| |
naturally, is taken for granted. Just as the tree was taken for granted, he was also taken for granted.
But his sudden burst of laughter...
Gautam Buddha called him close and gave him the rose. And he told the other ten thousand disciples, "What I can give you in words I have given to you. And what I cannot give in words I am transferring to Mahakashyap."
Thus began a strange transference of the innermost experience of truth from the master to the disciple. Mahakashyap never wrote anything and Mahakashyap never did anything. It is not known how he initiated people. The man was not only strange, his methods were also strange.
Before dying he gave his robe to a person to whom he had never spoken a single word. And the person touched the feet of Mahakashyap and again the same story... the tears of joy and gratitude and thankfulness. And the man said, "You were a great master; you have given me a great responsibility, but I promise you that I will fulfill it with my total heart." This man became the second patriarch of Zen Buddhism. And because Mahakashyap gave his robe, this became the form of choosing the successor. For all these twenty-five centuries Zen masters have chosen their successors by just giving them their bowl, their robe.
It is called the transmission of the light, the opening of the mystic rose.
You are asking, "In what soil and in which climate might one find the mystic rose?"
Your heart is the soil.
Your trust is the climate.
And your being is the mystic rose -- its opening, blossoming, releasing its fragrance.
The mystic rose became just a symbol of the man whose being is dormant no more, is asleep no more, but is fully awake and has opened all its petals and has become sensitive to all that is truthful, beautiful, good -- the very splendor of existence. His being has become part of the eternal and the immortal. He is no more the same man he used to be. He has found his real self, his original face.
The only way is to look inwards: there is the soil. To look with trust, with love and with a guarantee that if other people have found themselves there is no reason why you cannot
|
|
|