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him. He will look like a perfect fool!
Bodhidharma reached China. The whole country was waiting for him. The king himself had come to the border of the country to receive him. A million people had gathered, because a great Master was coming. And when the Master appeared, people started giggling. It was impossible to believe their own eyes. Even the emperor felt very uneasy because this man Bodhidharma had one shoe on one foot and the other he was carrying on his head. What manner of man was this?
The king said, Excuse me, sir, but what are you doing? We had come to receive a sane man; are you insane?
Bodhidharma laughed and said: So you have failed in the examination. If you can understand this only then can you understand other things that I have to say. If you cannot tolerate such a small contradiction, it's not much, just carrying a shoe on the head, if you cannot tolerate and understand this much it will be useless for me to stay here. He turned back. He left the town, went into the forest; he said: There is no need to stay, nobody will be able to understand me; now I will wait. Those who can understand me, they should come to me.
He never entered into the capital again.
Contradictions are very difficult for the mind. Mind lives in a routine. The shoe must be on the foot, that's the accepted thing. It should not be carried on the head. Such an innocent thing -- he was not doing any harm to anybody. But no, impossible.
We have a levelling of everything.
I was just reading a man's memoirs. He was a great scientist, and once a friend played a joke. The friend invited many people for a party: great doctors, scientists, engineers, poets, artists, musicians, and when they had all gathered the host said: I am not going to introduce you to each other, and please don't introduce yourselves to each other, because I don't like labels. So you meet each other man to man -- forget that you are an engineer, a doctor -- I have not invited doctors and engineers and lawyers and advocates, just people, friends.
This scientist who was there says: We were so puzzled. What to do? How to approach each other? Because we cannot
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