DangDangDokoDang

Dang Dang Doko DangTalks on ZenTalks given from 11/06/76 am to 20/06/76 amEnglish Discourse series10 ChaptersYear published: 1977Dang Dang Doko DangChapter #1Chapter title: Never Pretend, Even About Skulls11 June 1976 am in Buddha HallArchive code: 7606110ShortTitle: DANG01Audio: YesVideo: NoLength: 96 minsTHE MASTER FUGAI WAS CONSIDERED VERY WISE AND GENEROUS, YET HE WAS MOST SEVERE BOTH WITH HIMSELF AND HIS DISCIPLES.HE WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO SIT IN ZEN. HE LIVED IN A CAVE, AND WHEN HE WAS HUNGRY HE WENT TO THE VILLAGE FOR SCRAPS.ONE DAY A MONK CALLED BUNDO, ATTRACTED BY FUGAIS AUSTERITIES, CALLED AT THE CAVE AND ASKED TO STAY THE NIGHT.THE MASTER SEEMED HAPPY TO PUT HIM UP, AND NEXT MORNING PREPARED RICE GRUEL FOR HIM. NOT HAVING AN EXTRA BOWL HE WENT OUT AND RETURNED WITH A SKULL HE FOUND LYING NEAR A TOMB. HE FILLED IT WITH GRUEL AND OF OFFERED IT TO BUNDO.THE GUEST REFUSED TO TOUCH IT, AND STARED AT FUGAI AS IF HE HAD GONE MAD.AT THIS FUGAI BECAME FURIOUS AND DROVE HIM OUT OF THE CAVE WITH BLOWS. FOOL! HE SHOUTED AFTER HIM.HOW CAN YOU, WITH YOUR WORLDLY NOTIONS OF FILTH AND PURITY, THINK YOURSELF A BUDDHIST?SOME MONTHS LATER THE MASTER TETSGYU VISITED HIM AND TOLD HIM THAT HE THOUGHT IT A GREAT PITY THAT HE HAD FORSAKEN THE WORLD. FUGAI LAUGHED LOUDLY AND SAID:OH, ITS EASY ENOUGH TO FORSAKE THE WORLD AND BECOME A BONZAI, THE DIFFICULT THING IS THEN TO BECOME A TRUE BUDDHIST.TRUTH IS ONE, but it can be approached in many ways. Truth is one, but it can be expressed in many ways.Two ways are very essential; all the ways can be divided into two categories. It will be good to understand that basic polarity.Either you approach truth through the mind or you approach truth through the heart. So there are two types of religions in the world - both true, both meaningful, but both opposite to each other - the religion of the mind and the religion of the heart.The religion of the mind believes that if you become thoughtless, if the mind is dropped, you attain to truth. The mind is the barrier; the no-mind will be the gate. Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism - these are the religions of the mind. They are religions of deep analysis, religions of deep awareness, religions of enlightenment.Then there are religions of the heart: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism. They believe that the path goes through the heart, that the heart has to be dissolved into the beloved, into the Divine.The first religions are the religions of meditation. The word meditation is not exactly right but there is no other word to translate DHYANA into English, because the language has never known a religion of meditation so the word does not exist. All Western languages, in fact, have known only the religion of the heart so they have the perfect word for that path - prayer. But for DHYANA they dont have any word so meditation is the only word that can be used. In fact, DHYANA means exactly the opposite; DHYANA means just the contrary. The word meditation comes from a Greek root medonai which means to think about. The word meditation means to think about, and DHYANA, which we are translating as meditation, means how not to think about; how to be in a state of no thought; how to come to a point where you are but there is no thinking; a state of no-mind, pure awareness. But meditation is the only word so we will use it.Zen is the culmination of the Buddhist search. Zen is the uttermost flowering of the path of meditation. The word zen comes from DHYANA. DHYANA became chen in China, then chen became zen in Japan. Remember this: Zen originated in India with Gautam Buddha. When Gautam Buddha attained to his ultimate enlightenment, the state of no-mind, the world came to know the path of analysis, the path of right thinking, the path of right remembering, and the path of how to dissolve all thinking by becoming more and more aware of thoughts. Just by watching thoughts, slowly, slowly, they fade out - you become simply a watcher, you are not identified with your thinking, you stand aside and you go on watching, just as if you are standing by the side of the road and watching the traffic. The mind is like traffic, very circular, goes on moving in a circle, very repetitive, almost a mechanism. You go on doing the same thing again and again and again. Your whole life is nothing but a prolonged repetition, very circular. The mind is a mandala, a circle, and it moves. If you watch, by and by you become aware of the circle, of the vicious circle of the mind. Again and again it brings the same emotions: the same anger, the same hatred, the same greed, the same ego. And you go on. You are just a victim.Once you become aware of the mind and you start watching it, the bridge is broken, you are no more identified with the mind. Once you are not identified with the mind, the