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while. There is no home for you anymore. You are a homeless cloud floating in the sky, in total freedom, unattached to anything.
IF YOU DO, THE TAO IS IMMOVABLE.
Nangaku is saying, "If you don't listen to my advice and still go home, remember that your Tao, your empty buddha inside, never goes anywhere. So you are just acting; just a dead body, a corpse is going. Your real being is immovable; it never goes anywhere, it is always now and here." And he said, "AND AN OLD WOMAN NEXT DOOR TO YOU WILL TALK OF YOUR INFANT NAME."
Ma Tzu's childhood name was Baso. Nangaku is making a joke about his name, that the old woman next door to his home will call him Baso. They will not recognize that he is no more Baso, that he is Ma Tzu, that he is a great master. In their eyes he will be just the same; they have seen him born, and they have seen him growing up. It is very difficult for them to recognize that he has become a buddha, and they will think it very insulting to the Buddha.
MA TZU RESPECTFULLY ACCEPTED IT AND SWORE TO HIMSELF NEVER TO GO HOME, HOWEVER OFTEN HE MIGHT BE REBORN.
He is saying that even if he is born again -- although an enlightened person is never born again -- he is giving his promise that even if he is born again and again, he will never go home. He has understood his homelessness, his aloneness.
STAYING ONLY IN CHIANG-SI, HE HAD DISCIPLES COME TO HIM FROM ALL PARTS OF CHINA.
ONE DAY A MONK CALLED TA-MEI JOINED A TRAINING ASSEMBLY OF MA TZU. TA-MEI ASKED THE MASTER: "WHAT IS BUDDHA?"
MA TZU REPLIED: "IT IS THE PRESENT MIND" -- the teaching of Eno that he followed all his life.
But remember that the mind is never in the present; it is either in the past or in the future. In the present is empty mind. You can call it the present mind if you are interested in using the positive words or you can call it no-mind, if you want to use the negative. The truth can be expressed both ways, negatively or positively. The present mind in fact means no-mind. For those who understand the presentness, all mind disappears. Mind can be in the past, mind can be in the future, but never in the present. Hence being
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