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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 2
Chapter 2: Selling Water by the River
Question 5
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
Question 5
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL DISEASE OF HUMANKIND ACCORDING TO ZEN?
Desire, desiring, becoming. Always hankering for something -- money, God, NIRVANA. Always hankering for something -- power, prestige, pull. Always hankering for something. Never being here, always being somewhere else: that is the fundamental disease, the disease called 'becoming'. You are a being. You are already that which you can become -- there is no need for you to become anything else. You are already that which you are now trying to become.
That's why, if you go to a Zen master and you ask: 'I want to become a Buddha,' he will beat you. And he will say, 'If I don't beat you, the world will laugh at me. You are a Buddha -- and you ask how to become a Buddha?'
You are gods and goddesses: that is the most fundamental here. All that is needed is a recognition -- nothing else is needed. You are not to become. How can you become if you are not already? One only becomes that which one is. You cannot become something else, it is impossible! How can the rose become a lotus? The lotus becomes the lotus, the rose becomes the rose.
If somebody becomes a buddha, that simply means he was a Buddha already. If somebody becomes a god, that simply means he was God already -- it took time for him to recognize it. Dull people take a longer time to recognize, that's all. Intelligent people don't take that much time. Fully intelligent people, totally intelligent people, don't take a single moment. Just the moment it is uttered, it is recognized. Just a nod of the head, and the work is finished.
This desiring creates a drunkenness in man. It creates unawareness, it creates unconsciousness, you become alcoholic. Because you are not here -- so how can you be rooted? how can you be grounded? how can you be centered? You are roaming all around the world, all over the world -- to be this, to be that, to be there, to be somewhere else.... Except THIS place where you find yourself, you want to be everywhere else. Except this moment that you are in, you want to be in every other moment.
You think of life beyond death -- but you never live the life that is before death.
One man came to me some day and asked, 'What do you say about life after death?' I said, 'I don't talk about it. I talk about life BEFORE death.' After death? You have not even lived the life that is before death, and you are talking about life after death? Live this! and the other will take care of itself.
Desire, ambition, creates a drunkenness. One's eyes become dull, one starts feeling very very shaky, one becomes unconscious. The desire becomes a curtain on the consciousness -- that is the fundamental disease. And if you are in desire, you cannot see what truth is. Truth can be known only when the drunkenness called desire disappears. Then your eyes are clear and clean. Then whatsoever is, appears as it is -- you become a mirror.
A drunk is standing in a restaurant in front of a cigarette machine. He puts in one coin after another and takes out one packet of cigarettes after another.
Another customer comes along. He watches for a while and then asks, 'Can't you let me have a go?'
'You must be cuckoo!' replies the drunk. 'Can't you see I'm on a winning streak?'
Or this....
Two soldiers were drinking in a small-town joint. Before them were bottles in a great variety, and at intervals they took time out to stare at an old crone who sat at a nearby table. One or the other of the fellows would murmur, 'Not yet.'
An onlooker, intrigued, finally asked the reason for their strange behaviour. To which one replied, 'As soon as she begins to look beautiful we are going to call it a night.'
Yes, if you become too drunk then things start appearing in a different way. Then an ugly woman can look beautiful, then an old woman can look young. Then things are no more as they are. When you are drunk you live in a totally private world.
A man stayed out late, drinking, and crept into bed in the dark. When he awoke at daybreak, he saw three pairs of feet sticking out at the bottom of the bed -- and one was a black pair. He woke his wife up and said, 'Hey, Mary, look at that -- three pairs!'
She said, 'Don't talk bloody daft, you're drinking yourself stupid. Go down and count them!'
So the husband got out, carefully counted and examined the objects, and said, 'You're quite right -- only two pairs. And ain't mine dirty!'
This is the situation. You can't see what is happening to you. You can't see what is the case, you can't see what is here right now. Because you can't SEE! You can't see at all -- you have lost your eyesight, you are blind. Desire is too heavy on your eyes, it is a layer of dust.
According to Zen, desire is the most fundamental disease of mankind. Once you understand this, this desire disappears. Zen does not say: Fight desire. Zen does not say: Struggle against desire -- because if you struggle, you will create another desire. That is the way of desire -- all struggle is the way of desire. If you want to struggle with the desire, you will have to create another desire. So you will get out of one trap and you will fall immediately into another trap.
