Lectures
Zen, Haiku, Satori, The Void, Zen, Truth – 2.6.2009
02.06.2009
ZEN
(Lecture 1)
HAIKU
(First idea for contemplation)
SATORI (ENLIGHTENMENT)
(Lecture 2)
THE VOID
(Second idea for contemplation)
ZEN
(Lecture 3)
TRUTH
(Third idea for contemplation)
Let us do our protective formula.
ZEN
(Lecture 1)
Zen is a method of simplicity. A method that helps you destroy your own hypocrisy. Here in Zen the person has penetrated into themselves, in their own Depths and this is simply everything to Zen. Here is the only authority, on the inside – the Boundlessness. To Zen there is only one authority – the Boundlessness.
Zen is awakeness. The awakened one does not accumulate knowledge, they accumulate Purity. Zen is not a religion because it does not waste its time. Zen is a path of Truthfulness. It is devoted to something Essential –Truthfulness, the path of the Void.
Zen does not care about society, but about Truth. Zen says: That which is not Truth, which is not the Void, cannot bring you Peace and reality.
In Zen no church is needed because Zen says: Simply enter your Temple, there is no need for a church, just enter your own Temple, within your Soul.
In Zen there is only one salvation – this is your Void Heart, i.e. your True, Pure Heart. And this is your salvation. Zen also says: Carry within you the Ancient consciousness, i.e. this is the Primordial solar state within the person.
Zen believes in neither the past, nor the future, it believes in Truth. Recently the question was raised in Rousse and in Bourgas, there I explained in short: The one who does not live within God starts to believe in some future, i.e. they have lied to themselves. This means that they have hypocrisy towards themselves which they have to deal with, this is why they believe in some future. The person does not need a future, they need God. Zen believes in the Void, in the Truth. Whoever has that reality, they do not delude themselves with a future.
In Truth there is no disappointment.
Zen – this is finding the Voidness or finding your own un-createdness.
Zen says: You were never born and you never die. These are just moments of the Boundlessness. And truly – with birth simply nothing is being born – here only the unmanifested becomes manifested, i.e. the invisible becomes visible. But all of this is just moments of the Boundlessness.
Zen does not enjoy life, it does not enjoy death, Zen enjoys the Boundlessness. Zen enjoys the Sacred.
Simplicity in Zen means understanding things in a Sacred way. Zen – this is the ability to be present in the Sacrament of being. Zen is Sacred simplicity.
They asked a Zen-Master the question: What is the Way? The answer: It is your daily routine. Notice, everything is simple with Zen, there are no complicated terms, you do not need dictionaries, everything is simple. This is your daily routine, meaning that Zen – this is simply the Immortal life itself – it flows, Eternity just flows and this is your daily routine, it is a state of awareness.
Zen is present among us in the form of silence.
Zen values yugen, yugen in Japanese means The Magnificence of the unspoken. It values exactly that, the Magnificence of the unspoken.
Zen is air itself, Eternity itself, Truthfulness itself. But if you start explaining what Zen is, sometimes things become difficult. This is so because Zen does not live in explanations, it lives in Truthfulness – not in explanations, but in Truthfulness.
In Zen words are very peculiar. For example, they asked a Zen-Master, a person asked him: Write me something wise on a piece of paper. He wrote only one word: Attentiveness. The man said: Is that it? Is that all? The Master looked at him and wrote again: Attentiveness, attentiveness. – In the moment when you lose attentiveness, this is where karma comes from. If you had attentiveness you would not even be asking what it is. You would have been engulfed by the Wisdom of this word. Your karma, all your problems came from lack of attentiveness. So see how simple it is: attentiveness simply means to pay attention – he was not paying attention, so he asked a second time.
Everyone possesses an attentive Spirit, they only have to find it. Nothing else is needed according to Zen, you just have to find your Еssence. If you capture the Zen-Essence then Zen has captured you, as well.
Zen does not waste itself in lateral things – science, philosophy, religion etc. Zen is a Pure state of Shining, a Pure state of the Еssence.
