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Buddhism does not recognize what has grown through Bodhidharma's insight.
So when, ON HEARING THIS VERSE, KYOZAN COMMENTED, "WHAT YOU HAVE GOT IS JUST NYORAI ZEN, NOT PATRIARCHAL ZEN," he means, "You have got a great insight into things by following the traditional Buddhism, but you don't know there are higher skies beyond the skies, which Bodhidharma opened, which is called Patriarchal Zen"
Bodhidharma has contributed so much that he has become himself a new source of realization, and his insight is more revolutionary. He has used new methods; he has used new devices, finding words impotent. His contribution is so great that the traditional Buddhism has become as dead as all traditional religions have become. But what Bodhidharma brought is still alive.
He himself is a disciple of Buddha, but his addition of new methods, of new strategies which were not even thought of by Buddha...
You cannot think of Buddha hitting a "poor" Maneesha. When she asked the question, her poverty was not true poverty. But when Zen Master Stonehead hit her head with his staff, she bowed down with gratitude.
Just think, if somebody hits you and you bow down and express your thankfulness, the poverty changes. It becomes real poverty, and the real poverty is the real richness. The false poverty is dependent on your possessions.
The man who brought me to Poona sometime in the sixties was a good Marathi and Hindi writer, Rishabhdas Ranka. He had lived in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram and was very much respected. According to Gandhi, all religions are one, no religion is higher or lower. Rishabhdas Ranka was writing a book on this theme. I asked him what the title of his book was. The title was: BHAGWAN MAHAVIRA AND MAHATMA GAUTAM BUDDHA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY.
I told him, "You have already decided that Mahavir is "Bhagwan" and Buddha is just a mahatma. You are not an unprejudiced researcher. What are your grounds?"
All that he could find was that Mahavira's dispossession of things was total, because he discarded even clothes, he remained naked, and Buddha kept three garments. "That's why I cannot call him `Bhagwan'."
I said, "Then how
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