|
Main Index
|
| |
| |
|
| |
be. Howsoever they are, he remains open. He is a mirror -- he reflects.
Have you not watched? If you go before the mirror, if you are angry the mirror reflects your angry face, if you are laughing the mirror reflects your laughing face. If you are old the mirror reflects your old age, if you are young the mirror reflects your youth. You cannot say to the mirror, 'Yesterday you reflected me laughing, and today you are reflecting me so angry and sad? What do you mean? You are inconsistent. You don't have any character! I will throw you out of the house.'
The mirror has no character. And the real man is like a mirror.
Zen is non-judgemental, Zen is non-evaluative, Zen imposes no character on anybody. Because to impose character, you will need valuation -- good and bad. To impose character you will have to make shoulds and should-nots; you will have to give commandments. To impose character you will have to be a Moses -- you cannot be a Bodhidharma.
To impose character you will have to create fear and greed. Otherwise who will listen to you? You will have to be a B. F. Skinner and treat people like rats -- train them, punish them, reward them, so that they are forced into a certain pattern. That's what has been done to you. Your parents have done it, your education has done it, your society, state, has done it.
Zen says: Now it is enough, get out of it. Drop all this nonsense, start being yourself. That does not mean that Zen leaves you in chaos. No, just the opposite. Zen, instead of giving you a character, and a conscience to manipulate the character, gives you consciousness.
This difference has to be noted, remembered. All other religions give you conscience. Zen gives you consciousness. Conscience means, 'This is good, that is bad. Do this, don't do that.' Consciousness simply means, 'Be a mirror: reflect, respond.' Response is right, reaction is wrong. To be responsible does not mean to follow certain rules; to ke responsible means to be capable of response.
Zen makes you luminous from within. Not an imposition from the outside, not cultivation from the outside; it does not give you an armour, a defence-mechanism.
|
|
|
|
| |