Zen is very peculiar, I will explain: Zen does not need striving, it does not need gnosis, no revelation, it needs no inspiration, because Zen is rooted in the Primordial state – Truthfulness, Voidness, and this state is the most Ancient and natural state of the person. It is called Simplicity and its other name is Zen.
In Zen there is also talk of faith, but faith in the Void, in the Nonexistent, the Unbound, because what is visible does not exist, this is why it disappears. What is real is only the Invisible, the Uncreated, and within it Zen lives. And the Master says: You have to try very hard to prove to Me that the visible world exists, and of course you would not be able to – it does not exist.
Zen – this is life in the Primordial Enlightened state. Zen lives in the Boundlessness and sees It here in this world, because Zen has never parted with It.
Zen is a Great Art. This is the Art of having penetrated into yourself, into your True nature.
A man asked a Zen-Master: Is there a God? The answer: In you, He is not there. -And why is He not in me? -Because you are asking. – Here the subtle Zen wants to say: What use of asking and believing, and speaking of belief, if you do not live in this reality, what use of questions at all? I will explain: When a Zen-Master is speaking, silence is blooming. You have to hear their Silence – their Speechlessness is blooming, their Quiet, the Inner Abundance, the Reality. And if you are able to listen, you will hear.
Zen says: even the cracked cup is perfect – notice – the broken cup. Even the broken cup is perfect: it cannot break again in the same way, you cannot do anything to break it in this perfect way. In Zen everything is perfect.
Zen admires even a puddle, because it also reflects the sky. Notice the gaze of Zen and of the Sages, where they are looking and what they see.
Zen says: there is only one self-journey – towards yourself. This means that Zen is an Art of understanding yourself. In Zen your Sacred nature has to become the main perception of everything.
In Zen you do not become knowledgeable, meaning dead – a dead person, a dead flower; in Zen you become a living fragrance. The matter in Zen is: follow no path, but be in your Essence. Do not follow, but be in your Essence, in your own Truth.
Zen says: Accept the grave as a temple where you go for a while to relax. I just remembered a saying: When the cats are away, the mice come out for a walk. Something like that, just like that simply… You go out for a walk, because death has a completely different gaze towards Zen, it opens a door for Zen, it shows Zen the freedom.
The crow asked the old bear: Why have you decided to live in Zen? The bear said: because without Zen, I am always chased by the cold wind. There are always winds, always things like that which chase you and torment you, something is always tormenting you.
Zen is an inexpressible world. It is not composed of words, but of states; not words, but states. Zen concurs with the no-word, the Speechlessness.
In Zen what is Essential is happening in Silence.
HAIKU
(First idea for contemplation)
Before I say some haiku, I will explain something about haiku itself. Haiku this is spontaneity, this is a Purely Spiritual Art. It is an Art of hinting, an Art of subtext. Because for Truth words are too narrow, haiku only hints at the direction. Haiku is a hint without an ending so that Truth can breathe freely. Just like it is in ‘’Never-ending story’’ – there Truth can breathe freely, meaning without an end, calmly.
Zen says: There exists no ending, there is no final limit; and this is why Zen has no such idea as the end of the world. Zen does not expect something like that, there is no such idea there at all. This is what external people are interested in, for them there is an ending, for them there is a beginning, and Zen lives in the Boundlessness.
In Zen every completion hinders the ongoing development. Every completion is a hindrance, it obstructs the ongoing development. This is why haiku is only a hint, a direction.
Here are a few haiku:
Day after day, all beautiful days.
Barn’s burnt down — now I can see the moon. Finally space. – See how simple, there is no ‘’but why did it burn down’’ – I just see the freedom.
Another haiku:
Winter chrysanthemum. Dressed only in its beauty. – That is enough.
Flies the freezing butterfly and chases its Soul.
Another haiku:
Glows a firefly. Underneath it – a dead firefly.
Another celebration:
Birds flying away – the sky is maybe grieving. – Very simple poetry, but it leads inward.
