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Osho - Zen Master Kyogen
Enlightenment
Osho :
Kyogen was a scholar of great learning, and for some
time, this stood in the way of his enlightenment. one
day, Isan asked Kyogen, ”when you were with our teacher,
Hyakujo, you were clever enough to give ten answers to a
single question, and hundreds of answers to ten
questions.
”tell me this: what is your real self – the self that
existed before you came out of your mother’s womb,
before you knew east from west?” at this question, Kyogen was stupefied and did not know what to say.
he
racked his brains and offered all sorts of answers, but Isan brushed them aside.
at last Kyogen said, ”i beg you, please explain it to
me.”
Isan replied, ”what i say belongs to my own
understanding. how can that benefit your mind’s eye?”
Kyogen went through all his books and the notes he had
made on authorities of every school, but could find no
words to use as an answer to Isan’s question. sighing to
himself, he said, ”you cannot fill an empty stomach with
paintings of rice cakes.” he then burned all his books
and papers, saying, ”i will give up the study of
buddhism. I will remain a rice-gruel monk for the rest
of my life and avoid torturing my mind.”
sadly he left Isan, and took on the self-appointed job
of grave-keeper. one day, when he was sweeping the
ground, a stone struck a bamboo. Kyogen stood
speechless, forgetting himself for a while. then,
suddenly, bursting into loud laughter,
he became enlightened.
returning to his hut, Kyogen performed the ceremony of
purification, offered incense, paid homage to his
teacher, Isan, and with the deepest sense of gratitude
said, ”great master, thank you! your kindness to me is
greater even then that of my parents. if you had
explained the profound cause to me when i begged you to
give me an answer, I should never have reached where I
stand today.” Kyogen’s verse on this occasion runs:
one stroke and all is gone,
no need of stratagem or cure;
each and every action
manifests the ancient way.
my spirit is never downcast,
i leave no tracks behind me,
enlightenment is beyond speech,
beyond gesture;
those who are emancipated
call it the unsurpassed.
Kyogen was a great scholar; although he was searching
for truth, scholarship is not the way to find it. His
very learning was functioning as a barrier to relax into
himself. He was clinging to words, scriptures, sutras,
past Buddhas. It is a hilarious situation, because the
buddha is within and people are keeping stone statues in
their temples. The essential experience is within and
people are reciting sutras of others. It is the most
hilarious situation.
Kyogen must have been a very honest and sincere
inquirer, otherwise thousands of books are available
with all kinds of answers. But there is not a single
book in the world which can give you the answer that
breathes, that has a heart, that can laugh, that can
dance. That answer is not going to be from any source
other than your own.
Kyogen tried all the great scriptures, and notes he had
taken while listening to great masters like Hyakujo, but
he could not find the answer to the question Isan had
raised: ”Who are you? What is inside you? What is your
center of being? What is the flame that keeps you
alive?”
Isan was questioning the very life source. Of course you
cannot find it in any book, unless you are a stupid
scholar. And there are thousands of stupid scholars
around the world. The universities are full of them.
They are talking about and about: about truth, about
love, about being. You ask and they have answers for all
your questions. I was expelled from one college because
I insisted to the professor of philosophy, ”First you
answer whether you know yourself or not! ”
He tried all kinds of answers; he was a great scholar,
an old man, but I was insistent that ”All these answers
you are giving are borrowed. What is your answer?”
He became so troubled, he threatened the college
authorities: ”I will leave, retire – either I can be in
this college or this student. He is making me so
troubled, I cannot sleep at night. And he is so strange
that even early in the morning, at three o’clock, he
knocks on my door and asks, ‘Have you found the
answer?’”
Such questions are neither asked nor answered. The
principal called me and said, ”Why are you torturing
that old man?”
I said, ”I am torturing nobody. If a man cannot answer
the simplest question, then all else that he is
saying is nonsense.”
A truth is never borrowed. The moment it is borrowed it
becomes untrue. A truth cannot be read in a scripture, a
truth has to be lived only in the innermost temple of
your being. Naturally Kyogen could not find the answer.
Source: "This, This, A
Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen" - Osho
Related Zen
Enlightenment Stories of Osho :
Osho on Tokusan
Enlightenment
Osho on Sudhana
Enlightenment
Zen Master Hui-Hai
Enlightenment
Enlightenment of Shen Tsan's Teacher
Osho on
Zen disciple Zengen Awakening
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