the-diamond-sutra-05/

And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul, no perception of a person. Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma, or a perception of a no-dharma. No perception or non-perception takes place in them.
And why? If, Subhuti, these bodhisattvas, should have a perception of either a dharma, or a no-dharma, they would thereby seize on a self, on a being, on a soul, on a person.
And why? Because a bodhisattva should not seize on either a dharma or a no-dharma. Therefore this saying has been taught by the Tathagata with a hidden meaning: “By those who know the discourse on dharma as like unto a raft, dharmas should be forsaken, still more so, no-dharmas.”

The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as “the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment,” or is there any dharma which the Tathagata has demonstrated?
Subhuti replied: No, not as I understand what the Lord has said. And why? This dharma which the Tathagata has fully known or demonstrated – it cannot be grasped, it cannot be talked about, it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma. And why? Because an absolute exalts the holy persons.
To recapitulate…in the last sutra Subhuti asked: “Will there be any beings in the last epoch, at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine, who will be able to understand the dharma?”
Buddha said: “Do not speak thus, Subhuti! Yes, even then there will be beings who will understand the truth. Even one single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man.” Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known, Subhuti, they are to the Tathagata.
A few things to be understood, then it will be easy to enter into today’s sutra. First, the good doctrine, the dharma. Buddha calls a doctrine good if it is not a doctrine. If it is a doctrine it is not a good doctrine. Buddha calls a philosophy good philosophy if it is not a philosophy. If it is a philosophy then it is not good philosophy.
A doctrine is a set, fixed phenomenon. The universe is in flux; no doctrine can contain it. No doctrine can be just to it, no doctrine can do justice to existence. All doctrines fall short.
So Buddha says: “My doctrine is not a doctrine but just a vision. I have not given you any set rules, I have not given you a system.” He says: “I have only given you an approach towards reality. I have only given you the keys to open the door. I have not said anything about what you will see when you open the door. Nothing can be said about it.”
Just think of a man who has lived always in a dark cave, who knows nothing of light, who knows nothing of color, who has never seen the sun or the moon. How can you tell him about the rainbows? How can you talk to him about stars? How can you describe roses to him? It is impossible. And whatsoever you say to him, if he understands it, it will be wrong. He will create a doctrine and that will be wrong.
So Buddha says: “I have not given any doctrine to you. I have given you only the key to open the door so that you can come out of the dark cave of your being and you can see yourself what is the case – yatha bhutam, that which is.” Nothing has been said about it; that’s why it is not a doctrine. Buddha is not a philosopher, he is a physician. That’s exactly what he has said: “I am a physician, not a philosopher.”
A philosopher is one who goes on talking about color and light to a blind man, and goes on confusing him and confounding him. The blind man is incapable of understanding anything about light. Buddha says: “I am not going to philosophize about light, I will simply give you a medicine, I will try to cure your eyes. Then you can see for yourself.” This is called the good doctrine, this is called dharma. This is a totally different vision.
The second thing to understand…Buddha says to Subhuti: Do not speak thus. Why? – because this idea has been persistently arising in people, even in people like Subhuti, of the highest spiritual qualities…that they are special, that their time is special, that their age is special, that never again will people be able to touch such heights. This is an egoistic, a subtle egoistic attitude. It shows much about Subhuti. He is still carrying a subtle ego.
Down the ages almost all people have suffered from this disease; they think that their time is something special. No time is special. The divine is available in all times. In India, Hindus say that now nobody can become enlightened because it is Kali Yuga, it is the last, the dirtiest age – nobody can become enlightened. Jainas say that nobody can become enlightened because it is Pancham Kal, the fifth epoch. Even Buddhists, perfectly aware of The Diamond Sutra, go on saying that nobody can become enlightened in this age, and even they try to interpret Buddha’s words in such a way that it starts appearing as if nobody can become enlightened.
Just the other night I was reading a commentary on The Diamond Sutra. The commentary says, “Yes, Buddha says that people will be there who will be able to understand a little bit of the truth, and great will be their merit – but merit is not enlightenment. Merit is just the ground.”
So the interpreter, the commentator says, “In this age nobody can become enlightened; at the most you can attain to some merit. You have to wait for the right age to become enlightened. Your merit will be of great help, it will put the foundation, but you cannot make the shrine right now.” This is how people go on.
