1 I I Zen monks say Buddha never uttered a single word, and Buddha spoke for forty-five years continuously. If anybody can surpass him, that is me; nobody else can surpass him. And I say to you that I have also not uttered a single word. Zen people are right. I agree with them with my own ex- perience. I go on saying things to you and yet deep inside me there is absolute silence, not disturbed by what I say. When I am saying, the silence is there; not even a ripple arises in it. I am here, in a way utterly present, in another way abso- lutely absent, because there is nothing arising in me which says "I". Not that I don't use the word; the word has to be used, it is utilitarian —but it connotes to no reality. It is just a utility, a convenience, a strategy of language; it corresponds to no reality. When I say "I", I am simply using a word to indicate towards me, but if you look into me you will not find any "I" there. I have not found. I have been looking and looking and looking. The more I have looked in, the more the "I" has evaporated. The "I" exists only when you don't look in- wards. It can exist only when you don't look. The moment you look, the "I" disappears. It is just like when you bring light in a dark room, darkness disappears. Your look inwards is a light, a flame. You can- not find any darkness there —and your "I" is nothing but condensed darkness. The basic characteristic of a Buddha, the Buddha dhar- ma, his unique quality, is that he is not, that he has no attri- butes, that he is indefinable, that whatsoever definition you put upon him will be unjust because it will demark him, it will limit him, and he is not limited. He is pure void. He is a nobody. THE DIAMOND SUTRA You cannot assert the word "I". At the most you can say 2 I CHING "am". These two words "I am" are very significant. Am is your reality, I is your invention. Am-ness simply means is- ness. I is a superimposition on it. I is pseudo, and if we look through the I, then everything becomes false, because your vision is distorted. There are two great lies in life: one is 1 and another is death. And if one searches deep and far enough, then there is only one great lie in life and that is I, because death is only a byproduct of I. Death cannot exist without the I. It is the false that dies. In fact it never lives in the first place: it was always dead but you were carrying the corpse, imagining that it was real. But sooner or later reality asserts itself and you have to recognize it. You cannot go on postponing it forever. The I brings death in existence; hence the real untruth, the only untruth, the only lie, is I. Surrendering it, drop- ping it, withdrawing your energies from it, not cooperating, without cooperation, it dies of its own accord, out of sheer starvation, and then what is left is simply a pure am-ness. One is, but one is not separate from it. THE RAINBOW BRIDGE I CHING All the knowledge of heaven and earth is con- tained in everything, not only in the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching. In even a small pebble on the path all the knowledge of heaven and earth is contained; in a small blade of grass all the knowledge of heaven and earth is contained. In everything —because every part of existence carries the whole in it. Even a drop of sea is the whole sea —the whole knowledge, the whole being of the sea is contained in the drop. It is sea. It may not be the sea, but it is sea. You also contain the whole. So no need to go to the I Ching and hexagrams; rather go inwards, because finally the I Ching cannot say anything to you, finally you will be the interpreter. If you read tarot cards or the I Ching or use other methods, who will interpret? You will be the inter- preter. So finally everything depends on you. Unless you are awakened no I Ching is going to help. And if you are awakened everything is a hexagram and everything is the I Ching. So don't waste your time with other things. Become awakened. When you are awakened you will see IDEA the whole universe written everywhere, in each blade of grass you will find the signature of the divine. And if you can understand a blade of grass you have understood all, root and all. TAO: THE THREE TREASURES, Vol. 1 IDEA Birth and death are both your ideas. It is very hard to understand that birth and death are both our ideas. When a man dies, in the last moments when he is dying he pro- jects the birth idea. He starts thinking in the last moments: How to come back? In what form? His whole life's experi- ences become condensed into one form: a form arises. He has lived in a certain way —he wanted to live in some other way, but he could not make it. Now that other form takes possession of his mind: "Next time I would like to be this." And the last idea when one is dying becomes the seed. If you can die without an idea, you will not be born. Your birth is your idea; it creates it. It is not just accidental that you are born; nothing is accidental. You have caused it, you are responsible for it. People die with different forms in their minds. Those forms become the guiding lines —then they enter into a womb according to those guiding lines. Birth arises. And you will be surprised to know that death is also your idea. People die according to their ideas. In fact, depth psychology suspects that each death is a suicide. And the suspicion is almost true —I say "almost" because I have to leave Buddhas out of it. But about everyone else it is true: your death is your idea. You start becoming tired of life, sooner or later, and you start thinking how to die, how to disappear. It is too much. Enough is enough! Have you not thought many times of committing suicide? Freud stumbled upon the idea: he called it "thanatos" — the death-wish. Everybody has that, deep inside; it decides your death. Even people who die in accidents are prone to accidents, who would like to die in an accident. We go on creating possibilities around ourselves, and when they happen then we are surprised. Just watch your ideas and how they create your life. Somebody thinks that 4 IDEAL he is such a failure, he is never going to make anything. And he is not going to make anything, because this idea is creating his reality. And the more he finds that he is not making any way into anything, the more the idea becomes enforced by the feedback, and the more he will find he is becoming a failure. And a vicious circle is created. The man who thinks he is going to succeed, he succeeds. The man who thinks he is going to be rich becomes rich, and the man who thinks he is not going to become rich remains poor. Try it. You will be surprised; sometimes you will not be able to believe it. A man thinks he will never find anybody to be friendly with: he will not find —he has created a China Wall around himself, he is not available. He has to prove his idea right, remember. Even if somebody approaches with great friendliness; he will reject them. He has to prove his idea, he has a great commitment to his idea. He is not going to be distracted from his idea, his idea is so much a part of his ego. He has to show to the world that he was right, nobody can be a friend to him, that all are enemies. And all will turn, slowly slowly, into enemies. Just watch your mind. You are constantly creating your life, you are constantly manufacturing your life. TAKE IT EASY, Vol. II IDEAL The word "ideal" is a dirty word to me. I have no ideals. Ideals have driven you mad. It is ideals that have made this whole earth a big madhouse. The ideal means you are not that which you should be. It creates tension, anxiety, anguish. It divides you, it makes you schizophrenic. And the ideal is in the future and you are here. And how can you live unless you are the ideal? — first you be the ideal, then start living. And that never hap- pens. That cannot happen in the very nature of things. Ideals are impossible; that's why they are ideals. They drive you crazy and make you insane. And condemnation arises, be- cause you always fall short of the ideal. Guilt is created. In fact, that is what the priests and the politicians have been doing —they want to create guilt in you. To create guilt they use ideals; that is the simple mechanism. First give an ideal, then guilt comes automatically .. IDENTITY 5 Don't start hankering and longing for some future ideal, idea, perfection.