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Teachings of Atisha (Contd )
Osho -
Just look: this is only the fourth sutra. In the third sutra Atisha says:
Examine the nature of Unborn Awareness.
And in the fourth, immediately:
Let even the remedy itself go...
Now no more examination, no more mindfulness, no more remembering that all
is a dream. Once the first taste of awareness has happened on your tongue,
be quick! Because the mind is very cunning -- the mind can start telling
you, "Look, you are no longer ordinary, you are extraordinary. Look, you
have attained.
Look, you have become a buddha, you are enlightened.
Look, this is the goal of all human beings, and very rarely, one in a
million attains. You are that one in a million. "The mind will say all these
beautiful sweet nothings, and of course the ego can come back. You can start
feeling very good, holier than thou. You can start feeling special,
spiritual, saintly. And all is lost. Through the remedy, the disease is
back. Cling to the remedy, and the disease is back. One has to be very alert
about dropping the method. Once you attain something, immediately drop the
method, otherwise your mind will start clinging to the method. It will talk
very logically to you, saying, "It is the method that is important."
Buddha used to tell a story again and again. Five idiots passed through a
village. Seeing them, people were surprised, because they were carrying a
boat on their heads. The boat was really big; it was almost crushing those
five idiots, they were almost dying under the weight of it. And people
asked, "What are you doing?"
They said, "We cannot leave this boat. This is the boat that helped us to
come from the other shore to this shore. How can we leave it? It is because
of it that we have been able to come here. Without it we would have died on
the other shore. The night was coming close, and there were wild animals on
the other shore. It was as sure as anything that by the morning we would
have been dead. We will never leave this boat, we are indebted forever. We
will carry it on our heads in sheer gratitude."
This can happen, because all minds are idiots.
Mind as such is
idiotic.
The origin of the word idiot is beautiful to remember. Idiocy means
something private, something special, something that is your own, something
eccentric. That is the basic meaning of idiocy -- to function in an
eccentric way.
The mind always functions in an eccentric way, the mind is always an idiot.
The really intelligent person has no mind. Intelligence arises out of
no-mind, idiocy out of the mind. Mind is idiotic, no-mind is wise. No-mind
is wisdom, intelligence.
Mind depends on knowledge, on methods, on money, on experience, on this and
that. Mind always needs props, it needs supports, it cannot exist on its
own. On its own, it flops.
So the ultimate effort of the mind to come back will be when you attain to
some awareness. It will say, "Look, so we have arrived." The moment
something inside you says, "We have arrived," beware! Be very very cautious
now, each step has to be of great caution.
Let even the remedy itself go free on its own.
Now please don't cling to the remedy, to the method. This is the emphasis of
J. Krishnamurti -- but this is his first sutra. It should be the fourth.
That's where he is wrong; it cannot be the first sutra. How can you drop a
method that you have never used? You can only drop a method that you have
used.
Atisha is far more logical, far more scientific, than J. Krishnamurti.
But I can understand why he emphasizes it, because he is afraid that if you
go into the first three sutras the fourth may never arrive, you may be lost
in the first three. Many are lost in the preliminaries, many are lost in the
methods. So he has become too cautious, extremely cautious.
Those five
idiots were carrying the boat, and J. Krishnamurti is on the other shore
teaching people: "Don't enter the boat" -- too cautious! -- "because if you
enter the boat, who knows, you may start carrying the boat on your head. So
please don't enter it." And there are many who have become afraid of
entering the boat. But to be afraid of entering the boat is the same idiocy;
there is no difference. One who is afraid of entering the boat is the same
person who will carry the boat; otherwise why should you be afraid?
There are old friends of mine who have followed J. Krishnamurti for their
whole life. They come to me and say, "We would like to come here, but we are
afraid of all the methods that you teach. Methods are dangerous," they say.
Methods are dangerous only if you are unaware; otherwise they can be used
beautifully. Do you think a boat is dangerous? It is dangerous if you are
thinking to carry it on your head for your whole life out of sheer
gratitude; otherwise it is just a raft to be used and discarded. All methods
are rafts to be used and discarded, used and abandoned, used and never
looked back at again -- there is no need, no point!
These are two extremes.
At one extreme are those five idiots, and at
the other extreme are the followers of J. Krishnamurti. There is no need to
be either. My approach is: Use the boat, use beautiful boats, use as many
boats as possible; with this awareness, when the shore is reached the boat
is abandoned with no clinging. While you are in the boat, enjoy it, be
thankful to it. When you get out of the boat, say thank you and move on.
The fifth sutra:
Settle in the nature of basic cognition, the essence.
If you drop the remedy, automatically you will start settling in your being.
The mind clings; it never allows you to settle in your being. It keeps you
interested in something that you are not: the boats.
When you don't cling to anything, there is nowhere to go -- all boats have
been abandoned, you cannot go anywhere; all paths have been dropped, you
cannot go anywhere; all dreams and desires have disappeared, there is no way
to move. Relaxation happens of its own accord. Just think of the word relax.
