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nothingness. And all that the mystics have done is, they have given a laugh and jumped. They have simply said goodbye and jumped.
It is so enchanting, so magnetically pulling; the gravitation is so much that once you look in, you cannot resist taking the jump. It is risky, it is dangerous, you may be lost. But on the contrary, you find yourself for the first time. You were lost before; hence the laughter. And now you have come home, which was just looking inwards, and everything that you ever wanted is fulfilled. You have entered the lotus paradise.
This statement -- AT THE TOP OF THE HUNDRED-FOOT POLE, GO FORWARD -- is not concerned with an actual pole. It is concerned with your hundred-foot-long ego. That is your pole, where you are standing.
Look within and take a jump!
Then go forward.
THE NUN REPLIED, "AT THE TOP OF THE HUNDRED-FOOT POLE, THERE IS NO PLACE TO GO."
DAIO SAID, "WHERE THERE IS NO PLACE TO STEP, GO A HUNDRED THOUSAND STEPS FARTHER -- ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE ABLE TO WALK ALONE IN THE RED SKIES, PERVADING THE UNIVERSE AS YOUR WHOLE BODY."
Zen has a language of its own. It is simple, but because we are complicated we cannot understand the simple language. A hundred-foot-long pole... you would never have thought that it could be representative of the ego.
Once you see the metaphor, it becomes very clear that everybody is standing on a very long pole. And people are trying to get on longer poles. When Henry Ford was dying, before his death he was asked, "What have you learned in your whole life? Because you became the world's greatest rich man -- from poverty to riches."
Henry Ford said, "Don't remind me. I have learned only one thing: climbing poles. And when you have climbed the pole, you look so awkward, so stupid. Fortunately you are alone there sitting on your pole. I have learned the art of climbing poles, that has been my whole life. I have not learned anything. I am dying without having learned anything from life."
But Daio's interpretation:
WHERE THERE IS NO PLACE TO STEP...
`Place' is always outside. Inside there is no place, there is only space. And you should
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