What Buddha is saying is simply this fact, that all time is similar for the seeker – and so it is for the non-seeker. In Buddha’s time there were millions of people who never became enlightened. It is not like spring – that when spring comes all the trees bloom. If that is the case, then all the people in Buddha’s time would have become enlightened. Only a few people became enlightened. So it is not like spring, it is not a question of climate; it is not a particular auspicious time that makes people enlightened.
Those who seek and search, they attain. Those who don’t seek and search, they will not attain; even if the time is auspicious, it doesn’t matter. And the time is the same, the time is neither good nor bad. Time is neither for enlightenment nor against enlightenment. Whatsoever you want your life to become, time gives you the opportunity.
Time is impartial. It does not impose anything on you, it simply gives you freedom. You can become enlightened, as enlightened as you desire, or you can remain as unenlightened as you decide. Existence cooperates with you, but this idea arises again and again. I have come across many scriptures of the world: people think, “What will happen to others in the future?”
This idea persists even in ordinary human beings. You can see any old man and he talks about his time. Those beautiful days, those golden days which he had lived were something special, now there is nothing in the world. And remember, when you become old you will tell to your children the same long tales, tall tales, and you will again say, “Those were the days.”

I have heard about a man who went to Paris when he was eighty with his wife, who was seventy-eight. They looked around. The old man said, “Things have changed, Paris is no longer Paris. I had come fifty years ago when I was thirty – that was the real Paris.”
The woman laughed, and as women are more earthly, more pragmatic, she said, “My understanding is different. I think you are no longer you, that’s all. Paris is the same. Just look at the young people – they are enjoying, as much as you must have enjoyed when you were young.”

Now for a man who is eighty, Paris means nothing, Paris is its nightlife. For a man who is eighty, it is irrelevant. He is no longer so foolish as to enjoy it. He is no longer that young to be so foolish. Dreams have disappeared. And I think the wife is right: “You are not you, Paris is the same.”
It happens to you too. You start thinking that those days of your childhood were beautiful; now things are not so good. You feel sorry for the kids who are living now. You don’t know – they will feel sorry for other kids again. This has always been so. And every man thinks his time has some special quality, it is revolutionary.
And I have heard, these were the first words uttered by Adam when Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden. He told Eve, “Look, we are living in, we are passing through great revolutionary times.” Naturally, being thrown out of the garden of Eden must have been a great crisis; nobody has been through such a crisis again.
Buddha says: Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Why? – because all time has the same quality. Space and time are not corrupted by you, they cannot be corrupted. You cannot even catch hold of time, how can you corrupt it? They are not polluted. You can pollute the air and the sea, but you cannot pollute time, or can you?
How can you pollute time? You cannot even catch hold of it. By the time you catch hold of it, it is gone. By the time you become aware of the moment, the moment is no more. It has already become past, it has already become history. You cannot pollute time. Time is one of the most pure things, it is always pure.
That’s why Buddha says: Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Yes, even then there will be beings who will understand the truth…. There will always be beings who will understand, because truth is not a quality that happens sometimes and does not happen sometimes. Truth is always there. That is what is called truth – that which is always there.
Truth has nothing to do with time, it is eternal. You can attain to truth in the day, you can attain to truth in the night, you can attain to truth in the marketplace, you can attain to truth in the Himalayas, you can attain to truth being a man or a woman, a child, a young man, an old man. You can attain to truth any moment, any place, because truth is always available, you just have to become available to it.
And Buddha says: Even one single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man. One single thought of serene faith…. What is faith in Buddha’s sense of the word? Ordinarily faith is fear, faith is nothing but fear. If you go to the churches and to the temples and the gurudwaras, you will find fearful people, frightened people – frightened of life and frightened of death and just seeking some shelter in some god; feeling helpless, finding some security somewhere; or missing their father and their mother and projecting some father and mother there in heaven.
They are not mature, they cannot live without their mums and dads. The dad may be dead, the mum may not be alive anymore; but they are children, they need some apron to cling to, they need somebody. They cannot live on their own, they cannot trust themselves.
