Zen people say that when you know, you have to say, knowing well that it cannot be said. You have to sing it.
Zen Masters have been very creative. Either they were singers, dancers, or painters, or in some sort of art, calligraphy, pottery. Whatsoever they could do they did. That became the gesture of their expression. They were not inactive people. Deep down they were not doers, and on the surface they were not inactive at all. Deep down they were just instrumental to the divine. No doer, no idea of doing anything -- just being, but on the surface very creative. The world would have been far richer if every religion had developed such a school as Zen.
For example, Hindu monks have lived a very uncreative life. Jaina monks have lived a very uncreative life. Except Zen, even Buddhists have lived a very uncreative life. So has been the case with the Catholics.
Zen brings creativity. And remember, if you want to be one with the creator, you will have to learn some ways of creativity. The only way to be one with the creator is to be in some moment of creativity, when you are lost. The potter is lost in making his pottery; the potter is lost while working on the wheel. The painter is lost while painting. The dancer is lost; there is no dancer, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments, where you touch God, where God touches you.
Now, the scholar, the so-called scholar, becomes wordy. He goes on learning more words, more words, more information, more scriptures. He has no silence. That is a very lopsided phenomenon. Then against the scholar there are a few saints, who keep quiet; they don't even say a single word. That too is moving to the other extreme. They become uncreative. Of course, they are silent, better than the scholar -- at least they will not throw their rubbish into other people's heads, at least they are not committing any crime -- but in a higher sense they are also criminals because they are not benefiting existence. They are parasites. They are not making existence richer by their being here. They are not helping God in his dance, in his song.
Zen brings the highest synthesis. Don't be afraid of speaking, but don't go on speaking if you don't know. Don't be silent. Just being silent will not help.
It has to be understood because too many times this comes to your mind too: Why go on speaking? Why not keep quiet? But your silence will be YOUR silence. The words will go on moving, revolving inside you. You will become a madhouse inside. You may look silent from the outside; you will not be silent inside. How can you simply drop those words, those old habits of many lives? The mind will go on chattering, the mind will go on saying things, repeating things. The mind is like an automaton; even if you don't want to talk the mind goes on. If you don't talk to others it goes on talking to itself. It creates both the parties: it talks from one side and answers from another side; it goes on playing the game. From the outside one can be easily silent, but from the inside?
And if you are silent from the inside, you will be surprised that your silence becomes so loaded with ecstasy that you have to sing. There is no other way. That you have to dance, that you have to share. When you have you have to share. If you have it at all you will have to share. If you don't have it you can keep quiet, but what is the point of keeping quiet if you don't have it?
There are two types of people: one who goes on talking without having it, and one who goes on keeping silent without having it. Both are in the same boat.
There is a third type of person, who has come to know it, who has really become silent and in the silence he has heard the soundless sound, in the silence God has delivered his message to him. God has spoken to him. He has had a dialogue with God himself. The silence has filled his heart with so much juice, with so much life, with life abundant, that he is bursting.
He has to say it. There is no way to get rid of it.
And his saying will have a totally different significance because words will not be mere words. If such a person sits silently, even his silence will be a sharing. If such a person keeps completely silent, you will see his silence is singing all around him. You will feel the vibe.
His silence is saying something. He is indicating from his silence too. If he speaks he speaks.
If he is silent, then too he speaks.
If you don't sing it, remember, you don't have it. If it does not overflow in a thousand and one gestures, then it is not there. You cannot hold it if it is there. And you cannot possess it if it is there; it is not your property. You cannot become the owner of it. You cannot hoard it, you cannot be miserly about it. If it is there at all, it drowns you utterly. It possesses you. You cannot possess it; it possesses you. And then it leads you into a thousand and one gestures. In a thousand and one streams you start flowing, and whatsoever you do becomes an expression.
[....]
Truth is all around, but your interpretations are YOUR interpretations. God is speaking all the time, but you hear not, or even if you hear, you hear something else. You hear according to you, your mind comes in, and hence you go on missing.
Unless the mind is dropped you will not be able to know what truth is. Truth cannot be discovered by mind; mind is the barrier. It is because of the mind that you have not been able to discover it. It is not a question of how to train the mind to know the truth. The more the mind is trained and becomes capable, the less is the possibility to know the truth. The more skilled a mind, the farther away you are from the truth.
