taoist saint. And how can I be a lay man? You see my robe, of ascetic practices, disciplines. I am all. And I am none.'
The emperor said, 'I don't understand. Yesterday I missed, today I have again missed.' The master says, 'This is my final exposition: listen -- and I will never come back again. If you understand, you understand. If you don't understand, you don't understand.' And he said this GATHA:
THE HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE.
A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO.
A MAN PASSES OVER THE BRIDGE;
THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS.
And he went out of the palace and never came again.
This is absurd, what he says -- THE HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE. How can the handless hold anything? But that is how it is happening. That which abides in you is handless, and is holding all kinds of things. God is handless, and is supporting the whole world. And you are handless in your innermost being -- you don't have hands or legs or a head, you are formless. But you are holding a thousand and one things.
A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO. He says: A man is sitting on the water buffalo and still walking. He is saying: God is taking you, you are riding on him -- and still you think you have the responsibility to walk.
It is like... a beggar was passing and the emperor came in a chariot. And he took pity on the beggar -- an old man, and the town was far away, and the old man would have to drag himself -- so he said to the old man, 'You come in, sit in my chariot.'
The beggar was very much afraid, but you cannot say no to an emperor. He was very much afraid -- a beggar, and sitting with the emperor? it was too embarrassing. But you cannot say no. So he came up, sat in the chariot in one corner -- very much afraid, something might go wrong -- but still keeping his bag on his head.
After a little while, the emperor said, 'Why don't you put your bag down?' And the beggar said, 'Sir, it is much too kind of you that you are carrying me in your chariot. I don't want to make more weight on your chariot; I will carry my bag on my head.'
Zen says the doer, the only doer, is God -- or TATHATA, or Tao. You unnecessarily have become doers. Riding on a water buffalo, and you are walking -- unnecessarily walking, and the water buffalo is carrying you. The rivet is taking you, and unnecessarily you are swimming. Relax!
A MAN PASSES OVER THE BRIDGE; THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. This is tremendously beautiful. Very paradoxical -- THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. Zen people say the body is a bridge; you pass through the body. You are like water -- liquid, ungraspable, formless. You pass through the body; you don't change. The water flows not, your water of life flows not. And the bridge goes on flowing -- your body goes on changing every day. One day it was a child, another day it became young, then old. Healthy, ill, the body goes on changing.
Scientists used to say, ten years before, that the body changes completely in seven years -- TOTALLY. After seven years you will not find a single iota of the old. All goes flowing out. Now they say it happens in one year, not seven years -- in one year's time you don't have anything of the old, everything changes. The body goes on throwing out the old, and goes on getting the new from food, from water, from air -- goes on replacing. The body is a river-like flow.
But the body is the bridge; you are the passer. You don't flow, the body flows -- the bridge flows, the water does not flow.
These paradoxical statements are of tremendous value -- you can find them in all the world mystics: in Eckhart, in Kabir, in Dadu, in Boehme, and more so in the Zen masters. Zen is a path of paradox.
Listen to these lines of T. S. Eliot.
IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW
YOU MUST GO BY A WAY WHICH IS THE WAY OF IGNORANCE.
IN ORDER TO POSSESS WHAT YOU DO NOT POSSESS
YOU MUST GO BY THE WAY OF DISPOSSESSION.
IN ORDER TO ARRIVE AT WHAT YOU ARE NOT
YOU MUST GO THROUGH THE WAY IN WHICH YOU ARE NOT.
AND WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW IS THE ONLY THING YOU KNOW
AND WHAT YOU OWN IS WHAT YOU DON'T OWN
AND WHERE YOU ARE IS WHERE YOU ARE NOT.
These lines are perfect Zen, pure Zen. Meditate over these lines, find out what T. S. Eliot means. These are very profound. It can be a koan for you.
AND WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW IS THE ONLY THING YOU KNOW...
You don't know yourself, and that is the only thing you know. And if you don't know that, what else can you know? The knower knows only oneself -- that is the only thing that can be known, because that is the only thing where we are. Everything else is, at the most, looked at from the outside; it can become only an acquaintance. There is only one thing you can look at from the inside, and that is you.
AND WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW IS THE ONLY THING YOU KNOW
AND WHAT YOU OWN IS WHAT YOU DON'T OWN...
See the point of it. What you own is the only thing you don't own. You own your house -- but how can you own it? It was here, and you were not. And one day you will be gone, and it will be here. How can you own it? You come and go. And the house remains and the world remains. You cannot own these things, you only pretend.
AND WHAT YOU OWN IS WHAT YOU DON'T OWN.
Seeing this, the Buddha leaves his palace. Seeing this, the Mahavir leaves his kingdom -- seeing this, that 'This is not what I own, so why bother about it? It has to be taken away, one day or other, so why be unnecessarily anxious about it?'
AND WHERE YOU ARE IS WHERE YOU ARE NOT.
Have you watched it? Where are you? People are in their bodies -- there you are not. People are in their minds -- and there you are not. Your reality is somewhere else beyond the body and behind the mind.
Meditate over these lines.
All profound truths are paradoxical. Hence I call Zen the path of paradox.
THE END
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
| ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
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THE KARMA CLEARING
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MASTERY
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