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the awakened one has one thousand hands. Can you see in my two hands, ten thousand hands?
The metaphor simply means that a master, just with two hands, manages to work almost as if he has a thousand hands. He works on thousands of disciples. He is the greatest creator in the world. He does not paint, he does not play the guitar, he does not sing. But what he creates is... he peels every disciple, uncovers the hidden treasure at the very center of every living being. His two hands are not just two hands, because he is working on thousands of people -- hence the metaphor.
But there are idiots who will not understand metaphors, who will try to find out, "Is it true?" They want facts. As far as facts are concerned, Buddha has only two eyes and two hands, but as far as truth is concerned, he has ten thousand eyes and ten thousand hands.
To see what the tree contains one should look at the fruit of the tree; the fruit is decisive. If one awakened master creates a tremendous atmosphere in which unlit souls become afire, with his two hands he is doing miracles. With his two eyes he is looking in thousands of souls to awaken them. But it is a truth, it is not a factuality. You cannot take a photograph of it.
Ma-yu asked Rinzai,
"THE GREAT COMPASSIONATE ONE HAS A THOUSAND HANDS AND A THOUSAND EYES. WHICH IS THE TRUE EYE?"
"In one thousand eyes," he is asking, "which is the true eye?" He is behaving just like an average, blind, sleepy, unconscious human being, because those thousands of eyes are nothing but reflections of the one eye that is just in the middle of your two eyebrows. We have called it the third eye. These two eyes look outwards, that third eye looks inwards; that is the true eye. But that true eye can function on a thousand people, on ten thousand people, on ten million people.
The master never gives you any carbon copy; all are as authentic as the original. He always shares with you the original, the authentic. His clarity, his vision, is so vast that millions can share it. That is the meaning of the metaphor.
But the stupid persons would always ask questions about metaphors. They don't understand that
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