When you are afraid, and because of your fear you become religious, this religion is bogus. This religion is a kind of monkey religion, ape religion, imitative. Out of fear arises imitation. What does Buddha mean when he uses the word faith? His word is shaddha. The Sanskrit form of shaddha is shraddha; it does not really mean faith, it means confidence, faith in oneself. It is a totally different religion. Buddha calls it right religion and the other religion he calls the wrong religion.
If you approach reality out of fear and trembling you are approaching in a wrong way, and when you are approaching in a wrong way whatsoever you come to see and feel will be wrong. Your eyes are wrong, your heart is wrong. Truth cannot be known out of fear, truth can only be known out of fearlessness. Shaddha is needed, a confidence in oneself is needed, a trust in one’s own being is needed.
One should approach reality out of trust, not out of fear. The essence of faith or trust is letting go. The fearful man can never let go. He is always on the defense, he is always protecting himself, he is always fighting, he is always antagonistic. Even his prayer, his meditation, is nothing but a strategy to protect himself.
The man of faith knows how to let go, the man of faith knows how to surrender, the man of faith knows how to flow with the river and not to push it. He goes with the stream wherever it takes him. He has that courage and confidence that he can go with the stream.
This is my experience and observation too. Whenever a fearful person comes to me he is incapable of surrender, although he thinks he is so strong that he cannot surrender. Nobody likes to feel that he is weak, particularly the weaklings never like it. They don’t want to come to the realization that they are weak, that they are cowardly. They think they are very strong – they can’t surrender.
My own observation is the stronger the person, the easier is the surrender. Only the strong man can surrender, because he trusts himself, he is confident of himself, he knows that he can let go. He is unafraid. He is ready to explore the unknown, he is ready to go into the uncharted. He is thrilled by the journey of the unknown. He wants to taste it, whatsoever the cost and whatsoever the risk. He wants to live in danger.
A man of faith always lives in danger. Danger is his shelter, insecurity is his security, and a tremendous inquiring quest is his only love. He wants to explore, he wants to go to the very end of existence, or to the very depth of existence, or to the very height of existence. He wants to know what it is – “What is it that surrounds me? What is it that I go on calling ‘I’? Who am I?”
A strong man is ready to surrender. He knows that there is no need to fear. “I belong to existence, I am not a stranger here. Existence has mothered me, existence can’t be inimical to me. Existence has brought me here, I am a product of existence. Existence has some destiny to fulfill through me.”
The strong man always feels that destiny there: “I am here to do something that is needed by the existence and nobody else can do it except me, otherwise why should I be created?” So he is always ready to go into the dark, to search, to seek. This Buddha calls shaddha, faith. It is better to translate it as trust.
Even one single thought of serene faith…. And then he adds another condition to it – serene faith. You can have a kind of trust; it may not be serene, it may be full of turmoil. That won’t help, that won’t take you far. Faith has to be serene. Faith has to come out of stillness, not out of the noise of the mind. Faith has not to be a belief. Belief is always noisy.
You choose one belief against others: naturally there is conflict, it is a choice. There are thousands of beliefs around you hankering for your attention: the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Jaina – thousands of beliefs. There are three hundred religions on the earth and each religion has many sects. Now they are all competing for you, they want to possess you, and naturally your mind becomes very very shaken and wavering. What to choose, what not to choose, with whom to go?
And even if you choose out of this noise and turmoil, a part of your mind always goes on saying, “You are not doing right.” And that part will take revenge. Sooner or later that part will assert and will disrupt your being and you will feel torn apart.
Buddha says a serene faith is needed. What is serene faith? A faith that does not arise out of choice but out of understanding. Just the other day I received a letter from Chintana. She has been a Christian nun and she is very much torn apart. She cannot decide whether to be with me or to go back to her nunnery. Now whatsoever she will do will be out of chaos. If she decides to be with me, a part of her mind will go on fighting with her. If she decides to go to the nunnery, a part of her mind will go on desiring to be here.
Whatsoever she chooses will be wrong. The choice itself will come out of turmoil, anxiety. It will be a kind of repression. If she chooses the nunnery, she will be repressing the love for me. If she chooses me, she will be repressing the desire for the nunnery – the seclusion, the isolation, the protection, the comfort, the convenience of the nunnery.