Be, settle, you have come home.
Settle in the nature of basic cognition, the essence.
And when you settle, there is pure awareness, with no effort, with no
method. If awareness needs a method it is still not true awareness, not the
essential awareness, not the natural spontaneous awareness. It is still a
by-product of the method; it is cultivated, created. It is a by-product of
the mind, it is not yet the truth.
Settle in the nature of basic cognition, the essence.
Now there is nothing to do. See, be, enjoy: only this moment exists. This
now, this here, this cawing of the crows... and all is silence.
To know this serenity is to know who you are, what this existence is all
about. This is samadhi, in the words of Patanjali. This is SAMBODHI, in the
words of Gautam Buddha. This is bodhichitta, in the words of Atisha.
Between Sessions, Consider
phenomena as Phantoms.
Now Atisha is really very aware of the disciple. He knows that these
experiences of settling into your being will be only momentary in the
beginning. One moment you will find yourself relaxed into your being,
another moment it will be gone. In the beginning it is bound to be so: one
moment you are flooded with the unknown, with the mysterious, another moment
it is no more there. One moment all is fragrance, and the next moment you
are searching for it and you cannot find it, where it has gone.
Only glimpses will happen in the beginning. Slowly slowly they become more
and more solid, they abide more and more. Slowly slowly, slowly slowly, very
slowly, they settle forever. Before that you cannot be allowed to take it
for granted; that will be a mistake. Hence he says: Between sessions....
When you are sitting in meditation, a session of meditation, this will
happen -- but it will go. So what are you supposed to do between sessions?
Between Sessions, Consider phenomena as Phantoms.
Between sessions, continue to use the method. Drop the method when you are
deep in meditation. The moment comes, as awareness is getting purer and
purer, when suddenly it is utterly pure: drop the method, abandon the
method, forget all about the remedy, just settle and be.
But this will happen only for moments in the beginning. Sometimes it happens
here listening to me. Just for a moment, like a breeze, you are transported
into another world, the world of no-mind. Just for a moment, you know that
you know -- but only for a moment. And again the darkness gathers and the
mind is back with all its dreams, with all its desires and all its
stupidities.
For a moment the clouds had separated and you had seen the sun. Now the
clouds are there again; it is all dark and the sun has disappeared. Now even
to believe that the sun exists will be difficult. Now to believe that what
you had experienced a moment before was true will be difficult. It may have
been a fantasy; the mind may say it may have just been imagination.
It is so incredible, it looks so impossible, that it could have happened to
YOU. With all this stupidity in the mind, with all these clouds and
darknesses, it had happened to you: you saw the sun for a moment. It doesn't
look probable -- you must have imagined it; maybe you had fallen into a
dream and seen it.
Between sessions start again, be in the boat, use the boat again.
...Consider Phenomena as phantoms.
Atisha is very considerate to the disciples. Otherwise the fourth sutra
would have been the last -- or, at the most, the fifth:
Settle in the nature of basic Cognition, the essence.
If Atisha had been a man like Bodhidharma, the treatise would have finished
at the fifth sutra, or even at the fourth:
Let even the remedy itself go free on its own.
Then the settling happens on its own. Bodhidharma was very miserly, he would
not have used the fifth, but Atisha is very considerate to the disciple. He
had been a disciple, so he knew the difficulties of a disciple. And he had
been a disciple of three great masters, so he knew all the difficulties that
a disciple has to face. He had been a pilgrim; he knew all the problems. And
he had been a pilgrim on three paths, all the three possible paths, so he
knew all the problems and all the difficulties and all the pitfalls and all
the obstacles that are bound to arise on the path of a disciple. Hence his
considerateness. He says: Between sessions....
Between these moments of meditativeness, between these moments of utter joy,
emptiness and purity, between these moments of being, remember that all are
dreams, that every phenomenon is a phantom. Go on using this method till the
settling has happened forever.
Train in joining, sending and taking together. Do this by riding the
breath.
Now emptiness has been experienced -- this is what he had learned. Up to
this sutra he had been with the first master, Dharmakirti. With this sutra,
the second master, Dharmarakshita.
Train in joining, sending and taking together. Do this by riding the
breath.
Now he says: Start being compassionate. And the method is, when you breathe
in -- listen carefully, it is one of the greatest methods -- when you
breathe in, think that you are breathing in all the miseries of all the
people in the world. All the darkness, all the negativity, all the hell that
exists anywhere, you are breathing it in. And let it be absorbed in your
heart.
You may have read or heard about the so-called positive thinkers of the
West. They say just the opposite -- they don't know what they are saying.
They say, "When you breathe out, throw out all your misery and negativity;
and when you breathe in, breathe in joy, positivity, happiness,
cheerfulness."
Atisha's method is just the opposite: when you breathe in, breathe in all
the misery and suffering of all the beings of the world -- past, present and
future. And when you breathe out, breathe out all the joy that you have, all
the blissfulness that you have, all the benediction that you have. Breathe
out, pour yourself into existence. This is the method of compassion: drink
in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings.
