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00:00Dear Achariji Pranam, since we have started this month with Zen Koans, I have a few basic
00:13questions for my understanding. A. What is Zen? B. How to read and reflect on Zen Koans? C.
00:23What is Zen practice or meditation? Thank you. Sandeep, Zen is that which happens
00:41when you read the Zen Koans.
00:47Now see, you say that this month we have started with the Koans and yet the Koans are nowhere
01:06in your question. You are asking about the Koans, you are asking about Zen and you are missing
01:16the centre. And whenever you do not want to enter that thing directly and instead prefer
01:33to go roundabout and roundabout and roundabout, as they say beating about the bush, then you
01:43obviously miss. Zen does not consist of asking about Zen. When the Koans are in front of you,
02:00go to them simply, directly like an inquisitive, wondering child or like a desperate lover.
02:13Both of them have a certain directness. They do not have roundabout ways. So what is Zen?
02:22Zen is that which happens when instead of asking about Zen, you directly enter the Koan. So you
02:36missed Zen. How to read reflect on Zen Koans? Just as you read the English or French or German
02:48or Sanskrit or Hindi language. What do you mean by how to read? How does anybody read? But the
03:03how to is a great way to not to read. Do you see how you can use the how to's as a handy intervention
03:20against even the most simple of happenings? I can ask you something as simple as picking up
03:33this handkerchief from the table. And you can come up with a series of endless how to's
03:43to delay that which is straightforward and easy and obvious. How to read the Koans just as you
03:54read anything else. And let me tell you, you cannot read the Koans if you do not know the very knack
04:07of reading. You cannot be a lousy reader throughout the day and then pick up a compilation of Koans
04:19and be totally somebody else. If you are a seeker of clarity, if you do not mind getting a few rude
04:44hits, then the Koans are for you. But if you are someone who is very touchy, very prickly, very easily
05:00offended, someone who is looking forward to, almost wishing to receive hurt, then you cannot become a very tolerant
05:28and resilient mind, suddenly just when you go to the Koans. The Koans do not pamper you. They do not display the kind of behaviour
05:56nature and kindness and kindness and gentleness that you might be accustomed to, that you might expect in a so-called
06:10natural environment. The Koans often leave you flabbergasted. You do not know what has happened. And you will have a point if you say that you came to Zen for clarity, not for more confusion. The Koans do not
06:12not know what has happened. And you will have a point if you say that you came to Zen for clarity, not for more confusion. The Koans do not know what has happened.
06:17You do not know what has happened. You do not know what has happened. And you will have a point if you say that you came to Zen for clarity, not for more confusion. The Koans do not know what has happened.
06:24The Koans do not know what has happened. And you will have a point if you say that you came to Zen for clarity, not for more confusion. The Koans do not know what has happened.
06:31The Koans do not know what has happened. The Koans do not know what has happened. But you say that you came to Zen for clarity, not for more confusion. The Koans can tie a hundred knots around you and within you.
06:56So, you need to have a taste for wonderment, a taste for disillusionment.
07:10Then the koans will appear delicious.
07:24But if you just want to be dealt with child gloves and spoon fed, then there is very little
07:46for you in the Zen way, Zen hardly provides you any answers.
08:04It rather delivers jolt after jolt that wakes you out of the entire Q&A paradigm.
08:31So, do not ask me how to read and reflect on Zen koans.
08:40Ask me how to be eligible for the Zen way.
08:45Are you getting it?
08:50If you are not the Zen kind, then the koans will just be an alien irritation for you.
09:10Somebody from Jupiter came, pricked you in the behind and disappeared.
09:17That's what the koans would be for you, both alien and irritating.
09:34You should be somebody who should be prepared to live in uncertainty, in conclusiveness.
09:48If you are someone who is a sucker for definiteness, then you will get nothing definite with the
09:59koans.
10:01Are you getting it?
10:08Koans are not for the one who is looking for a support.
10:18If you have supports of some kind and they do not suffice.
10:26So you are coming to Zen to get a better and bigger support.
10:35You better than protect what you already have.
10:39You will not get anything bigger or better here.
10:50Zen is the territory of great robbers.
10:56You will be robbed of whatever support you already have.
11:03And you will turn bitter.
11:07You will remember it as such a bad expedition, a deal gone grossly sour.
11:17You wanted more and you lost whatever little you had.
11:24Are you getting it?
11:30In Zen there are no concepts, no definitions, no learnings, no teachings.
11:38Once I said Zen is the highest point of all religious ascension.
11:45Why?
11:47Because there is nothing here.
11:50What is there at a point?
11:53Nothing.
11:54It has an absolute vacancy, no area, no capacity, no volume, no existence.
