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to you.
Every evening we are sitting in meditation. What are we doing? In our first part, we are throwing off all our diseases. That's why I say that nobody should sit silently. Otherwise, so many people are throwing away their garbage that your mind may start collecting it. Don't listen, just defeat everybody around you. Throw out all your thoughts. The empty mind is the empty boat and you can go in this boat to the further shore. The mind full of thoughts is so heavy, so sick, so divided, that it cannot go anywhere.
A MONK ASKED YAKUSAN, "DID THE ESSENCE OF BUDDHISM EXIST BEFORE BODHIDHARMA CAME?"
"IT DID," SAID YAKUSAN.
"THEN WHY DID HE COME, IF IT ALREADY EXISTED?" ASKED THE MONK.
"HE CAME," SAID YAKUSAN, "JUST BECAUSE IT WAS HERE ALREADY."
In these discourses you will find that the disciples, the inquirers, are always rational, reasonable, logical. But the masters are never logical. You must have noticed that in each dialogue the master is absolutely absurd.
Bodhidharma went to China, according to the legend, to bring the experience and fragrance of Buddha to China. The questioner is perfectly logical in asking, "DID THE ESSENCE OF BUDDHISM EXIST BEFORE BODHIDHARMA CAME?" But he does not understand what he is asking. Such is our unconsciousness. He is asking, "Did the essence ...?" The essence was there, but the essence was unmanifest. Unless a Bodhidharma hits, the essence will remain dormant. So his question looks absolutely logical:
"DID THE ESSENCE OF BUDDHISM EXIST BEFORE BODHIDHARMA CAME?"
And the master's answer does not look right, when he says, "IT DID." Because the inquirer immediately jumps: "Then why did he come? If the essence already existed, what was the need for Bodhidharma to come?" But he does not understand the difference between essence and its manifestation.
Yakusan said, "He came just because the essence was already here." He did not go anywhere else. He came here, seeing that the essence is here, and just a little triggering is needed. The laughter is in you, just a little tickling is needed. Tickling should not produce laughter; there is no causal relationship between
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