Mind is the barrier. No-mind is the door.
How to attain to no-mind? The only way -- the ONLY way -- is to be in the present. The only way is not to think of the past, not to think of the future. And you cannot think of the present. That is the whole secret: you cannot think of the present; there is not space enough for thought to move. Thought needs room to move. Can you think anything right now? If you think it, either it will be of the past or of the future.
This moment of silence. If you think, "Yes, this is a moment of silence," it is already past.
Or you say, "How beautiful!" It is already past. Utter a word "beautiful," and it is already past.
You cannot think. Thinking stops when you are in the present. So that is the only key, and it is a master key; it unlocks all the doors of being. Immediacy, that is the whole insistence of Zen.
If you go to a Zen Master and you ask something, it is unpredictable what he will do to you. He may hit you. Or he may not hit you; he may hit himself! Or he may say something absurd, totally irrelevant to what you have asked. Somebody asks, "How to attain Buddhahood?" and the Master says, "The cypress tree in the courtyard." Now what? How are they related? They are not, but the Master is indicating, "Please, drop all this nonsense. Look at this -- THIS -- cypress tree in the courtyard. What nonsense are you talking about? -- Buddha, and how to become a Buddha. You are talking about the past and the future. You have heard about Buddha in the past, so you have a greed, a desire. Now you want to become a Buddha in the future, so you have come to me. All nonsense." He simply gives something immediate; he says, "Look! The cypress tree in the courtyard." It is not relevant if you think in terms of the mind. If you think in terms of no-mind it is the only thing relevant.
A man comes to a Zen Master and asks, "What is the way?" And the Master says, "Listen," and everything becomes silent, and just by the side of the Master's hut flows a fountain, and the water is making the sound, the murmur. The sound of the water, the sound of the running water. For a moment everything is silent, the seeker, the questioner, is also. The Master says, "Listen. Hear. This is the way." The sound of the running water? That's all he has heard. And the Master says, "Hear! This is the way to become a Buddha, to attain to enlightenment." He is bringing the mind to an immediacy, to a state of immediacy.
What is he saying? He is not saying anything about the sound of the running water. In that moment, when suddenly the Master shocked the inquirer -- because he was asking about the way to attain to nirvana, and the Master says, "Listen", it is so out of context, it is so unrelated to his question, that for a moment, out of the shock of it, the sheer shock of it, everything becomes silent. And when the Master says, "Hear. This is the way." He is not saying anything about the running water or its sound. He is indicating the silent moment that has penetrated into the consciousness of the inquirer. He says, "Hear. This is the way."
If you become immediate you attain. If you live moment to moment you attain.
Once a Western psychiatrist went to see a Zen Master in Japan. "How do you deal with neurotics?" he asked.
The Master replied, simply, "I trap them."
Trap them? The psychiatrist could not understand what he means by trapping them. How can you trap a neurotic? The neurotic will trap you!
"But how?" pressed the psychiatrist.
The Master replied, "I get them to where they cannot ask any more questions."
Then they are trapped, if they cannot ask any more questions.
If the mind is allowed to ask questions, then the mind goes on and on, so the Zen Master brings you down to the immediate facticity of life. Sometimes he may hit you. By hitting, suddenly you are herenow. It is great compassion.
You ask, "Has God created the world?" and the Master hits you, sharply. For a moment you are puzzled, shocked. For a moment all thinking stops. The very shock of it, the unpredictableness of it. For a moment, certainly, certainly for a moment, everything stops.
And the Master says, "This, this is how God created the world." This is how God goes on creating the world. This moment of pure silence, this moment of no-mind, is the door to all solutions, to salvation, to liberation.
This is unique; sometimes a Master will do something which you had not expected at all.
And the Master can do that only if he is not following certain rules. He is not following any. If he simply repeats from old Masters, then disciples become acquainted with it. No, sometimes he will do something you cannot believe.
There was a Zen Master who used to talk about God or Buddha, but whenever he would talk about God or Buddha or the ultimate reality he would raise his hand: one finger pointing towards the sky. This became a joke among his disciples. Whenever they would talk about such great things they would raise their fingers and point to God. A small young boy was the attendant of the Master; he used to bring his tea and things like that. He became a perfect master in showing his finger, and he was always there and the Master was always doing it to everybody, so he became very perfect; he could imitate it perfectly.
