| |
death. Once there is a goal they are ready to sacrifice everything for it. They cannot be simply religious -- religion is not their understanding, religion is not their joy, religion is not their way of being; it is their desire, it is again deep down an ego trip. It is the ego that creates the paradise.
Chinese have never been spiritualists in the sense Indians have been spiritualists. They have never been very goal-oriented in the sense Jews have always been goal-oriented, always searching for the promised land. The promised land is herenow, and for three thousand years they have been searching and searching. The search started with Moses and it still continues, and it is going to continue. They are always waiting for the Messiah to come. It is because of their waiting and searching that they could not accept Jesus as the Messiah, because if he is the Messiah then what will happen to their waiting and searching? If he is the promised Messiah, then what? Then what they will do? Their whole life pattern is rooted in the search of a promised land, in the search for a savior. If he is the savior then their whole joy disappears. They cannot accept for the simple reason that they want to continue their desiring and their dreaming and their becoming.
Chinese, in a way, had been very different people. Buddha appealed to them immediately; he became immediate success in the Chinese consciousness. And in Japan even he penetrated deeper because the Japanese have been always very earthly; they live here and now.
Zen, the very word, comes from a Sanskrit root dhyana. It is a mispronunciation of another mispronunciation of another mispronunciation of another mispronunciation. So I am not the only one who goes on mispronouncing words! This is an ancient habit of the awakened ones. The Sanskrit word is dhyana. Buddha pronounced it as jhana -- the first mispronunciation started with Gautam the Buddha. When it reached China, the Chinese Masters, Hui Neng and others, pronounced it as chana, and finally chana became shortened into chan. When it reached Japan, Rinzai and other Masters pronounced it as Zen. It is the same Sanskrit word, dhyana, but with each change
|
|
|