Bringer of the wind is the fan merchant. It is hot. – Someone is carrying the wind, selling the wind…
And so, haiku – this is an exercise in Purity and simplicity, in sincerity. Haiku is an entering into the wonderful, and in the wonderful, no time exists.
Haiku is communicating with the self, with your own Ancient, honest feeling; this is an exercise in sincerity with your own Ancient, honest feeling.
Haiku is the breath of what is Ancient within the person, of the Sacred in the person, of their Primordial feeling, their Original feeling.
A few haiku:
Gently, rain, take care, do not weigh down and hurt the almond blossom!
Run, little sparrow, run from the road – a horse is coming! – A quiet, light nobility, something beautiful. In haiku it is not the word that speaks, but the Ancient, the Essence speaks. It always speaks simply.
Haiku gives people not words, but the Sacred, the Concealed, the Silent.
SATORI (ENLIGHTENMENT)
(Lecture 2)
Satori is self-awakening in the Essence. Here you do not wait for saviours, resurrectors, nothing – you have to awaken your own self, because otherwise you will be waiting a lot. Those who are waiting but are not ready (and they are not ready, so they are waiting), will be surprised. Self-awakening! We will talk in time of the apocryphal thoughts of Christ from the concealed gospels, there you will see – He does not even speak of such things, He does not even speak of God, only of the Abyss and the Absolute, this is another topic.
Satori or Enlightenment, this means to discover the meaning that is within you, in your daily life. I will explain: the Enlightened one is not a body, not a form. They are Essence, Speechlessness, Depth, Shining. The human biography has gone, what is left is Pure Spirit.
To the Enlightened one it is all the same what they speak; what is Essential is that they blossom within. They are already Spirit, they are an Essence released. The Enlightened one is penetrated by the Unfathomable Secret of Life.
It is difficult to understand Satori –Enlightenment – if you wish to and if you seek it. But it is easy if you are rooted in Truth. So, if you are wishing for it and seeking it, it is difficult, but if you are rooted in Truth it is easy and natural, you begin to realise it naturally.
To whom is this non-thought accessible? To Satori. To Pure Spirit.
Who is an unborn one? The Enlightened one.
Satori says: You are unborn. Stop clinging to the earth, water, fire and wind. Feed on your Eternal placidity.
In Satori what is Essential is happening, what is Primordial – Pure Consciousness is being restored.
Whoever enters Satori, the word becomes distant to them and the Truth becomes close. Still they use the word, but they know why and know how to use it.
Satori comes suddenly and instantly, but after you have worked on yourself for a long time and you have prepared it.
Satori is to gain non-being, to gain uncreatedness. Achieving Satori means a liquidation of the karmas of the past. When a person gains Satori their ordinary consciousness dies, they are already born into the Primordial State.
Satori – this is already the Way towards your Depths, i.e. you already have the right to penetrate inwards. Satori is entering the Void, the Unfathomable and this is a miraculous leap, which is a liberation from the mind, from the ego and from the false development. Satori also means having access to the Speechlessness of the Master.
The Enlightened person in Zen has no biography, no visible marks. After Satori they become quiet, humble – a simplicity; and this is part of the fineness of Zen. Very modest, very humble, very quiet – as if they are gone.
Satori is a method which leads you out of this world.
The Enlightened person changes the surrounding environment and it is not even with their actions, just their presence is enough, their consciousness. Inside their consciousness you are already changing. I will explain: it is not the act that matters so much, it is the Enlightenment. It is important whether you are Enlightened, conscious. What is important is who is doing the act, because the Enlightened person is something more than the act, they are something more than any act. They uplift everything that is fit for uplifting.
A deed requires Enlightenment, requires Spirit, requires Soul, requires awareness and not an action or some mentality, or thinking. If a Sacred scripture is written by one Buddha, by one Enlightened being, then only another Buddha can explain it. The scholar, the educated person cannot clarify anything, they have no connection to the Essence. Even if they say something wise, like for example Confucius has such things, it does not originate from their Satori, from their true Enlightenment. A scholar cannot introduce anything into the Sacred scriptures, while an Enlightened person enriches them with their Voidness, with their Truthfulness. They bring a new quality into them, a new element. In the Enlightened person there is Spirit and Secret, while in the scholar and the educated person there is pitiful knowledge.
