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

CHAPTER 3. IN SEARCH OF A LOST TREASUREWhen I read Heraclitus for the first time, that you cannot step in the same river twice, I tried. Andmy conclusion was that if I meet Heraclitus somewhere – not much chance because he was acontemporary of Gautam Buddha, but one never knows, everything is possible in this vast universe– I am going to tell him, ”You cannot step in the same river even once. I have tried; you were simplypostulating. When you put your feet in the river, the water is flowing. As your foot goes a little deeper,the water is flowing... a little more, and water is flowing. By the time you touch the ground, perhapsso much water has gone – every second it is flowing – that you cannot say that you have stepped inthe same river, in the same water.”Gautam Buddha’s very profound approach was, that for mediocre reasons we have made all verbsinto nouns. Otherwise a tree should be called treeing; it is continuously growing. At no point youcan call it a tree; either it is growing or it is dying. Everything is a process, not a thing – an event, butnot a thing. And if everything is a process, you cannot call anything a being. The river is flowing, thewater is flowing, the trees are growing, the stars are moving, the earth is moving, you are moving...The whole existence all around is in movement. There is not a single thing in the outside worldwhich is not moving either backwards or forwards. But movement is the reality, that’s why it is calledephemeral. Only one thing is not moving, has never moved, and that is your ultimate center of being.That has remained the same in this whole world going around in circles.The great scientist, Bacon, can be called the father of Western science. He wrote a very great book,NOVUM ORGANUM, in which he has stated in aphorisms the differences between philosophicalattitudes and science. He says in NOVUM ORGANUM – Novum Organum means a new canonof thought – ”If I can find a center in the world which is not moving, I can explain the whole worldwithout any difficulty. But there is no center in the world which is not moving; everything is moving.By the time you have explained it, it is no longer the same.”He was not aware of the inner world. There, there is a center which is unmoving, but he was not areligious man.We are in search of a center inside, and all the mystics, all the buddhas, are in absolute agreementthat in the deepest core of your being there is a center which is the only unmoving center in thewhole of existence.And strangely enough, that unmoving center is not only yours. At that center we all meet, just likelines drawn from the circumference to the center. You can draw many lines from the circumferenceto the center. On the circumference they are different lines. As they move closer to the center, theyalso become closer to each other. When they reach the center, they are one.We are many on the circumference.At the center we are one.And that oneness is the only freedom, because now there is no other to make you a slave. Only youare, and because only you are, you cannot even say that you are. To say that you are, you needothers for context. Unless the other is, you cannot be. You need for your I a thou. Without a thou theI cannot exist; linguistically it is impossible.Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus 42 Osho