And the Master was aware of it. Sometimes he would be standing by the side at the back and the Master would raise his finger and he would also raise his finger and everybody would laugh -- and the Master was aware of what was happening.
One day the boy did that, and the Master called him in front of him, took a sharp knife, and cut off his finger. The boy's finger was cut off. The pain was sharp; the boy shrieked. And the Master said, "Stop! Now do it. Now do it! Whatsoever you have been doing for so long -- now do it without the finger!"
And when the Master shouted, "Stop!" all pain disappeared in that moment, there was silence. And the small young boy showed the finger which was not there anymore, blood was flowing. But it is said in that moment he became enlightened.
Now, it is possible. That very sharpness of it.
Another story. In a Zen Master's ashram there were five hundred monks, and there were two wings. Just in the middle was the Master's hut; on one side was one wing, on the other side the other wing. There was a beautiful cat, and there was a great debate between these two sides as to whom it belonged. It almost became a quarrel, and things went to such a state that both the wings were ready to kill each other for the cat. To whom does it belong? The left wing was saying, "It belongs to us"; and the right wing was saying. "It belongs to us." It was a really beautiful cat.
The Master heard it. He called the whole ashram, and the cat was brought, and he said, "Now, give me a true answer, any one of you, and the cat will belong to him. Stand up and show your understanding of reality, any one of you. And if you don't show within seconds, I will cut the cat in two, and one part will go to the left side and one part will go to the right side."
They were shocked. They could not find out how to respond to the Master's demand. What to do so that the cat can be saved? What to do? They started thinking. In their very thinking they missed the moment because when you think, you cannot be immediate and you cannot show your understanding of reality. You cannot show the understanding of immediacy. Not a single monk out of those five hundred could show.
For seconds the Master waited, then took a sword, cut the cat in two; half the cat was given to each wing, and he disposed of it. He said, "Now go." They were all sorry.
By the evening, one monk, who had gone outside, came back. When he came in to see the Master, he was just taking his shoes off, and the Master said, "Where have you been? Were you not there when I cut the cat in two? I had told the other monks that if they can show some understanding of reality the cat can be saved. Where have you been?"
The young man, who had taken off one shoe and was going to take off the other shoe, took that shoe, put it on his head, walked back.
And the Master called him, "Come, my son. Had you been here the cat would be alive still.
The cat could have been saved if you were here."
That immediacy. Not that this is the answer, but the immediacy. That was the moment. He allowed it to happen. It was not done with the mind, with thinking. It was done without any thinking, it was done without any mind. He simply said that it is as foolish as me having my shoe on my head to cut the cat. It is as foolish. But it was not an answer from the mind. It was an immediate response. And the Master said, "My boy, if you had been here, the cat would have been alive. But those fools could not show any understanding."
Now this small, beautiful anecdote:
A PUZZLED MONK ONCE SAID TO FUKETSU, "YOU SAY TRUTH CAN BE EXPRESSED WITHOUT SPEAKING, AND WITHOUT KEEPING SILENT. HOW CAN THIS BE?"
FUKETSU ANSWERED, "IN SOUTHERN CHINA, IN THE SPRING, WHEN I WAS ONLY A LAD, AH! HOW THE BIRDS SANG AMONG THE BLOSSOMS."
A very simple anecdote, but with great significance. Meditate over it.
A PUZZLED MONK ONCE SAID TO FUKETSU ...
From where do you become puzzled? From the mind. The mind is always dividing things, and then cannot figure it out. Once you divide, there is conflict and confusion. How can it be?
Once you divide -- this is good, this is bad -- then the question arises: "Why has God created a world where so much evil exists?" You divide, that this is good and this is bad, and once you divide, then the problem arises: "Why has God created such a world where so much evil exists, so much bad?"
Now, you call God "God" because you think he is good. God is both and neither. Division is yours. It is your problem; it is not God's problem. You say, "Why do so many people die?
Why has God created a world where death happens?" You don't understand at all. First you divide life in two parts, life and death. It is undivided. For God death is as beautiful as birth; they are both parts of the same phenomenon. For the whole there is no distinction between birth and death. Birth is a death, and death is a birth. They both are the same: two polarities, two which can exist only in togetherness. Life cannot exist without death, and neither can death exist without life.