And so, many religions are oriented towards action; Zen is oriented towards the Truth and Satori, the Supreme Awareness, i.e. simplicity and mindfulness. For example, when God acts there is no right and wrong. Whether something terrible or marvelous is happening it is the Void acting, according to Zen it is the Secret acting. People can reason subsequently but they are no measure. Here the Supreme measure acts – God Himself. Whether a person dies, whether a whole continent perishes or a whole civilisation, it is all the same. Lao Tzu says: Civilisations blossom so that they may perish. This is why they blossom, to reach a certain point, then they must change. It is all the same what they say, because God is absolutely right always. Besides, who can dispute the decision of God? In this connection I say: God is all-seeing and always right, and He always does what is best. Whether we understand it is a different matter, but He always does what is best.
Your Satori, your Essence, your Love, your Enlightenment is more important than your deeds. And the so called right deeds of people who are asleep will simply lead them into hell, into the limitations. For example, God has made someone a beggar and poor. I was recently in Sofia and a lovely soul, Lili Dimkova – the daughter of Peter Dimkov, she likes the lectures very much and she attends. She is around 76-77 years old, invites me often, and this was the exact question that arose. I explained to her that if you are giving money to a poor person, you will suffer your punishment. And because she is an old bogomil soul, she understands the simple things. I will explain this to you in a simple way without going into too much detail, because we will talk of this again in time. So God has made them poor, hungry, so that they can be hungry for God, for the Essence, so that God can give them Himself. God does not want to give them some bread and crumbs, He wants to give them Himself and then food. This person is hesitant anyway and when you give to them they slack even more, and you say: I have done a good thing, and you do not discern; you will bear your consequences. Some say: but should we not give? If you can discern – give; if you cannot – ask, learn. In time I will speak more on this matter, but she understood. So, God wants to give us something more, much more, the True bread – Himself. In time we will talk about lahma, we have talked and we will talk again, but God always wants to give us something deeper and more important.
The Enlightened person can make something wonderful out of hell; the person who is asleep can create chaos out of paradise.
The Enlightened person lives within the Depths of things and this is why they carry the fragrance of Zen. They have arrived into their Heart, into their Soul, into their True Essence and this is called Zen.
When a person has entered Satori, their Essence, their awakeness, then the created world falls away, it stops existing. It has existed until now, but the dimension is already different. Even if you have impeccable behaviour, says Zen, and if you have done many sublime deeds, if you have not achieved Satori, your Essence, then you cannot free yourself from the prison of the world.
Satori – this is the consciousness which has elevated itself to Boundlessness and has preserved its humility and its simplicity.
In Zen there are no achievements in life, the only thing that exists is the discovery of self.
THE VOID
(Second idea for contemplation)
For Zen there is only one homeland – the Void, i.e. Truthfulness and Boundlessness. The Void – this is the Eternal awakeness, i.e. the Eternal awareness. Any other homeland outside of this Primordial consciousness is an absurdity. Zen lives always in its True homeland and this is so far from names, countries, notions, opinions, borders etc.
Zen lives in the Proto-foundation, in the Source.
What Zen enjoys most is the Void, the Pre-Eternal. The Void becomes aware of Itself only in Purity. The Secret experience of the mystics from all teachings is exactly the experience with the Void. In Zen this experience is called a Pure Land.
According to one Zen-Master, passing through Golgotha means achieving a total self-emptying, a complete removal of the ego and entering into the Void. For them this is Golgotha – a total self-emptying and entering into the Boundlessness, a complete removal of the ego.
Zen is the Void embodied. It lives in Eternity itself and in Boundlessness itself.
The Void is the nicest fruit. It is the completeness of life.
