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other window a star may be looking at the Buddha, from some other window something else -- a bird may be sitting and singing a song.
ALL BEINGS ARE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING BUDDHAS.
The universe is made of the stuff called 'God' . So God is not in the end. God is in the beginning, in the middle, and the end. Only God is. But let me remind you, when I use the word 'God' I mean godliness.
IT IS LIKE WATER AND ICE:
APART FROM WATER, NO ICE,
OUTSIDE LIVING BEINGS, NO BUDDHAS.
Hakuin says: It is like water and ice. There is no difference between water and ice, and yet a sort of difference. If you have gone to the market to purchase ice, you will not purchase water. You will purchase ice -- you will insist. If somebody says, 'Take this water,' you will say, 'I have come for the ice.' There is a sort of difference. But not much, not really -- only on the surface. The ice will melt and will become water, and the water can become frozen and can be turned into ice. They are two phases of one phenomenon.
You are like ice and Buddha is like water. You are frozen, he has melted. And let me repeat: There is no other alchemy then love to help you melt. Love melts, because love is warmth. People melt only in love. When they are not in love they become cold, and in the cold they freeze. And you must have watched it, even in your small ways. When you are loving you are flowing. When you are flowing you are glowing. When you are loving you expand. When you are not loving you shrink. When you are loving you have warmth around you. When you are not loving you are surrounded by a cold wind -- you are freezing, and anybody who comes close to you will freeze.
There are people, if they look at you with their cold eyes you will feel a shivering. And there are people, when they look at you with their warmth, with their love, you suddenly feel this is your home. There are eyes which give you the feeling of being at home, and there are eyes which stare at you and make you aware that you are a stranger here.
APART FROM WATER, NO ICE,
OUTSIDE LIVING BEINGS, NO BUDDHAS.
So Buddha hood is nothing but a state of merger.
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