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a buddha is not a buddha if he cannot come back to the ordinary humanity, if he cannot become again just simple, innocent, carrying his nirvana, carrying his ecstasy in the bottle of wine, utterly drunk with the divine but still going towards the marketplace.
I could see that whoever painted the tenth picture was right. Up to the ninth, it is simply logical. Beyond the ninth, the tenth, is a great realization.
According to me, up to the ninth a man is only a buddha; with the tenth he also becomes a Zorba. And this has been my constant theme: I have been insisting that the tenth picture is authentic, and if it were not there, I was going to paint it. Without it, ending in nothingness looks a little sad, looks a little serious, looks empty.
All this effort of finding yourself, meditating, going beyond the mind, realizing your being and ending up in desert of nothingness... no, there must be something more to it, something more beyond it, where flowers blossom, where songs arise, where dance is again possible -- of course, on a totally different level.
But these pictures of tending the ox have been found to be tremendously significant in explaining the whole path step by step.
Ta Hui says, SINCE YOU ARE STUDYING THIS PATH... Remember what I have said about Ta Hui -- he is a teacher; otherwise no master can use the word studying. The master will say, "Since you are following this path, since you are on this path..." Studying? -- that is not the way of the seeker; that is the way of the curious student who wants to know something -- more information, more knowledge -- but who is not interested in actually transforming himself.
But Ta Hui is a teacher. Although he tries in every possible way to pose like a master, he cannot deceive anyone who is enlightened. Here and there will be loopholes, but he cannot imagine that they will show his masterhood to be just a hypocrisy.
It would have been absolutely correct if he had said, "I am only a teacher." But he is not saying that. When there is a possibility to be accepted as a master -- even the emperor accepts him as a great master of Ch'an -- then he keeps quiet. He must have
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