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“Bodhidharma – the Greatest Zen Master” – Osho

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“Bodhidharma – the Greatest Zen Master” – Osho Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master Talks given from 05/07/87 am to 14/07/87 pm English Discourse series 20 Chapters Year published: 1987 Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master Chapter #1 Chapter title: To seek nothing is bliss 5 July 1987 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium BELOVED OSHO, BODHIDHARMA'S OUTLINE OF PRACTICE MANY ROADS LEAD TO THE PATH, BUT BASICALLY THERE ARE ONLY TWO: REASON AND PRACTICE. TO ENTER BY REASON MEANS TO REALIZE THE ESSENCE THROUGH INSTRUCTION AND TO BELIEVE THAT ALL LIVING THINGS SHARE THE SAME TRUE NATURE, WHICH ISN'T APPARENT BECAUSE IT'S SHROUDED BY SENSATION AND DELUSION. THOSE WHO TURN FROM DELUSION BACK TO REALITY, WHO MEDITATE ON WALLS, THE ABSENCE OF SELF AND OTHER, THE ONENESS OF MORTAL AND SAGE, AND WHO REMAIN UNMOVED, EVEN BY SCRIPTURES, ARE IN COMPLETE AND UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT WITH REASON. WITHOUT MOVING, WITHOUT EFFORT, THEY ENTER, WE SAY, BY REASON. TO ENTER BY PRACTICE REFERS TO FOUR ALL-INCLUSIVE PRACTICES: SUFFERING INJUSTICE, ADAPTING TO CONDITIONS, SEEKING NOTHING AND PRACTICING THE DHARMA. FIRST, SUFFERING INJUSTICE. WHEN THOSE WHO SEARCH FOR THE PATH ENCOUNTER ADVERSITY, THEY SHOULD THINK TO THEMSELVES, "IN COUNTLESS AGES GONE BY, I'VE TURNED FROM THE ESSENTIAL TO THE TRIVIAL AND WANDERED THROUGH ALL MANNER OF EXISTENCE, OFTEN ANGRY WITHOUT CAUSE AND GUILTY OF NUMBERLESS TRANSGRESSIONS. NOW, THOUGH I DO NO WRONG, I'M PUNISHED BY MY PAST. NEITHER GODS NOR MEN CAN FORESEE WHEN AN EVIL DEED WILL BEAR ITS FRUIT. I ACCEPT IT WITH AN OPEN HEART AND WITHOUT COMPLAINT OF INJUSTICE." THE SUTRAS SAY, "WHEN YOU MEET WITH ADVERSITY, DON'T BE UPSET. BECAUSE IT MAKES SENSE." WITH SUCH UNDERSTANDING, YOU'RE IN HARMONY WITH REASON. AND BY SUFFERING INJUSTICE, YOU ENTER THE PATH. SECOND, ADAPTING TO CONDITIONS. AS MORTALS, WE'RE RULED BY CONDITIONS, NOT BY OURSELVES. ALL THE SUFFERING AND JOY WE EXPERIENCE DEPEND ON CONDITIONS. IF WE SHOULD BE BLESSED BY SOME GREAT REWARD, SUCH AS FAME OR FORTUNE, IT'S THE FRUIT OF A SEED PLANTED BY US IN THE PAST. WHEN CONDITIONS CHANGE, IT ENDS. WHY DELIGHT IN ITS EXISTENCE? BUT WHILE SUCCESS AND FAILURE DEPEND ON CONDITIONS, THE MIND NEITHER WAXES NOR WANES. THOSE WHO REMAIN UNMOVED BY THE WIND OF JOY SILENTLY FOLLOW THE PATH. THIRD, SEEKING NOTHING. PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD ARE DELUDED. THEY'RE ALWAYS LONGING FOR SOMETHING, ALWAYS, IN A WORD, SEEKING. BUT THE WISE WAKE UP. THEY CHOOSE REASON OVER CUSTOM. THEY FIX THEIR MINDS ON THE SUBLIME AND LET THEIR BODIES CHANGE WITH THE SEASON. ALL PHENOMENA ARE EMPTY. THEY CONTAIN NOTHING WORTH DESIRING. CALAMITY FOREVER ALTERNATES WITH PROSPERITY. TO DWELL IN THE THREE REALMS IS TO DWELL IN A BURNING HOUSE. TO HAVE A BODY IS TO SUFFER. DOES ANYBODY WITH A BODY KNOW PEACE? FOURTH, PRACTICING THE DHARMA. THE DHARMA IS THE TRUTH THAT ALL NATURES ARE PURE. BY THIS TRUTH, ALL APPEARANCES ARE EMPTY. DEFILEMENT AND ATTACHMENT, SUBJECT AND OBJECT DON'T EXIST. THE SUTRAS SAY, "THE DHARMA INCLUDES NO BEING BECAUSE IT'S FREE FROM THE IMPURITY OF BEING. AND THE DHARMA INCLUDES NO SELF, BECAUSE IT'S FREE FROM THE IMPURITY OF SELF." THOSE WISE ENOUGH TO BELIEVE AND UNDERSTAND THIS TRUTH ARE BOUND TO PRACTICE ACCORDING TO THE DHARMA. SINCE THE EMBODIMENT OF THE DHARMA CONTAINS NOTHING WORTH BEGRUDGING, THEY GIVE THEIR BODY, LIFE AND PROPERTY IN CHARITY, WITHOUT REGRET, WITHOUT THE VANITY OF GIVER, GIFT OR RECIPIENT, AND WITHOUT BIAS OR ATTACHMENT. AND THEY TAKE UP TRANSFORMING OTHERS TO ELIMINATE IMPURITY BUT WITHOUT BECOMING ATTACHED TO FORM. THUS, THROUGH THEIR OWN PRACTICE, THEY'RE ABLE TO HELP OTHERS AND GLORIFY THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT. AND AS WITH CHARITY, THEY ALSO PRACTICE THE OTHER VIRTUES. BUT WHILE PRACTICING THE SIX VIRTUES TO ELIMINATE DELUSION, THEY PRACTICE NOTHING AT ALL. THIS IS WHAT'S MEANT BY PRACTICING THE DHARMA. THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THIS DETACH THEMSELVES FROM ALL THAT EXISTS AND STOP IMAGINING OR SEEKING ANYTHING. THE SUTRAS SAY, "TO SEEK IS TO SUFFER. TO SEEK NOTHING IS BLISS." WHEN YOU SEEK NOTHING, YOU'RE ON THE PATH. I have a very soft corner in my heart for Bodhidharma. That makes it a very special occasion to speak about him. Perhaps he is the only man whom I have loved so deeply that speaking on him I will be almost speaking on myself. That also creates a great complexity, because he never wrote anything in his life. No enlightened being has ever written. Bodhidharma is not an