mind disappears because it needs your co-operation to be there.These coming ten days we will be talking about Zen. But to understand it rightly, you have to understand the opposite also - the opposite becomes a contrast, a background.The path of prayer does not analyse; it does not try to be aware or alert. On the contrary, the path of prayer dissolves itself completely into the prayer. You should not witness, you should not be a watcher; you should be drunk like a drunkard and lost, completely lost.On the path of prayer, love is the goal. You should be loving; you should be so full of love that your ego dissolves into your love, melts into your love. On the path of prayer, God is a necessary hypothesis. I call it a hypothesis because it is a need on the path of prayer but it is not a need on the path of meditation.On the path of meditation no God is needed, hence the influence and the appeal of Zen in the West. God has become almost incomprehensible. The very word God looks dirty. The moment you say God you put people off. Hence the appeal of Zen in the West. Christianity is dying because that hypothesis has been used too much, has been exploited too much. The other, just the opposite, is needed.On the path of prayer you are to be drunk; on the path of meditation you have to be alert. In both the ways the ego disappears. If you are fully alert there is no ego because in full awareness you become so transparent that you dont create any shadow. If you are fully drunk, in deep love with God, again you disappear - because in LOVE you cannot be. The ultimate is the same: the ego disappears. And when the ego is not there you come to know what truth is.Nobody has ever been able to say what it is; nobody will ever be able to say what it is. The experience is so ultimate, so vast, that it is indefinable. It is so unlimited it cannot be put into words - words are very narrow and the experience is tremendously vast. But from both the paths, people reach to the same goal.Truth is one. Vedas say, Truth is one but it has been seen in different ways by the seers.So remember that. All religions are basically, intrinsically, leading to the same goal. Even when they appear very opposite, even when they appear diametrically opposite, they are leading to the same goal.So it depends on you which path you would like to choose. If you have a feeling for God - not a belief, belief alone wont do, belief is just a dead thing - if you have a feeling for God, if, by hearing the word God, you start a subtle throbbing, you feel a trembling, you feel inspired, your heart starts beating faster, if the very word God gives you a great awe, then you can move on the path of prayer. Then Zen is not for you, then Zen is to be simply forgotten, because then Zen will be a disturbance.But if the word God has no meaning for you, if it has really died for you, if God is really dead, it provokes no feeling in you, no emotion in you, it does not vibrate you, it does not pulsate you, it does not whirl your being into the unknown, then Zen is for you. More and more people will have to be moving on the path of Zen because Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism - all, in a way, have been exploited too much. They have lost their appeal.Buddhism is still unspoiled, still fertile, and for the modern mind particularly it has a very deep appeal - because the modern mind is made of a scientific attitude and Zen is absolutely scientific, super-scientific. It goes to the very roots of your mind and it does not ask you to believe in anything. It has no hypothesis whatsoever. It does not ask that you should believe in something, it has no superstition.The word superstition is very beautiful. It comes from the Latin superstes which means: that which survives, remnants of the past, things which have become futile but persist out of habit. You go to the church but you dont have any feeling for going there, and every night before going to the bed you may pray also - but it is just an impotent gesture because there is no heart in it. You simply repeat with the lips; you pay lip-service to it. It is maybe just an old habit, an old conditioning: you have been taught from your very childhood to pray, so you continue. The mind goes on repeating the familiar.So this has to be decided by you. Nobody else can decide it for you. You have to search in your own heart. If you still have that innocence which is needed for the path of prayer, if you are still like a child, if you still can trust, can believe, if you still can have faith, then there is no need to bother about Zen because it will be an unnecessarily arduous path. You can simply melt and merge into God.I was reading one anecdote - I loved it.One evening a priest who was visiting Ireland was walking along a country road, when he came upon an elderly gentleman. As they walked along enjoying the evening together, a