Now what will Buddha suggest to Chintana? Buddha will suggest meditate, don’t choose. There is no hurry. Be choiceless. Meditate, pray, become more and more silent. One moment will come when, out of serenity, the choice. Not that you are choosing against any of your parts; just out of the serenity it blooms like a lotus. It is a total blooming, your whole being is with it. It is not a choice against any other alternative, it is just your very fragrance. Then you are not torn apart. This Buddha calls serene faith. And he says even a single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man.
This is my suggestion to Chintana too. Today she may be even more worried; it is the twenty-fifth of December – she will be torn apart. But I will not suggest to her to choose me or to choose the monastery. Don’t choose. Wait, have patience. Let God choose for you. You meditate. How can you choose? You are not yet wise enough to choose. Pray, and wait.
And don’t play tricks – because you can play tricks with your own mind. You can have your idea – you have really chosen – and then you can wait, and then from the back door you can force your choice and you can believe that this is from God. No, when I am saying don’t choose, don’t choose. Forget about choosing. How can you choose?
Meditate, become serene, still, silent. One day when there will be no thought in the mind suddenly you will feel something has been decided and you are not the one who has decided it, it is God’s decision. Then whatsoever it is, it is good.
Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known, Subhuti, they are to the Tathagata.
Now these two things have to be understood. One is the word tathagata. It is a very strange word and has two meanings, absolutely opposed to each other, two meanings diametrically opposed to each other. It is a strange word. The first meaning is tathagata; that means, thus came. The second meaning is tathagata; it means, thus gone. One meaning is thus came, another meaning is thus gone. A few people have chosen the first meaning – thus came. Then it means a man who has not come on his own, who has no motive for coming here. Mm? That is what Christians like about Christ – he’s sent by God. He has no motive, no desire to be fulfilled here. He has come as a messenger.
That is what Mohammedans like about Mohammed. They call him Paigamber, the messenger. He has not come for any of his own desires to be fulfilled here. He is utterly contented, he has no cause to be here. Others are here with a cause; they have not just come, they have come because of their desire. They wanted to come, that’s why they have come.
Buddha has come, not that he wanted to come, he is sent by existence itself. It is existence that has taken form in him. It is uncaused, unmotivated, no personal desire. That is the first meaning of tathagata – thus came.
The second meaning a few people have chosen – thus gone. That means one who has already gone from here. If you go deep into Buddha you will not find anybody there, he has left the abode. He no more exists in the body, he is no more present in the body. He has become empty. He is well-gone, perfectly gone to the other shore. His real existence is on the other shore; on this shore only a shadow is moving.
But my own choice is both together. I would like to interpret the word tathagata as thus came, thus gone…like the wind. The wind comes for no reason of its own, for no motivation of its own. It is utterly surrendered in existence. Wherever the existence sends it, it comes. Wherever there is need, it comes. It has no goals of its own. It does not say, “I will go only to the north. I’m not going to the south, I am fed up with the south.” Or, “I am going only to the east, I am a very religious wind.” Or, “I am only going to the west, I want to enjoy life.” No, the wind says nothing. Wherever there is the need, the wind goes. Thus came, thus gone.
And when it goes from that place, it doesn’t cling there. A wind comes and goes. It does not say, “Now I have arrived, and I have taken so much trouble to come, I will not go. Now I will remain here. After such a long journey, crossing so many seas and mountains, I have come here. Now I will not go, I will stay here. Otherwise what is the purpose of my coming here?” No, the wind comes and the wind goes.
Buddha is like that wind. Thus came, thus gone. No clinging. His coming and going is mysterious. His coming and going is unpredictable, it is unexplainable, because only motives can be explained and causes can be explained. In that ultimate state of enlightenment, in that purity, on that plenitude, things are mysterious, things simply happen. One never knows why, there is no need to ask the why. Everything is beautiful and a benediction. Coming is benediction, going is benediction. To be in the body is benediction, to go out of the body is benediction. To have a being is benediction, to disappear into non-being is benediction. All is benediction.
The taste of enlightenment is of benediction. Whatsoever happens, it makes no difference, it doesn’t matter. There is no choice, no motive, no desire. Things happen on their own, they are very mysterious. That’s why a buddha cannot be explained. A buddha can be experienced, hence the need of disciplehood.
