Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. WHAT WORDS CANNOT SAY...Maneesha, language has never been used the way Zen uses it – very symbolic, metaphoric, yetindicating to the ultimate reality. Its prose also is poetry. And while listening to these dialogues, youshould not be listening only by the ears, your empty heart is needed to receive them. Only thenhave you welcomed them because they are not mere prose pieces, they are living hearts of greatmasters.A MONK ASKED, ”ARE WORDS AND SPEECH ALSO MIND?”HYAKUJO REPLIED, ”WORDS AND SPEECH ARE CONCURRENT CAUSES; THEY ARE NOTMIND.”‘Concurrent causes’ is a logical terminology. It means like the tracks of railway lines. The two railsrun side by side for miles together, but they will never meet. They are so close but the distanceremains always the same. Because of the distance remaining the same, the meeting is impossible.They are concurrent causes. Mind and words and speech are concurrent causes. That is one of themost fundamental things about Zen. Nobody has said that before.People have always thought that mind means word, speech, thoughts – but that is not true. Theyare very close, concurrent, so close that you can get the conception that they are one. But whenyou get deeper into meditation and leave the world of words and speech, you suddenly find thereis an empty mind beyond them which is your real mind. To distinguish it, we call it the empty heart.Either to call it no-mind, real-mind, empty heart... they are all synonymous. But ordinarily, you areso close to thinking, emotions, words, that you cannot conceive there is a sky beyond the clouds,that there is a full moon beyond the clouds. You will have to go beyond the clouds to see the moon.THE MONK CONTINUED, ”WHAT IS THIS MIND WHICH LIES BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH?”Now, anybody of some intelligence will not ask such a question. If anything lies beyond, ANDSPEECH, you cannot ask such a question. ”WHAT IS THIS MIND WHICH LIES BEYOND WORDSAND SPEECH?” If it is beyond words and speech, how can it be answered?”THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH,” RESPONDED HYAKUJO.THE MONK SAID, ”IF THERE IS NO MIND BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH, WHAT IS THATMIND IN REALITY?”He does not get the idea of the beyond.HYAKUJO SAID, ”MIND IS WITHOUT FORM AND CHARACTERISTICS. IT IS NEITHER BEYONDNOR NOT BEYOND WORDS AND SPEECH. IT IS FOREVER CLEAR AND STILL AND CANPERFORM ITS FUNCTION FREELY AND WITHOUT HINDRANCE. THE PATRIARCH SAID, ‘ITIS ONLY WHEN THE MIND IS SEEN TO BE UNREAL THAT THE DHARMA OF ALL MINDS CANBE TRULY UNDERSTOOD.’”The whole dialogue is between two persons who cannot understand each other. The master,Hyakujo, is speaking as authentically as possible about something which cannot be spoken about.Anybody in his place, a man like Ma Tzu, would have beaten the monk to give him a little glimpsebeyond the mind.Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus 111 Osho