Have you ever observed the fact? All that you love in life is possible only because of death. You love a woman because today she is beautiful, tomorrow she may not be. Old age.
Today she is here, tomorrow she may not be there. Death is possible. You love the woman. If you knew that the beauty is eternal, that always and always the woman will be beautiful and that nobody is going to die, will there be joy in life? It will be sheer boredom. And if it was impossible even to commit suicide, you cannot conceive of a more miserable life -- just people living and living and doing the same thing again and again and again and nothing ever changes and everything is eternal, nobody ever dies. Just think if all the people that have lived on the earth were living now -- there will not be any space even to stand -- and everybody was eternal ... Life will lose all beauty. The beauty is in its momentariness.
That's why I go on insisting: Celebrate the temporal. By celebrating it you will know that this is the way the eternal functions. The temporal is a function of the eternal.
Celebrate the temporal. Celebrate the momentary. In the momentary is the eternal, hiding.
Don't throw it away. If you throw the momentary you are throwing the baby with the bathwater. The eternal is hidden there. The eternal comes in the momentary, penetrates the moment.
A PUZZLED MONK ONCE SAID TO FUKETSU ...
What was his bewilderment? What was his confusion? Why was he so puzzled? The puzzle was there because he says the Master has said ... "YOU SAY TRUTH CAN BE EXPRESSED WITHOUT SPEAKING, AND WITHOUT KEEPING SILENT. " Now, this is impossible; this is very contradictory. If you say, "Truth can be expressed by words," okay. If you say, "Truth cannot be expressed by words," then it naturally means, "Truth can be expressed by silence." But the Master says, "Truth cannot be expressed by words, and truth cannot be expressed by silence." And the Master says, "Truth can be expressed by words too, and it can be expressed by silence too." Now, it is confusing. Now, it is illogical, it is absurd.
How can this be that truth can be expressed without speaking and without keeping silent?
One can do only one; either one can speak it or one can keep silent. You deny both? Then what is the possibility?
FUKETSU ANSWERED, "IN SOUTHERN CHINA, IN THE SPRING, WHEN I WAS ONLY A LAD, AH! HOW THE BIRDS SANG AMONG THE BLOSSOMS."
Now, this is very irrelevant. What the disciple is asking and what the Master is saying is not related at all, but it is related in a nonmind way. Meditate over it, how it is related in a nonmind way.
He has said many things. First, he says "IN THE SPRING'.' First, he says, "When the spring came, HOW THE BIRDS SANG AMONG THE BLOSSOMS." They were expressing truth, but they were silent when the spring was not there; and when the spring came they sang, they burst forth into celebration. So the first thing is "when the spring is there". What does he mean? He means when you have the spring in your heart, when the light has dawned upon you, when the right maturity has happened, when the right climate has happened, when your fruit is ripe, when the spring has come -- that is what satori is, the spring of the inner heart -- when the SAMADHI has come, then you need not bother: the birds don't go to schools to learn how to sing. The spring has come. They don't seek teachers. They don't go in to anybody, they don't ask the elders, "How to sing? The spring has come." When the spring comes the spring starts singing in them.
What the Master means is that when SAMADHI is there, you will know. How to say it without saying it and without keeping silent -- you will know it. It is not a question.
Many people go on asking foolish questions. The question was foolish. People come to me, they say, "If we become enlightened, what will happen to our family?" You please first become enlightened. "If we become enlightened what will become of our business?" You first become enlightened. Right now you are asking it as if it will create some problem. It has never created any problem. Whenever somebody becomes enlightened, he knows what to do. If an enlightened person does not know what to do, then who will know?
If you come to me and you ask me, "When truth has happened, how are we going to express it?" ... When it happens when the spring comes -- the birds know how to sing. In fact, there is no "how" to it. The very presence of the spring, and the birds are thrilled. Something goes berserk in their hearts. Something simply starts pulsating their being, something simply starts singing in their being. It is not that they sing. It is spring that sings in them. It is satori, it is SAMADHI, that is expressed by you. It is not a question of YOU expressing it.