storm suddenly arose and they took shelter. They talked for a while and then when silence came upon them, the old man took out a prayer book and began to pray.The American priest, observing him, was struck very deeply by a certain kind of hallowedness around him as he prayed. Unintentionally he said aloud,You must be very close to God.The old man paused, smiled and said, Yes, he is very fond of me.Yes, he is very fond of me. That is what prayer is all about. It is not only that you love God - that alone wont help. If you can also feel Gods love flowing towards you, only then; if you can feel his presence all around you, only then will prayer become possible.Prayer is possible as a shadow of his felt presence. You cannot pray in an empty room if he is not present. To whom will you pray? To whom will you utter your heart? To whom? Prayer is futile if the presence is not felt. If the presence is felt, then you are in prayer - whether you say something or not. You may not say a single word, you may be simply so full with awe that you remain silent, but you will feel the presence. Yes, to feel the presence of God is what prayer is all about.But if God is dead, if you dont feel anything, if no song arises in your heart for God, if the presence has disappeared from the world - you look at trees and you only see trees and no God hidden there, you look at the sky and you only see the sky and not his infinite presence - then Zen is going to be your path.Zen is going to be the religion of the coming century because science has killed, or damaged very badly, the capacity to trust. But there is nothing to be worried about - you can move from another direction. But then there is no question of love, of presence, of God, of prayer - nothing of the sort.When the Western world for the first time became aware of Buddhism, Jainism, Tao, they could not believe it. What type of religions are these? There is no God in them. They could not believe that religion could exist without the concept of God; God has always been the centre of religion. So they thought that these must be just moral codes. They are not. They are a totally different kind of religion. And India, in the days of Buddha and Mahavir, twenty-five centuries before, reached to the same scientific attitude as the Western world has reached now. Twenty-five centuries before, India realised - at least, those who were very, very intelligent, brilliant, alert - they realised that the old God was dead. They realised that the God of prayer was dead.To say this was simply to say that the heart of man was dead; it was no longer functioning. So a new path had to be found in which heart was not a basic necessity. Buddha and Mahavir worked out a new sort of religion - the religion of meditation, without any God, without any prayer, without any belief. Nothing is required of you except a seeking, except a searching mind, except a deep enquiry - thats all.The world is going to be more and more zenist. Zen is the ultimate flowering of the Buddha-mind.Before we enter into the world of Zen, some things are needed to be understood about the mind. One thing: mind functions because of your co-operation. You can stop it if you withdraw your co-operation. Without withdrawing your co-operation you cannot stop it. So the whole method of Zen is how to withdraw the co-operation. Many people try to stop the mind without withdrawing the co-operation - then you will go crazy, then you will do something absurd, impossible. On one hand you go on pouring energy into the mind and on the other hand you go on trying to stop it.It is as if you are driving a car and you go on pushing the accelerator and at the same time you go on pushing the brake as well. You will destroy the whole mechanism; you are doing two contradictory things together.Zen is not in favour of stopping the mind directly, it is in favour of withdrawing your co-operation from the mind in a subtle way. As more energy is withdrawn from the mind it starts falling on its own accord and a moment comes when the mind simply disappears - because it is you who are supporting it; it is you who are maintaining it; it is you who unknowingly, continuously, goes on pouring energy into it. Through your desires, through your discriminations, through your choices, through your likes and dislikes, you go on pouring energy into it.So Zen says, if you really want the mind to stop. There is no other way for Zen to come to know the truth unless the mind stops. Because if the mind goes on functioning, it is a projector. Then the reality functions as a screen and you go on projecting your mind onto it, you go on seeing that which you want to see, you go on hearing what you want to hear. You never see reality as it is, you never see that which is, you corrupt reality. Mind is a great corruptor.So mind, the projector, has to be stopped. Then suddenly the reality