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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: Zen - The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest | Previous Next | |
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MONK SAID, "AREN'T YOU GETTING AWAY FROM THE POINT?" Bringing the Buddha Hall ... "You are asking something impossible! And I have asked a simple question -- what is the need of the whole assembly? Between two of us, we can weigh what remains after there is no mental activity."
UMMON EXCLAIMED, "KWATZ!"
KWATZ! is a Zen stick. When the master has not the stick with him, this is a substitute for it. He shouts, "Kwatz!" With that shout he is hitting you to understand a simple thing:
No question, no answer ... just be.
But the poor monk seems to have not understood. The masters have been shouting from mountaintops and the questioners, curious, are still deep down in the dark valleys -- almost deaf and blind, they can neither see nor hear.
UMMON SAID, "YOU PLUNDERER OF VACUITY!"
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, UMMON WAS ASKED,
"HOW ABOUT WHEN THE WORD IS UTTERED THAT EXPRESSES ALL THINGS?"
UMMON SAID, "TEARING DOWN, BREAKING UP."
KWATZ! It is a sound, found by Zen, that shatters your mind. At least for a moment you simply remain silent, amazed. Because it is not language. You have not expected it. But it shatters you and that is the whole purpose of a master -- to destroy the disciple so that the disciple himself can rise as a master of himself. Only pseudo masters go on forcing disciplehood on people. The authentic ones initiate you just in order to destroy you, because unless you are destroyed you will never be your real self. You will always remain a persona, a personality.
Persona is the root from where the word `personality' comes. In Greek drama the persona was used. It was a mask. You can hear the sound, but you cannot see the face of who is behind it. You can see that in the root, sona is sound. So you hear the sound but you don't see the face.
Out of that has come the word `personality'. It means you see people hiding behind all kinds of garbage. Somebody thinks he is the president of his country. Somebody thinks he is the prime minister. Somebody thinks, "I'm the most beautiful person." But all the presidentship withers away, the premiership is wavering just like a bamboo in a strong wind, ready
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