Sometimes people come and ask me, “What is the need of becoming a sannyasin?” The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will not be able to have the taste of me. The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will never come close to me, you will never have that orgasmic experience that is possible by feeling deep empathy with me.
Sannyas is empathy – to be totally with me, utterly with me, to drop all defenses, to come so close that my nothingness starts overflowing in you, to come so close that there are no more boundaries, that we start overlapping. For that experience, sannyas is needed. And a buddha can be known only that way, there is no other way.
And the other thing to be understood is, he says, “I have seen through the buddha-eye, I have known through buddha-cognition.” What is this buddha-eye and the buddha-cognition? What in yoga is known as the third eye, or Hindus know as Shiva-netra, the eye of Shiva, is known in Buddhist scriptures as the buddha-eye.
You have two eyes; they are symbolic of duality, you are divided. When you attain to one single sight, when a third vision arises in you which is not divisible, then you start seeing the unity of existence. It is as if you break a mirror and then all those fragments reflect so many faces of you. You have only one face, but those fragments of the mirror reflect a thousand faces. If you put that mirror again together, again one face arises.
Reality is one but we have two eyes, hence everywhere reality becomes divided. For example, one thing you call “love,” another thing you call “hate.” In fact they are one thing. Love and hate are not the right words to describe them. The energy is the same – it is love-hate. The “and” has to be dropped. In fact you cannot even put a hyphen between the two: lovehate is one word. Daynight is one word, lifedeath is one word, miserybliss is one word, painpleasure is one word, mattermind is one word. But because we have two eyes, everything is divided in two and then we go on arguing for centuries.
Now for five thousand years man has been arguing whether man is body or soul. There are not two things. The body is nothing but the outermost form of the soul, and the soul is nothing but the innermost core of the body. They are not two. And God and the world are not two either. The creator and the creation are one.
This is called the buddha-eye – to come to a point where your two eyes merge and melt and become one. Jesus says, “If your eyes be like one, then your whole being will be full of light.” That’s what enlightenment is.
A few words of Jesus are beautiful: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female, then shall you enter the kingdom.”
Or again: “It is impossible for a man to mount two horses and to stretch two bows; and it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters, otherwise he will honor the one and offend the other. But if your eyes be like one then your whole being will be full of light.”
In Buddhist tradition that oneness of vision, that unfragmented vision, that total vision, that whole vision, is called buddha-eye. And whatsoever is seen through buddha-eye is buddha-cognition. And when you have the buddha-eye and you look at life with that one vision it unites everything, and then you are able to know fully, not before that. Before that, your knowledge is always partial, fragmentary, lopsided.
Now the sutra.
And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul, no perception of a person. Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma, or a perception of a no-dharma. No perception or non-perception takes place in them.
These eight things are known as the eight barriers to wisdom. They have to be understood. First, this is the definition of a bodhisattva. Who is a bodhisattva? One who has crossed these eight barriers of wrong attitudes, of wrong approaches towards life.
The first, no perception of a self takes place. These four words have to be understood – they are almost synonymous, but only almost: self, being, soul, person. In the dictionaries they are almost the same, but Buddha gives different colors to them, and they have different colors, slight differences.
First, the self means the ego – my, mine, I – as distinct from the five elements that constitute me. Man is constituted of five elements, just a combination of these five. You take the five apart and man disappears. Buddha says there is nothing else other than the five. It is like a chariot: you take parts of the chariot apart, you take the wheels, you take the horses, you take everything else, and if in the end you want to know where the chariot is, the chariot has disappeared because the chariot was just a combination of those parts.
This is one of the greatest insights of Buddha, no other religion has gone to that height. All other religions have stopped with some idea of self, with some idea of ego. Howsoever refined, howsoever holy, howsoever virtuous, but some idea of the ego has remained. You call it self, you call it soul, you call it atma; what you call it doesn’t matter. Buddha is very very clear about it – that your deepest core consists of nothingness. There is no ego.
The word “I” is only utilitarian, it corresponds to no reality. It is needed – even Buddha uses it. It is good as a means to communicate; it designates, but it corresponds to no reality.
So the first, self, means “I am separate from the constituents.” Buddha says you are not there, only the constituents are there. You are utter emptiness. The second is being – being means individuality, the idea of being identical with oneself at different times. You say that “I was once a child, now I am a young man, and soon I will become an old man.” You have some idea as if you persist. One time you were a child, then you became young – but you are the same. And then you will become old and you will be the same. Buddha says each moment you are changing.