And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the
sufferings of the world inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart
immediately transforms the energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink
in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness... then pour it out.
Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you
would like to do it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical
methods -- simple, and it brings immediate results. Do it today, and
see. That is one of the approaches of Buddha and all his disciples. Atisha is
one of his disciples, in the same tradition, in the same line. Buddha says
again and again to his disciples, "IHI PASSIKO: come and see!" They are very
scientific people.
Buddhism is the most scientific religion on the earth; hence,
Buddhism is gaining more and more ground in the world every day. As the
world becomes more intelligent, Buddha will become more and more important.
It is bound to be so. As more and more people come to know about science,
Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince the scientific mind
-- because he says, "Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced." And I don't
say to you, "Believe it," I say, "Experiment with it, experience it, and
only then if you feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to
believe."
Try this beautiful method of compassion: take in all the misery and pour out
all the joy.
Train in joining, sending and taking together. Do this by riding the
breath. Three objects, Three Poisons, Three bases of Virtue.
There are three objects which can either function as three poisons or can
become three bases of infinite virtue. Atisha is talking of the inner
alchemy. The poison can become the nectar, the baser metal can be
transformed into gold.
What are these three objects? The first is aversion, the second is
attachment, and the third is indifference. This is how the mind functions.
You feel aversion to whatsoever you dislike, you feel attachment to
whatsoever you like, and you feel indifferent to things which you neither
dislike nor like. These are the three objects. Between these three, the mind
exists. These are the three legs of the tripod called the mind: aversion,
attachment and indifference. And if you live in these three as they are, you
are living in poison.
This is how we have created a hell out of life. Aversion, dislike, hatred,
repulsion -- that creates one-third of your hell. Attachment, liking,
clinging, possessiveness -- that creates the second one-third of your hell.
And indifference to all that you are neither attracted to nor repulsed by --
that creates the third part, the third one-third of your hell.
Just watch your mind, this is how your mind functions. It is always saying,
"I like this, I don't like that, and I am indifferent to the third." These
are the three ways the mind goes on moving. This is the rut, the routine.
Atisha says: These are the three poisons, but they can become the three
bases of virtue. How can they become three bases of great virtue? If you
bring in the quality of compassion, if you learn the art of absorbing
suffering, as if all the suffering of the world is coming riding on the
breath, then how can you be repulsed? How can you dislike anything and how
can you be indifferent to anything? And how can you be attached to anything?
If you are unconditionally taking in all the suffering in the world,
drinking it, absorbing it in your heart, and then instead of it pouring
blessings onto the whole of existence unconditionally -- not to somebody in
particular, remember; not only to man but to all: to all beings, trees and
rocks and birds and animals, to the whole existence, material, immaterial --
when you are pouring out blessings unconditionally, how can you be attached?
Attachment, aversion, indifference: all disappear with this small technique.
And with their disappearance the poison is transformed into nectar, and the
bondage becomes freedom, and the hell is no more a hell, it is heaven.
In these moments you come to know: This very body the buddha, this very
earth the lotus paradise.
And the last Sutra:
Train with phrases in every mode of behaviour.
Atisha is not an escapist. He does not teach escapism, he does not tell you
to move from situations which are not to your liking. He says: You have to
learn to function in bodhichitta, in buddha-consciousness, in all kinds of
situations -- in the marketplace, in the monastery; with people in the crowd
or alone in a cave; with friends or with enemies; with family, familiar
people, and with strangers; with men and with animals. In all kinds of
situations, in all kinds of challenges, you have to learn to function in
compassion, in meditation -- because all these experiences of different
situations will make your bodhichitta more and more ripe.
Don't escape from any situation -- if you escape, then something will
remain missing in you. Then your bodhichitta will not be that ripe, will not
be that rich. Live life in its multidimensionality. And that's what I teach
you too: Live life in its totality. And living in the world, don't be of it.
Live in the world like a lotus flower in water: it lives in water, but the
water touches it not. Only then will bodhichitta flower in you, bloom in
you. Only then will you come to know the ultimate consciousness which is
freedom, which is joy, eternal joy, which is benediction. Not to know it is
to miss the whole point of life; to know it is the only goal. The only goal
-- remember it. And remember, Atisha's sutras are not philosophical, not
speculative, not abstract. They are experimental, they are scientific.
Let me repeat again: religion is a science in the sense that it is
the purest knowing. Yet it is not a science in the sense of chemistry and
physics. It is not the science of the outward, it is the science of the
inward. It is not the science of the exterior, it is the science of the
interior. It is the science that takes you beyond, it is the science that
takes you into the unknown and the unknowable. It is the greatest adventure
there is. It is a call and a challenge to all those who have any courage,
any guts, any intelligence.
Religion is not for cowards, it is for people who want to live dangerously.
Enough for today.
Source: "The Book of Wisdom" - Osho
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