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power, it is just pure power. It has no reference to the other, that's why it can be so humble, so innocent. The pure power is that which the sages have pre-eminently and the politicians and the dictators are most lacking in. That's why I say again and again that politics and religion are diametrically opposite. A politician cannot be religious; it is intrinsically impossible. A religious person cannot be a politician; that too is intrinsically impossible. They move into different kinds of power. One is power over others, the other is simply emptiness inside and the power is God's. It descends in you; because you are empty, you become full of it. The power over others is destructive. The pure power is pure creativity.
Before we enter the sutras there are a few things to be noted. Hubert Benoit calls Zen 'the doctrine abrupt' as opposed to all others which he names 'progressive doctrines'. For the first, for Zen, he uses the singular, and for the others the plural -- because the doctrine abrupt can only be one. But there can be as many progressive doctrines as there are people; each one has to progress in his own way. So there can be millions of progressive doctrines -- he is right in using the plural -- and the abrupt doctrine can only be one. It can't be different for different people, because it is abrupt. It doesn't depend on you, who you are, it depends only on one thing: that you disappear. And the disappearance is abrupt, sudden. This point has to be understood because it is very fundamental to Zen.
Yoga is a progressive doctrine; Zen, the doctrine abrupt. That is its fundamental vision -- of great beauty and grandeur. It simply means one thing: that Buddhahood is not something to be attained. In Yoga the SAMADHI has to be attained: you have to improve upon yourself, you have to go on and on working on yourself. It is a great programme of improvement, of achievement, of accomplishment. In Zen all that you have to find is that you are already a Buddha, that there is no accomplishment, that there is no growth, that there is no attainment, that Buddhahood is everybody's inner nature.
Everybody is a Buddha; whether you know it or not makes
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