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

CHAPTER 3. IN SEARCH OF A LOST TREASUREHe went with great excitement, and came back so disappointed because it was not a woman at all.It was a Hindu monk with long hair. When he saw the monk he said, ”My God, I was just about tofall in love.”I said, ”Before falling in love, at least you should encounter the person from the front side. From theback side... And are you certain that he is a monk and not a woman?”He said, ”You are creating doubt in me. For a moment I was also doubtful because he is beautiful.Now I will have to go back again.”I said, ”Leave it. You know now that he is a monk.”He said, ”No. You have created the doubt, and I don’t want to live with this doubt. He may really bea woman, because I did not see any beard or mustache. Who knows? My conclusion that he is amonk is dependent only on his orange clothes, but that is not a decisive point because a Hindu nunwill also use orange clothes.”He said, ”I will have to go.”He went again. Even the monk became surprised as to why this man was coming again, and helooked down from this way and that way.The monk said, ”What is the matter?”He said, ”Nothing is the matter. You just have such beautiful hair that my friend who is sitting thereand I got into a discussion about whether you are a man or a woman.”The monk must have been a man of a great sense of humor. He said, ”Aha! I don’t know myself. Amonk is a monk – he is neither a man nor a woman.”The man became even more disappointed. He said to me, ”Now it is very difficult. His body is veryshapely, and he himself says that he does not know who he is.”What you can see with your eyes is only a reflection. Hyakujo is saying that all our perceptions areneither beings nor non-beings. They are ephemeral. They are made of the same stuff as dreams aremade of. Don’t be too much concerned, attached, identified with them. That creates the bondage.Hyakujo himself responded to his question: ”WHEN WE ATTAIN TO PURITY OF MIND, THATIS SOMETHING WHICH CAN BE SAID TO EXIST. WHEN THIS HAPPENS, OUR REMAININGFREE FROM ANY THOUGHT OF ACHIEVEMENT IS CALLED NOT PERCEIVING ANYTHING ASEXISTENT.”Nothing can be called existent, because everything is in a flux. This is a Buddhist attitude, that youcannot refer to anything with a noun or a pronoun. Their approach is really deep. They say, ”Yousay, ‘the river is,’ but the river is constantly flowing.”They are saying exactly what Epicurus and Heraclitus in Greece said: ”You cannot step in the sameriver twice.”Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus 41 Osho