They asked a Zen-Master: When you achieved Enlightenment, what is it exactly that you achieved? He said: Nothing. The one asking, his pupil, says: So you sought so much, so much diligence for nothing? The Master said: Well, if you are asking so much then it means this Nothing is important! And finally, the Zen-master said: The most important of all achievements is Nothingness, the Boundlessness, because everything originated from it, from the Nothing.
To overfill yourself with Voidness means to devastate all delusions – both the dark and the light. Not only the delusions of the dark, but of the light as well. A knowledgeable person can become a great musician, a great artist, a great philosopher, but the Void does not come here. The Void only comes to Purity. Purity is a gateway for the Boundlessness. And when you become Voidness, i.e. Pure Consciousness, you clearly understand all the illusions of the world.
If you achieve Voidness you become a Master of all coincidences. I repeat, Zen says: If you achieve Voidness you become a Master of all coincidences. Later I will give you an example regarding this matter. In the life of Zen there are no coincidences. The Void is the most important thing -the Source, it is the Origin.
In Zen a word is not a concept, it is a state of Voidness, a state of the Primordial. The Void does not belong to any nation, it belongs to the Boundlessness.
The Deep comprehension of things in Zen-Masters, this Deep understanding does not come from knowledgeableness. It comes from the Void, from penetrating into your own Centre. Those who have a goal to accumulate common knowledge instead of Purity cannot enter into their own Voidness.
In its pure Voidness only your Pure Consciousness can enter, only your Truthfulness, your liberated consciousness and this exactly is Zen.
ZEN
(Lecture 3)
Zen is the Essence of all religions because Zen – this is simply the Truthful, awakened life, i.e. the Kingdom of God on earth. Not somewhere – the Kingdom of God on earth, and this is the solution of all religions.
In Zen it is considered that wanting to prevail is a very big flaw.
Zen solves the question of the Secret of life without any moral orders. In Zen there is death and Resurrection as well, but here the ordinary consciousness dies and the Pure Consciousness is born, the Supreme Consciousness – this is the Resurrection in Zen.
In Zen for the ordinary consciousness to die, this is simply giving up passion, greed, egotism, hatred, ambitions etc. According to Zen this can happen outside of the boundaries of the monastery, a monastery is not even needed – you are the monastery, it is within you. The aim in Zen is to come out of the boundaries of death and life and to start living the True life.
In Zen things are observed through the Pure Consciousness. And this is the Zen state.
In Zen the matter of a living Master is simple. Zen says: Life itself will send you to a Master, or life itself will teach you as a Master. It is simply natural what life will decide, what the Boundlessness will decide, it is simply natural. The question is for you to become worthy of being taught by a Master or by life.
In Zen the aim is not to think about what is right and what is wrong, but to grow and to develop in the Purity of consciousness. But because the mind does not know the Source, it divides things into right and wrong. According to Zen, because everything originates from only one Source, the idea of right and wrong does not exist.
Zen is non-judgemental from the beginning. What God says in the Bible, in Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven: Do not judge, lest you be judged, here with Zen this is totally fulfilled. The Pure Consciousness does not deal with judging , with disapproving. It simply lives within Truth, filled with True life, there is nothing to disapprove of, it is Pure. Non-judgemental from the beginning, because it knows that the critical approach to things is to set root in the external world. So the more you criticise and disapprove of people, parties, nations, the more you become rooted in the external world, the more created you become, you will be reborn in even heavier external forms. Which means that critical people will become more and more deluded, more and more unsettled, and in this way they will miss the Essence more and more – which is the Pure Consciousness.
Within Zen there is such a way of growth, that the ordinary, mental people wonderfully do not understand what it is about – in every way. Zen says that they wonderfully do not understand what it is about.
To Zen religion is something of a happy and beautiful game, and many people are playing at religion, at science, at philosophy etc. Zen is also a game, but a peculiar game, a game of the Supreme Consciousness, a game of Awakeness and Purity, and this is another quality, another approach.