appears as it is, because nothing is projected onto it. You are sitting in a movie house, you just see a white screen, and then the projector starts. Then the screen disappears and you see the film, a great story unfolding. You forget completely the screen, the whiteness, the purity of it, the virginity of it - everything is forgotten. You are lost in a dream-world. Then the projector stops and suddenly you realise there has been nothing. The screen has been empty. It was just a game of shadows - you were befooled, you were deceived.In India we call the world MAYA, illusion. It means: it is not that there is no truth in it, but the truth is hidden. The truth is hidden like a white screen in a movie house and you have projected your desires and your dreams on top of it and have forgotten completely what reality is.Zen says stop the projector, put it off, and you will be able to know what is. And to know that which is, is freedom; to know that which is, is to be liberated; to know that which is, is to be enlightened.So mind is the barrier. And mind is a continuous repetition. Because you have never watched it, you are not aware of it. Nothing new ever happens in the mind; it is always the rotten old. Nothing new can ever happen in the mind because it is a mechanism. The mechanism can only go on playing the same thing again and again - it is like a gramophone record.Look at it and by and by you will be able to see the mechanicalness of it. Gurdjieff used to say that if a man realises that he is a mechanism then there is a possibility. If a man realises that he is only a machine, then there is a possibility to go beyond the machine. Then a man can become conscious.I was reading a very beautiful anecdote. There is no story in it, just an extract from a petty-cash ledger.Nov. 1 Advertisement for secretary .50Nov. 2 Flowers for secretarys desk .80Nov. 8 Weeks salary for secretary L30.00Nov. 9 Perfume for secretary L6.00Nov. 11 Sweets for wife .10Nov. 13 Lunch for secretary and self L9.45Nov. 15 Weeks salary for secretary L35.00Nov. 17 Bingo for wife and self L1.00Nov. 18 Theatre for secretary and self L6.00Nov. 19 Sweets for wife .10Nov. 20 Doreens salary L40.00Nov. 21 Theatre and dinner for D and self L20.00Dec. 2 Harley Street Clinic L150.00Dec. 3 Fur coat for wife L700.00Dec. 4 Advertisement for male secretary .50Just take note. Make a small diary of your mind and you will see circles and circles moving. To make a diary is good, but make it for yourself, not for somebody else to read it. Then look at it, watch it, and you will see - the same pattern again and again bubbles, surfaces. This is a sheer wastage of life because nothing new is happening in it.Truth is always new and mind is always old. Thats why mind and truth never meet. Mind is always of the past, truth is always of the present. Thats why mind and truth never meet. Mind is that which you have already known; truth is that which is yet to be known. Mind is the known and truth is the unknowable or the unknown. Mind is just a record of all that has happened. Mind is not an adventure; truth is an adventure.There is an old proverb which says, There is nothing new under the sun. If you think about the mind the proverb is true. But if you think about truth, the proverb is absolutely false. Then there is another proverb - which is true - which says, There is nothing old under the sun. Everything is absolutely fresh and new - like a fresh leaf coming out of the tree. Truth is always young, mind is always old. Thats why Jesus says to his disciples, Unless you become like small children, you will not be able to enter into my Kingdom of God.Mind is very cunning and clever, but not intelligent. Intelligence is a quality of awareness and cunningness and cleverness are just substitutes for intelligence. So mind goes on playing tricks of cleverness and;n that cleverness, mind itself is caught. In its own cleverness and cunningness it is lost. Remember this that you will not become intelligent by being clever, you will become intelligent by being more aware. Cleverness need not be necessarily a sign of intelligence. Even stupid people can be clever. Cleverness comes out of experience: you do things many times, you learn. The mind becomes like a computer - each experience is fed into it and it goes on learning and accumulating knowledge and it goes on using that knowledge.Intelligence has a totally different quality: it has nothing to do with experience, it has something to do with awareness. Cunningness comes out of experience; intelligence comes out of awareness. Thats why old people become very cunning. and hippies are right when they say never believe a person who is more than thirty. Because by that time a person becomes cunning, one has learned the tricks and the ways of the world.But a child is intelligent because a child is more alert, more radiantly alert. See a chi