That's how it happens to so-called religious people. They get bored with the world and they start desiring God, or NIRVANA -- again the desire has come in. And the desire is the world. You cannot desire God; whatsoever you desire remains the world. Desire is the world. Desirelessness is godliness, desirelessness is nirvana.
So the question is not of creating another desire. That's what happens to millions of people. Once they are fed-up with the world -- and everybody gets fed-up one day or other -- they start creating a new desire, a fresh desire: How to reach heaven? How to go to God? How to live in paradise? The desire has changed direction, but it remains the same. Now they desire SAMADHI, now they desire SIDDHIS, powers, now they desire this and that -- but desiring continues. The content has changed, the object has changed, but the situation is the same.
Zen says: Try to understand desire. Try to understand desiring -- the mechanism of it. Just see how desiring leads you astray. In that seeing is transformation. One day, when it has been seen utterly, totally, to its very core... a sudden realization, a sudden enlightenment. You are back home: you start laughing.
That's why the monk says, 'When my master kicked me, since that time I have not stopped laughing.' That kick became a sudden enlightenment; that kick opened a door. In that kick, desire disappeared and he could see himself as he is.
So remember this. Otherwise one problem is replaced by another problem, and you remain in the same trouble. The trouble never changes.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl taking a stroll through the woods. All at once, she saw an extremely ugly bullfrog seated on a log. And to her amazement, the bullfrog spoke to her.
'Maiden,' croaked the frog, 'would you do me a big favour? This will be hard for you to believe, but I was once a handsome, charming prince; and then a mean, ugly old witch cast a spell over me and turned me into a frog.'
'Oh, what a pity!' exclaimed the pretty girl. 'I'll do anything I can to help you break such a spell.'
'Well, Miss,' replied the frog, 'the only way that this spell can be taken off and I can be returned to a handsome young man again is for some lovely and pretty young girl to take me home and let me spend the night under her pillow.'
The young girl took the ugly frog home and placed him beneath her pillow that night when she retired. When she awoke the next morning, sure enough, there beside her in the bed was a very young, handsome man, and plainly of royal blood.
And so they lived happily ever after, except that to this day her father and mother still do not believe her story.
And all your life is nothing but such stories, because all desiring creates only fantasies. All desiring is fabulous, all desiring creates illusions. You go on changing -- you change one illusion to another, you go from one illusion to another, but you go on changing illusions. Always from one illusion to another illusion is your movement.
When you understand the very mechanism of illusions as such, there is a break, a breakthrough. An insight dawns on you. In that moment, not only this world becomes meaningless, ALL worlds become meaningless. In that moment, there is nothing to be desired. You don't desire even desirelessness; there is nothing to be desired. Suddenly desire is not there, that smoke is not there, and the flame burns bright.
Remember not to change problems, from one illusion to another. It does not help much.
A little girl was deeply impressed by the clergyman's sermon as to the separation of the sheep and the goats. That night after she had gone to bed she was heard sobbing, and the mother went to her to ask what was the matter.
'It's about the goats!' Jenny confessed at last. 'I'm so afraid I am a goat, and so I'll never go to heaven. Oh, I'm so afraid I'm a goat.'
'My dear,' the mother assured her weeping child, 'you're a sweet little lamb. If you were to die tonight, you would go straight to heaven.' Her words were successful in quieting the little girl, and she slept.
But the following night Jenny was found crying again in her bed, and when the mother appeared she wailed, 'I'm afraid about the goats.'
'But Mother has told you that you are a little lamb, and that you must never worry over being a goat.'
Jenny, however, was by no means comforted, and continued her sobs.
'Yes, Mamma,' she declared softly, 'I know that. But I'm afraid -- awfully afraid you're a goat.'
From one problem to another... but the basic problem remains This is not the way to solve problems -- one has to look at the very root from where the problems arise.
So Zen does not call anger the problem, Zen does not call sex the problem, Zen does not call greed the problem, Zen does not call aggression, violence, the problem. Zen calls the root problem desiring -- and all other problems arise out of desiring. Cut the root, and the whole tree disappears.
Next: Chapter 2: Selling Water by the River, Question 6
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
| ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
|
THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
|
|
ENERGY ENHANCEMENT TESTIMONIALS EE LEVEL1 EE LEVEL2 EE LEVEL3 EE LEVEL4 EE FAQS |
