| |
as any other search. The search itself is illusory because it has taken one thing for granted: that something is missing. And nothing is missing! Once you take it for granted that something is missing you start looking for it; then you go on looking for it in all directions. And the more you search the more you will miss it, because the more you search the more dust-covered becomes the mirror. The more you travel to seek it, the farther and farther you go in search of it, the more and more frustrated you become. Slowly slowly you start thinking that it is so far away...'That's why I am not reaching it.'
The reality is just the opposite: you are not reaching it because you are it. It is not far away, it is so close by that even to call it 'close' is not right, because even closeness is a kind of distance. It is not distant at all, it breathes in you. It is not 'there', it is here. It is not 'then', it is now. It has always been with you. From the very beginning everyone is a Buddha, everyone is a mirror capable of reflecting.
This is the basic message of Zen -- and the greatest message that has ever been delivered to man, and the greatest liberating force that has ever been brought to the earth. But you will have to look in a totally new way. All that is needed is not search but a new way of looking at things. The common, the ordinary, the usual way has to be dropped. Hence I say the sun rises in the evening. By what name you call it docs not matter a bit because it is wordless, it is wordlessness, it is utter silence. It is unchanging, unmoving; it is eternal, it is timeless.
We are going on an immense journey with Yoka Daishi, a great Zen Master. These sutras are known as SHODOKA, the Song of Enlightenment. When Yoka became enlightened he burst forth singing just like a tree in spring bursts forth, blooms, and thousands of flowers are there, and great fragrance. This is a song. Remember, it has not been addressed to any audience -- that is the beauty of it. If somebody has heard it that is another thing, but Yoka has not addressed it; he was simply singing it out of the sheer joy that had happened in him. In fact, to say that he was singing
|
|
|