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as a duty, but as a spontaneous and conscious "response-ability."
There are two kinds of possibilities: either you react or you respond. A man who lives in his mind, reacts. He reacts according to his conditioning as a Christian, as a Hindu, as a Mohammedan. But his reaction is mechanical, any robot can do it. He has been conditioned to do it, hence he is doing it. But it is not out of his own spontaneity, it is not coming from his state of no-mind. When you respond from the state of no-mind -- out of your meditation, not out of your conditioning -- it is response, it is not reaction.
Freedom brings responsibility. You act not according to any commandments, you act not according to Manu or Moses or Jesus, you act according to your own light. And whenever you act according to your own light, there is immense fulfillment, a deep rejoicing.
ONCE KAKUSAN WENT TO SEE KYOZAN. RAISING HIS FOOT, KAKUSAN SAID, "THE TWENTY-EIGHT INDIAN PATRIARCHS WERE LIKE THIS" -- standing on one foot in utter balance -- "AND THE SIX PATRIARCHS OF THE COUNTRY OF T'ANG WERE LIKE THIS TOO, AND you ARE LIKE THIS, AND I AM LIKE THIS!"
Every man of consciousness has a tremendous balance in his life, in his actions, in his gestures. His whole life becomes a dance in balance. And those are the few people who have known the ultimate flowering of consciousness.
KYOZAN CAME DOWN FROM THE ZEN SEAT AND HIT HIM FOUR TIMES WITH THE WISTERIA STAFF.
Kakusan was standing on one foot. KYOZAN CAME DOWN FROM THE ZEN SEAT AND HIT HIM FOUR TIMES WITH THE WISTERIA STAFF -- the Zen staff. What is the meaning of this? He hit him four times because unless you can remain balanced in times of difficulties, in dark nights of the soul when the dawn seems to be almost impossible... when you have lost every hope of finding the truth, when you have lost the friend who was sharing his insight with you and you feel utterly blind, in all these situations if you can still remain balanced, then there is no problem. Your balance will start flowering on its own accord.
Hitting him four times, Kyozan watched. Kakusan did not move, did not lose his balance, did not even ask him, "Why
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