exception, but by tradition these three books that we are going to discuss are attributed to Bodhidharma. The scholars reason that because there is no contrary evidence -- and for almost one thousand years, these books have been attributed to Bodhidharma -- there is no reason why we should not accept them. I am not a scholar, and there are certainly fragments which must have been spoken by Bodhidharma, but these are not books written by him. These are notes by his disciples. It was an ancient tradition that when a disciple takes notes from the master he does not put his own name on those notes, because nothing of it belongs to him; it has come from the master. But knowing Bodhidharma as intimately as I know him ... There are so many fallacies which are possible only if somebody else was taking notes and his own mind entered into it; he has interpreted Bodhidharma -- and with not much understanding. Before we enter into these sutras, a few things about Bodhidharma will be good to know. That will give you the flavor of the man and a way to understand what belongs to him in these books and what does not belong to him. It is going to be a very strange commentary. Bodhidharma was born fourteen centuries ago as a son of a king in the south of India. There was a big empire, the empire of Pallavas. He was the third son of his father, but seeing everything -- he was a man of tremendous intelligence -- he renounced the kingdom. He was not against the world, but he was not ready to waste his time in mundane affairs, in trivia. His whole concern was to know his self-nature, because without knowing it you have to accept death as the end. All true seekers in fact, have been fighting against death. Bertrand Russell has made a statement that if there were no death, there would be no religion. There is some truth in it. I will not agree totally, because religion is a vast continent. It is not only death, it is also the search for bliss, it is also the search for truth, it is also the search for the meaning of life; it is many more things. But certainly Bertrand Russell is right: if there were no death, very few, very rare people would be interested in religion. Death is the great incentive. Bodhidharma renounced the kingdom saying to his father, "If you cannot save me from death, then please don't prevent me. Let me go in search of something that is beyond death." Those were beautiful days, particularly in the East. The father thought for a moment and he said, "I will not prevent you, because I cannot prevent your death. You go on your search with all my blessings. It is sad for me but that is my problem; it is my attachment. I was hoping for you to be the successor, to be the emperor of the great Pallavas empire, but you have chosen something higher than that. I am your father so how can I prevent you? "And you have put in such a simple way a question which I had never expected. You say, `If you can prevent my death then I will not leave the palace, but if you cannot prevent my death, then please don't prevent me either.'" You can see Bodhidharma's caliber as a great intelligence. And the second thing that I would like you to remember is that although he was a follower of Gautam Buddha, in some instances he shows higher flights than Gautam Buddha himself. For example, Gautam Buddha was afraid to initiate a woman into his commune of sannyasins but Bodhidharma got initiated by a woman who was enlightened. Her name was Pragyatara. Perhaps people would have forgotten her name; it is only because of Bodhidharma that her name still remains, but only the name -- we don't know anything else about her. It was she who ordered Bodhidharma to go to China. Buddhism had reached China six hundred years before Bodhidharma. It was something magical; it had never happened anywhere, at any time -- Buddha's message immediately caught hold of the whole Chinese people. The situation was that China had lived under the influence of Confucius and was tired of it. Because Confucius is just a moralist, a puritan, he does not know anything about the inner mysteries of life. In fact, he denies that there is anything inner. Everything is outer; refine it, polish it, culture it, make it as beautiful as possible. There were people like Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, contemporaries of Confucius, but they were mystics not masters. They could not create a counter movement against Confucius in the hearts of the Chinese people. So there was a vacuum. Nobody can live without a soul, and once you start thinking that there is no soul, your life starts losing all meaning. The soul is your very integrating concept; without it you are cut away from existence and eternal life.
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