JOSHU the Lion's Roar OSHO ＜2＞

＜1＞からつづく

JOSHU the Lion's Roar　＜2＞
OSHO (Author)　October 1988 Publisher: Rebel Pub. House　Hardcover: 185 pages Language: English
★★★★★
Osho最後のZENシリーズ目次  

1)Now there is something to be told to you which is not directly said in this anecdote. There used to be a very ancient temple, Jui-hsiang, meaning holy image - a temple of Buddha. But it has disappeared through natural disaster, in an earthquake. That must have been before Joshu was born. His statement that he is coming from Jui-hsiang temple... and Jui-hsiang temple exists no more!

In Japan the earthquake is a daily experience. That's why wood and bamboo have become so important in Japan. You cannot make houses of marble; any moment the earthquake can come and then it will be very dangerous, it will kill. You can make only very thin walls; most of the walls are made of paper. You have to use very lightweight material, so even if the earthquake comes it cannot kill you. Just because of those earthquakes, bamboo has taken on a special significance in Japanese life.

Joshu's saying that he is coming from Jui-hsiang temple means that he remembers his past life, that he was a priest in the Jui-hsiang temple which exists no more. P5

2)Maneesha, the word 'zazen' has to be understood before I can start discussing the sutras that you have brought. Zen I have explained to you. It comes from the Sanskrit dhyan. Buddha never used Sanskrit as a part of his revolution. Sanskrit was the language of the learned, it has never been a language of the masses. Buddha broke away from tradition and started speaking in the language of the masses. It was a revolt against scholarship, learnedness, the pundits, the rabbis, the people of the scripture, whose whole heart is in their books. And because of those books they cannot see the reality.

Buddha started speaking in the language of his province, Pali. In Pali, dhyan changes its form a little bit. It becomes jhan. When Bodhidharma reached China, jhan again changed, into Chinese; it became ch'an. And when the school of Rinzai took the same message to Japan from China, the word ch'an came very close to the very original Pali, jhan. It became in Japan, zen.p68

3)What is zazen? Zen is, just once or twice a day... in the early morning when the sun is rising and the birds are singing, you sit silently by the side of the ocean or the river or the lake. It is not something that you have to do continuously. It is just like any other activity. You take your bath - that does not mean that for twenty-four hours you have to continue taking a shower. Zazen exactly means that:

taking a shower continuously. Zen is a periodic effort to see the truth. Zazen is a twenty-four hour, around-the-clock remaining aware, alert, in the state beyond mind. Your activities should show it, your words should show it. Even your walking should show it - the grace, the beauty, the truth, the validity, the authority.

So zazen is an extension of Zen around the clock. Just because of zazen, monasteries came into existence. Because if you are living an ordinary life of a householder you cannot manage to contemplate, to be in the state of Zen twenty-four hours a day. You have to do many other things.

And there is every possibility that while you are doing other things you may forget the undercurrent.

So monasteries came into existence. The society decided that the people who want to go deeper into their being are doing such a great experiment for the whole humanity, because if even one man becomes a buddha, with him the whole humanity rises a little bit in consciousness.p69

4)Tathagata is the most lovely word used for Gautam Buddha. Just out of respect, the disciples don't use the name Gautam Buddha, they use the word "Tathagata." And tathagata is very meaningful.

It comes from tathata. Tathata means thisness, just here and now - a man who always remains here and now, never wavering towards past or future, is a tathagata. He neither goes anywhere nor comes back, he simply remains here. Time passes by, clouds pass by, but nothing touches him. His being here is from eternity to eternity. That is the most cherished word the followers of Buddha used to address him.p72

5)The new man will not think of Christianity as a religion, or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any other religion, because they are all carrying a dead past. Life has escaped from them long before.

They have not laughed for centuries; they have not been in tune with the universal music. They have forgotten the language of dance.

Zen alone seems a possibility for the future man. It will survive - when all other religions are gone, Zen will be the only religion around the earth. In fact, all other religions are already dead.

Just because of old habit, old conditioning, we go on carrying them, but they have not contributed anything to human consciousness. Rather than contributing they have destroyed much. They have enslaved man, they have oppressed man, they have put man against man; they have created immense violence, war, massacre.

Zen is a religion of flowers, is a religion of songs, is a religion of ecstasy. It has nothing in it which in any way tries to avoid life in any form. It lives life in its totality - and the miracle is that by living totally, each moment becomes so precious... there is no way to measure the beauty of the moment when a person is total, herenow. P138

to be contnued