That's why the Master says, "It cannot be expressed through words, and it cannot be expressed through silence." The very question that can be expressed through words is foolish, the very question that can be expressed through silence is foolish, because nobody knows -- when the spring comes the cuckoo will sing in its own way, and the parrots will fly in their own way, and there will be a thousand and one songs, different, unique.
The cuckoo cannot screech the way parrots do, and the parrots cannot imitate the cuckoos.
And there is no need. The cuckoo is beautiful, so is the parrot.
When satori has happened, nobody knows. Meera dances; Buddha never danced. The cuckoo and the parrot ...
Listen ...
Chaitanya sang, took his drum and danced all over Bengal. Mahavir remained in silence, never spoke a single word. Now, you will be puzzled. Then how do the Jaina sutras exist?
How? It is a beautiful story.
Jainas say Mahavir never spoke, but those who were able to hear him, they heard, and they have collected the sayings. Listen again; you may have missed: Jainas say Mahavir never spoke, but those who could hear, they heard. In his silent presence they heard what he was saying, and they collected the sayings. The Jaina sutras start always, "We have heard." They don't start, "Mahavir said," no. The disciples say, "We have heard. That's true, on our part, we have heard. We don't know whether he has said it or not, but in a certain moment we heard it.
A voiceless voice, a soundless sound."
Yes, a cuckoo is a cuckoo, a parrot is a parrot, and both are needed. If the world is only for cuckoos it will be ugly. Too many cuckoos, it will not be good. Existence needs variety, and existence is rich because of variety. Yes, it is good sometimes a Mahavir keeps silent, and it is good sometimes a Meera goes mad, dancing. It is good to have a Christ and a Krishna. It is good to have a Zarathustra and a Mohammed and a Lao Tzu. All are so different and so unique, and yet the message is the same.
Those who have eyes to see, they will see the same truth being expressed in millions of forms. And those who have ears to hear, they will hear the same song, sung in so many different languages.
It is the same rose; whether you call it "rose" or GULAB does not make any difference. In India we call it GULAB, in the West you call it "rose". Sometimes we can even quarrel and argue "What is it -- GULAB or rose?"
Zen Masters say, "Don't quarrel, please. Bring a GULAB or a rose, whatsoever you call it.
Bring it here. Make it immediate, and then look." And then the quarrel ceases because when somebody brings a rose you will see -- and he call it GULAB -- you will understand; you will say, "Okay, that's okay. Call it whatsoever you want to call it. It is the same thing I have been calling rose and you call GULAB, and we have been quarreling."
Scholars quarrel, argue. Masters look at the thing called rose or GULAB, or there can be a thousand names -- there are so many languages, each language has a different name for it.
Each person who attains to SAMADHI gives expression in his own way. But the question is: Has the spring come?
So the Master says, "IN SOUTHERN CHINA, IN THE SPRING, WHEN I WAS ONLY A LAD, AH! HOW THE BIRDS SANG AMONG THE BLOSSOMS." The second thing he says, "When I was only a boy when my eyes were innocent, when I was young and fresh and virgin, when I was not corrupted by the society, when I was uncorrupted, when my freshness had not gathered any dust of knowledge, experience -- THEN. " "... IN THE SPRING, WHEN I WAS ONLY A LAD, AH! HOW THE BIRDS SANG AMONG THE BLOSSOMS." There were a great many flowers and a great many birds, and singing, the same song, the same spring, the same youth, the same life juice. What he is saying is, "Please, let the spring come first, and don't be worried about how it can be said neither in words nor in silence."
It can be said both in words and in silence. In fact, whenever it is said, there is word and silence together. But the word is not a mere word; that's why they say it cannot be said through words. And the silence is not a dead silence, it is not the silence of the cemetery; that's why the Master says it cannot be said through silence, either. The word is not of the pundit, and the silence is not of the dead man; but there is a great marriage between word and silence.
The word speaks through silence, the silence speaks through the word; and when silence and word meet there is song. Then there is celebration.
When the spring has come there is celebration. When the SAMADHI has happened there is celebration. In that celebration it is expressed, and it is expressed abundantly. In that celebration, in that blossoming, it is expressed. But it is expressed only for those who can understand, who can see, who can feel, who can love.
-Osho, "The First Principle, #7"