He is perfectly in agreement with Heraclitus. You cannot step twice in the same river. The river goes on flowing. When you were a child you were a different individual, now you are a different individual. When you will be old you will be a different individual again. In fact every day you are different, every moment you are different.
Why does this idea persist that “I am the same”? This persists because the change is so subtle and your vision is not so subtle. It is as if you light a candle in the evening, it burns the whole night, and in the morning you blow it out and you say, “It is the same flame that I am blowing out.” It is not. The flame has been continuously changing, disappearing, new flame arising each moment. But between two flames, one disappearing, another arising, the gap is so subtle, so small, that you cannot see it. That’s why this idea of individuality, of being, persists.
Buddha says life is a process, life is not like a thing. It is a continuous move. Life is a river. Buddha says if we want to be true to reality we should drop all nouns from the language, only verbs are true. River is not true, rivering is true. Tree is not true, treeing is true. Love is not true, loving is true. Life consists of verbs, not of nouns.
And the third thing is the soul, the idea of a supra-force abiding in the body, a unifying and vivifying force separate from everything else. That too – Buddha says there is no supra-force. There is nothing inside abiding in you. It is not that you are the house and there is a host inside, a resident inside. All that resides inside is pure nothingness.
And the fourth is the idea of person, the being. The belief in a permanent entity who would migrate from rebirth to rebirth. That Buddha calls person – that you will die and your person will immediately be born into some other womb. Continuity is there but there is no person. Continuity is there but there is no self. Continuity is there but there is no individuality. Continuity is there but there is no soul.
This vision of Buddha is so utterly unique that even this country, such a religious country, India, could not swallow it. It was felt as if Buddha had decided to destroy the whole foundation of religion. He was giving a totally new vision, far higher than the ordinary concepts of soul, self, etcetera, because in those concepts your ego goes on hiding in new ways. They are nothing but ways of the ego to exist and to continue existing.
Buddha says:
And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place…
When a person turns inwards, when your consciousness turns inwards and looks into your own being, nothing is found:
…no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being takes place, no perception of a soul takes place, no perception of a person takes place.
These four things are immediately dissolved.
Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma…
Dharma means the positive element in life and no-dharma means the negative element in life. The positive and negative – Buddha says even these are not true, they disappear. A perception of a dharma does not take place. You don’t come upon a positive reality inside, neither do you come upon a negative reality inside. You simply come upon a total nothingness.
And remember, that nothingness should not be thought synonymous with no reality, with negativity. Nothingness simply means no positive, no negative. Both have disappeared, that duality is no more there. This is utter silence. Not finding anything, not even finding yourself, you are freed. Not that you are freed, but you are freed from yourself.
When others speak of freedom they always mean that you will be there, free. When Buddha talks about freedom he says you will be freed – you will not be there. How can you be in freedom? If you are there in freedom there will remain a kind of imprisonment. You are the imprisonment. You can’t be free. When you are not, freedom is. When you are, freedom is not.
And seventh, no perception. When there is nothing to see, how can you see it is a perception? No self, no positivity, no negativity – there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, you cannot see that a perception has taken place. A perception needs something to perceive. So, the seventh thing, no perception exists. But then you can say, “Then does non-perception exist?”
Buddha says when there is nobody to see and nothing to see, how can non-perception exist either? He is destroying all the roots for the ego, all the subtle ways of the ego. These are the eight barriers. When all these have disappeared, a person is a bodhisattva.
And then the problem arises, “How to remain on this shore?” Only then…then you have something to share – your nothingness. Then you have something to share – your paradise. Then you have something to share – your utter existence. But now how to remain on this shore? How to linger here a little while more?
And Buddha says:
And why? If, Subhuti, these bodhisattvas should have a perception of either a dharma or a no-dharma, they would thereby seize on a self, on a being, on a soul, on a person.
If you see something inside, remember, you are still outside. If you see something, even Krishna playing on his flute, or Jesus crucified and fresh blood flowing from his hands, or Buddha sitting silently under his bodhi tree, if you come across anything inside, remember, you are still outside. That’s why Buddha says, “If you meet me on the way, kill me immediately.”