12:09That is Zen.
12:14So, if you are living Zen, then the koans will be good entertainment.
12:22And I am using that word with enough discretion.
12:29If you are living Zen, then koans would be good entertainment.
12:34The weekend flick.
12:37But if you are someone who is not living Zen, and then you come to a Zen master or koans or
12:48the Zen practice, then you should be forewarned.
12:56You could be rubbed the wrong way and it can be a very harsh rub.
13:12Zen masters are known for being eccentric.
13:17Nothing can happen.
13:20There are no methods there because the destination is immediate.
13:27If the destination is immediate, then the shortest route is taken and the shortest route is now.
13:35Do something immediately in this moment that awakens the disciple promptly, immediately.
13:54At the same time, Zen seekers have been known to practice for years and decades.
14:04Then you are disappointed.
14:06Finally you are coming to something definite about Zen and that too didn't happen.
14:22What is Zen practice or Zen meditation?
14:25Zen practice is to be concerned with the koans when they are in front of you and not bother
14:33about the definition of a koan.
14:42Zen practice is to be able to approach a thing without knowing its definition.
14:53Zen practice is to look at something the tenth time and still not know anything about it.
15:02Zen practice is to be brave and not avoid the assault that the practice launches on you.
15:09Zen practice is to be brave and not avoid the assault that the practice launches on you.
15:26Zen practice is to look for a reason.
15:27When the koans rain, go out and dance, do not sit in a shelter trying to analyze the
15:55precipitation. What is it that comes down and why? And with what kind of velocity? If it
16:09comes down, why did it go up in the first place? Such queries have no place in sin.
16:35Zen practice, Sandeep, is to read a koan 40 times and still learn very little about it.
16:57Then read it another 40 times and still learn very little about it.
17:04And having read the koan 80 times, you attend Acharya Prasant session and forget the little
17:20things that you had learnt. I will talk on them. Not because they are explicable, but because
17:31it is good fun to talk on Zen. And in the Zen way, one may as well talk on a beautiful cucumber
17:56or a rotten watermelon just as one talks on a koan rather senselessly and meaninglessly.
18:10But my friends sitting here would not listen to me if I start talking on cucumbers and watermelons.
18:22Just cucumber. And the bugger got even the pronunciation wrong. Look at it. Like a Gwala, he says cucumber. So one would tell me cucumber.
18:24So that would be good fun. So that would be good fun.
18:31But then you would not accept that. But then you would not accept that as a session. So we have to.
18:38have to rather tape the koans. You know?
18:46You know?
18:51So, that would be good fun, but then you would not accept that as a session.
18:59So we have to rather tape the co-arms.
19:14Dear Acharya Ji, my life is becoming more and more clear after I have come across you.
19:19Thank you so much.
19:20I have a long-pending question to ask.
19:23In a few scriptures across various religions, they say that very few people who are self-realized
19:32can actually hold or contain their body.
19:35What does it actually mean and can you please throw some light on it?
19:40Indira from Bangalore.
19:42Indira, first of all, there is nothing to realize.
19:51What do you want to realize?
20:00What temptation is there?
20:04What target is there?
20:16Realization is much like what is happening here right now.
20:22You ask me about realization and I say there is nothing to realize.
20:31Realization is a breaking down of the concepts about everything including realization.
20:44In some sense, those you are calling as realized were the ones who unrealized.
20:56Somebody once asked me what is enlightenment.
20:59I said unbecoming, unenlightened.
21:11Realization is your essential nature.
21:14And that nature means nothing.
21:20That nature is neither solid nor liquid.
21:26That nature is not hot, not cold.
21:31That nature is not beautiful, not ugly.
21:36That nature is not expansive, not limited.
21:47You can just keep wondering but you will never get to describe what your nature is.
22:00But you pick a lot of rubbish along the way in your journey through time.
22:30And various places, spaces.
22:35You pick this, you pick that.
22:42And you fill up an empty space.
22:49Realization is about doing away with the dirt, getting rid of the rubbish.
22:50So, it is about doing away with the dirt, getting rid of the rubbish.
22:57So, it is quite simple and ordinary.
22:58Now, you are asking.
22:59You are asking.
23:00You have heard that very few people.
23:01So, it is quite simple and ordinary.
23:06Now, you are asking.
23:07You have heard that very few people who are realized can actually hold, contain their body.
23:38Say all this.
23:39I am finding it difficult to hold or contain my body.
23:51The body is a physical instrument.
23:57The body is a product of Prakriti.
24:03The body is a machine that operates on its own.
24:12What does the realized one have to do with the body?
24:23His relationship with the body is purely accidental.
