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We are tired. We already have one thousand and one Buddhas here, we don't need anyone else. But if you want to become yourself, you can come in.'
Remember, Zen is not an imitation. No Zen Master can ever think of writing a book like Thomas Campus' book 'imitation of Christ'. Impossible. The very title will be laughed at.
The real religion is not imitation of anybody else, it is a search to find out your own authentic self, who you are. So just outer discipline will not help; outer discipline can be used as a means, but it is not the goal.
So remember that the basic thing has to happen inside you.
'OH, IT'S EASY ENOUGH TO FORSAKE THE WORLD AND BECOME A BONZAI, THE DIFFICULT THING IS THEN TO BECOME A TRUE BUDDHIST.'
The difficult thing is always to become a true Christian, a true Mohammedan, a true Hindu, a true Buddhist, a true Sikkha, because the difficult thing is to become true.
Man is a deceiver. He goes on deceiving himself. And it is much easier to become someone, to pretend to be someone; it is much easier to act like someone, than to be. To be is arduous. You will have to pass through many fires; you will have to pass through many deaths and rebirths; you will have to move through a great revolution, a total mutation. It is difficult. It is very easy to pretend, it is very easy to be pseudo. The whole world is full of pesudo-religious people. They go to the church, they go to the mosque, they pray, they pretend to meditate, but one is simply surprised. Whom are they deceiving? They are deceiving themselves and nobody else.
This should be remembered because you are on the path, you are here as seekers. The greatest pitfall for a seeker is to become a victim of self-deception; it is cheap and it looks like a short-cut. Never pretend. Once pretension settles in, you have taken a wrong move and it will be very difficult for you to attain to any reality. And you will have to go back one day or other because unless you drop that pretension you will never grow.
For example. If you are at the age of twenty-five and you pretend and you go on pretending up to the age of fifty, and then you realise that a certain
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