One has to come to a point where there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, the seer also disappears; that is the point to remember. It is very difficult to understand. The seer exists only with the seen. That’s why Krishnamurti goes on saying again and again, “The observer is the observed.” When there is nothing to see, how can you be as a seer there? When content disappears, the container also disappears. They exist together, they are two aspects of the same coin.
Buddha says there is no such thing as a spiritual experience, all experiences are non-spiritual. Mm? Somebody comes and says, “My kundalini is rising” – a Gopi Krishna in Kashmir says his kundalini is rising. It is not spiritual, no kundalini is spiritual. It is a physical phenomenon, a worldly phenomenon, and can give you pleasure just as sex can give you pleasure. It is the same energy moving upwards. It has nothing to do with spirituality, not at least with what Buddha means by spirituality.
And Gopi Krishna says that he has attained because his kundalini has risen. He feels tingling energy moving in his spine. But a spine is a spine. And now he thinks that the kundalini has arisen, it has reached to sahasrar, the seventh chakra, and he has become creative. So he has started writing poetry. Those poems are just rubbish. If they prove anything, they simply disprove all kundalini. I have never come across such rubbish poetry – just like schoolchildren. Even sometimes they write more beautiful things.
You can find only one comparison, and that is Shree Chinmoy. He writes poetry. In one night he will write one thousand poems. Even to call them poems is an exaggeration. They are not even prose, they don’t have anything of poetry in them.
But these people think they have attained to spiritual creativity, because kundalini has arisen. Somebody has seen light in the head and he thinks now enlightenment has happened – “because I have seen light. When I close my eyes there is great light.” And I am not saying that light cannot be seen and I am not saying kundalini does not arise – it arises so easily. You can see here, so many sannyasins are in that state that Gopi Krishna thinks is kundalini. It is nothing to brag about.
Any experience is bound to be outside, because you are the experiencer and the experience is there, facing you. When all experiences disappear, there is spirituality. But then a phenomenon happens: when all experiences disappear, the experiencer also disappears. In the wake of it, it disappears, because it cannot exist, it cannot subsist without experiences. It feeds on experiences. When the experience and experiencer are both gone you are a bodhisattva.
And why? Because a bodhisattva should not seize on either a dharma or a no-dharma. Therefore this saying has been taught by the Tathagata with a hidden meaning: “By those who know the discourse on dharma as like unto a raft. dharmas should be forsaken, still more so, no-dharmas.”
Buddha says everything has to be forsaken – dharmas, no-dharmas, experiences, great experiences, spiritual experiences, and finally the experiencer too. Everything has to be forsaken. When nothing remains, not even a trace of anything, not even the idea that now there is nothing…. Even if this idea remains – that now there is nothing – everything is there. This idea is enough to contain the whole world. If you say, “Now nothing is there,” you have missed the point. You cannot even say that – that nothing is there. Who is there to say? Who is there to observe? There is utter silence, absolute silence.
So Buddha says that the dharma, the religion, is like a raft. These are his famous words. Buddha says in Majjhim Nikaya: “Using the figure of a raft, brethren, will I teach you the norm as something to leave behind, not to take with you. If one has crossed with the help of a raft a great stretch of water, on this side full of doubts and fears, on the further side safe and free from fears, one would then not take it on one’s shoulders and carry it with one, but though it was of great use to him, he would leave it behind and have finished with it. Thus, brethren, understanding the figure of the raft, we must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.”
All methods – yoga, Tantra – all techniques, all meditations and all prayers, are strategies to reach to the other shore. Once you have reached, they have to be left behind. Feel thankful, but don’t start carrying them on your shoulders, otherwise you will be a fool.
Or Buddha says again: “The example of the raft shows dharmas should be treated as provisional, as means to an end. The same holds good of emptiness too, the negation of dharmas. This corollary has elsewhere been illustrated by the simile of medicine which can heal any illness. Once a cure has been effected it must be abandoned together with the illness because its further use would only make one ill again.”
Buddha says: “Just so, when this medicine called emptiness has brought about a cure of the disease of the belief in existence. Attachment to emptiness is a disease as much as attachment to existence. Those who continue to use this medicine of emptiness after they have gained possession of health, only make themselves ill again.”