24:31Nothing essential connects him with the body.
24:36Just as nothing essential connects him with the universe.
24:41So, he lives birthlessly and deathlessly, born nothing special, died nothing special.
24:57Nothing essential happened at the time of birth and nothing essential would happen at the time
25:03of death.
25:13There is a tree on the earth.
25:23A flower appears on the tree.
25:30The flower turns into a fruit.
25:34The fruit gets ripe.
25:45And big, juicy and luscious, bright yellow mango.
25:57And then one day, the fruit falls.
26:06What does the sky have to do with all of this?
26:11The sky is watching.
26:12The sky is watching.
26:15Yes.
26:16Yes.
26:17The tree, the flower, the fruit, the earth all have a relationship with the sky.
26:30The fruit is in the sky.
26:35And that's the relationship.
26:41All this keeps happening.
26:44The sky remains the sky.
26:51And if there is the soil, there would be trees.
26:54And if there are the trees, there would be flowers.
27:00And the flowers will get pollinated.
27:02And they will turn into fruits.
27:06And one day, the fruits will fall.
27:14What does the clear sky have to do with all this?
27:24Does he go and stop the fruit from ripening?
27:30Or does the clear sky go and force the fruit to fall earlier than usual?
27:40If the clear sky does not force the fruit to fall earlier than usual, then Indira, why are
27:47you saying that the realized ones find it difficult to contain the body?
27:53The body will continue its processes.
27:57The fruit will do what fruits do.
28:00The sky will be what the sky is.
28:04That's the body and the realized one.
28:12Are the two connected?
28:13Obviously.
28:14Is there the fruit without the sky?
28:19But fruits come and go.
28:22Sky remains.
28:27Does the sky get nervous when the fruit is about to fall?
28:34Yes Indira.
28:37The fruit is about to fall.
28:41And the sky starts raining.
28:51That steers for you.
28:56That's the relationship of the realized one with the body.
29:00The sky is overseeing the fruit.
29:06The realized one is overseeing the body.
29:10Overseeing in a very very non-physical way.
29:14Have you ever seen the sky have eyes?
29:18So it's a very non-physical seeing.
29:23The trouble with the word seeing or witnessing is that you start conflating it with manual
29:29and physical seeing, envisioning.
29:42What is the meaning of witnessing in spirituality?
29:47Witnessing is that which happens between the sky and the fruit.
29:53Is it happening at all?
29:55You could even say that it is not even a happening.
30:02Witnessing is something that doesn't happen.
30:08The assumption behind your question Indira is that the body has some relation with enlightenment.
30:30You still want to see the enlightened one as a body.
30:33So you are saying what do the enlightened ones do with their body?
30:38They do nothing with their body.
30:40If the body lives, the body lives.
30:43If the body falls, the body falls.
30:48They do nothing with anything.
30:50No.
30:51No.
30:52No.
30:53No.
30:54Are you getting it?
30:55Are they eager to live on?
30:57No.
30:58No.
30:59Are they eager to give up the body?
31:03No.
31:04Are they?
31:09No.
31:10No.
31:11When they are not, how can they have eagerness?
31:19The body is a cute toy.
31:38Existence is full of toys and these toys keep playing with each other.
31:48Why would anyone want to forcibly destroy the toy?
32:00Let it be there as long as it is there.
32:07One day anyway, it has to fall.
32:08See?
32:09Let it be there.
32:10Let it be there.
32:11Let it be there.
32:12Let it be there.
32:13Let it be there.
32:18Let it be there.
32:19Let it be there.
32:20Let it be there.
32:23Let it be there.
32:24Let it be there.
32:36Let it be there.
32:37Let it be there.
32:38Let it be there.
32:39Let it be there.
32:40Let it be there.
32:41Let it be there.
32:42Let it be there.
32:43Let it be there.
32:44Let it be there.
32:45Let it be there.
32:46Let it be there.
32:47Let it be there.
32:48Let it be there.
32:49Let it be there.
32:50Let it be there.
32:51Let it be there.
32:52Let it be there.
32:53Let it be there.
32:54Let it be there.
32:55Let it be there.
32:56Let it be there.
32:57Let it be there.
32:58Let it be there.
32:59It has no juice.
33:18It is in the sky and due to the sky that the existence is juicy.
33:31But the sky itself has not much to do with juice.
33:52Does that gladden you?
33:59Does that disappoint you?
34:04Figure out.
34:12There are just too many mango lovers who have never thanked the sky.
34:19There are just too many mango lovers who have never thanked the sky.
34:26It is a good idea.
34:29It is a good idea.
34:34It is a good idea.
34:37It is a good idea.
34:41It is a good idea.
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