Remember, first one has to drop everything and become empty, and then one has to drop that emptiness too. That emptiness is just a medicine. Buddha is right when he says, “I am a physician, not a philosopher.” He does not give you a doctrine to cling to. And whatsoever he gives to you is provisional, arbitrary, and one day it has to be dropped and forgotten.
When all disappears – the world and God, matter and mind, body and soul, you and I – when all disappears and finally the idea that all has disappeared also disappears, you have arrived, you have become a bodhisattva. Then the problem is how to linger on this shore, how to be here even a single moment?
You will have to create a chittopad, a great decision: “There are others stumbling in darkness. I have attained – I have to share it.” Out of that chittopad, out of the creation of a new mind…because the old mind has gone, and with the old mind gone you cannot stay here. You will have to create a new mind.
Two words to be understood: one is passion, another is compassion. They both have passion in them. Passion is the old mind, the desiring mind, the mind full of desire. When all desires have disappeared and the old mind is gone, you will have to immediately create compassion so that through compassion you can be here. For a little while you can help a few people to raise their eyes to the other shore. For a little while you can direct a few people, you can indicate the way.
The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment?
That is one of the methods of Buddha – he asks his disciples sometimes, “What do you think, Subhuti? Do you think that I have attained the truth, the dharma, or have I preached truth to people? What do you think about it?”
Is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as the ultimate, right and perfect enlightenment, or is there any dharma which the Tathagata has demonstrated?
Subhuti replied: No…
It was very easy to fall in the trap of the Buddha, the question was difficult. The question was such that one would tend to say yes. “Yes, Buddha has attained, otherwise who has attained?” But the very idea of attainment will be unspiritual. And Buddha is saying there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain.
And it would have been very very simple for Subhuti to say, “Yes, Lord. You have preached as nobody has preached, you have demonstrated as nobody has demonstrated.” But if there is nothing to attain, what can there be to demonstrate? If there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain, who can demonstrate it and what is there to demonstrate?
But Subhuti was not deceived by Buddha’s question.
Subhuti replied: No, not as I understand what the Lord has said. And why? This dharma which the Tathagata has fully known or demonstrated – it cannot be grasped, it cannot be talked about, it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma.
So first he says, “No, you have not attained anything, because there is nothing to attain if I understand you rightly. And how can you demonstrate that something which is beyond something is beyond nothing too? How can you demonstrate it? There is no way to grasp it and no way to say it because it is neither positive nor negative.” Language is capable only of catching hold of the positive and negative; that which transcends both is not graspable.
And again, the final thing he says is:
And why? Because an absolute exalts the holy persons.
The absolute means the beyond, the transcendental, that which is beyond hate and love, that which is beyond life and death, that which is beyond day and night, that which is beyond man and woman, that which is beyond hell and heaven, that which is beyond all dualities, that is the absolute – and the absolute exalts the holy persons. An absolute, that absolute, that transcendental, is exalting you.
The Sanskrit word for it is very rich. It is prabhaveeta. It means many things, it contains a wealth of meanings. It means “exalted by,” “glorified by,” “draw their strength from,” owe their light to.” The moon reflects the light of the sun – it is prabhaveeta, it is just a mirror.
So is a buddha. A buddha is an empty mirror. He simply reflects existence as it is – yatha bhutam. He does not say anything. A mirror says nothing, a mirror has nothing to say, it simply reflects. It does not do anything to that which is, it simply reflects as it is – yatha bhutam.
In Buddha, existence is reflected. The absolute exalts, the absolute is reflected. Buddha is not doing anything.
A real master is just a mirror, he simply reflects that which is. He has no philosophy to preach, no doctrine to propound. Existence is his philosophy, life is his doctrine. He has nothing to grind, he has no motive anywhere. He himself is not, that’s how he has become a mirror.
A bodhisattva is on the point of becoming a mirror. If he creates a new mind, a new route – chittopad – of compassion, he will linger on this shore a little while. It is very miraculous, because he no longer belongs to this world. The world exists in him no more, still it happens, this miracle happens.
The being of a buddha here on this shore even for a few days or a few years is a miracle, the greatest miracle.
A man came to Buddha once and he asked, “Why don’t you show a few miracles?”
And Buddha said, “I am the miracle.”
Enough for today.