Zen is this awakeness and sincerity that remove the unreal knowledge, which is the knowledge of the world. Zen is not a religion or a game of philosophy. Zen is Truthfulness and this Truthfulness is what is Essential in life.
Zen is simplicity and sincerity, but despite this, it will never become a mass occurrence, because simplicity – this is the Deep, most-Wise foundation of life.
Zen says: Acquire simplicity and you will see clearly, but this is acquiring the Void and there is disappearance there. But the mind, the mental person, they are rooted in the world. This is why in Zen awakeness is very important, because it creates the no-mind, i.e. it creates Spirit. So awakeness creates the no-mind.
To Zen the holy scriptures can turn out to be a peculiar type of slavery because the person has to live before all else an awakened, Truthful life, a Primordial life, and in this condition then the person is already a Sacred scripture. Notice the approach of Zen – here the person becomes the Sacred scripture and the texts are already of no matter, they may use them, they may not use them, but they themselves are overfilled, overabundant, they are the Sacred scripture. Said in another way: to Zen the Essential is life within Truth, not life within texts, quotes, scriptures. They are compromises, because the Sacred person is more important than any text, the Sacred person is more important than every sacred scripture. Zen does not allow the holy texts to divert it. It is entirely aimed towards its Truthfulness, entirely towards its Essence.
In Zen there is nothing that you are studying as fundamentally as your own self – you are studying nothing as fundamentally as yourself, as your Depths.
A Zen-Master is no scientist, no philosopher, no psychologist, nor are they religious. They do not, as I said, waste their time. What are they? They are Truth. They are a presence of Essence. And they stand beside you and await your awakening. Of course, life may pass this way, but they stand close by and await your awakening so that you may know yourself and not because of some philosophical conversations.
A Zen-Master does not solve your problems. They do not have such a task, they do not solve your problems and they do not deal with this, with them, at all. They resolve the Essential, the root of all your problems. They have an effect for your awakening and this is liberation. When you become aware – this is a liberation from the problems and this will happen naturally, when you awaken, when you become Truthful.
The Zen-Master is here because of your sleeping consciousness, but you, as I said, might pass them by and then you will remain in ignorance. And ignorance is an ocean of problems, a factory for problems, perpetually – this is ignorance. This is simply the loss of the awakened self. Zen has nothing in common with problems, because it has known Peace and the Essence of things.
In Zen only the one has the measure for success in life, who has acquired their Essence, who has acquired a True comprehension of things.
There are many religions in the world, but the awakened self happens rarely. In Zen awakeness is the foundation. In Zen bliss is something secondary. It comes after the Void, it comes after Truth, after simplicity, but it is a consequence. The ones who are asleep know the scriptures, the texts, Zen knows the awakeness, Zen knows the Boundlessness.
According to Zen it does not matter whether you are a saint or a sinner – both are redundant. One is a nice dream, the other is a bad dream; you have to get out of both. The Essential is in the awakening and when you awaken, then you are saved from both the bad and the good dream, from every duality.
In Zen you are not something that is born and dies. These are, as I said, merely small moments of the Boundlessness. This is why Zen is universal. In Zen death is just a wondrous rest in the great Boundlessness. It is like when you have worked during the day and then you go to rest.
In Zen there is no place for a priest. They are absolutely not needed here. Said in another way, they are not a bridge – they are a barrier. Zen has understood this because Zen itself is a bridge; the priest is no bridge to God, they are a barrier – a barrier towards the Essence, a barrier towards the Void, a barrier towards the Boundlessness. In Zen only awakeness is a bridge.
And so, what is Zen? Zen is an entrance without a door, a breeze without wind, a teaching without scriptures, a sea without waves, a love without worries, a life of lightness. When everything excessive has been removed from the person, this is Zen; everything excessive. Here I mean good thoughts as well, I explained that some time ago.
TRUTH
(Third idea for contemplation)
Next time we will talk about evil, demons, etc.
The Truth:
They asked a great Zen-Master, a great sword master who took ahimsa (ahimsa means a total abstinence from causing harm to any living being, a complete refusal), a great sword master, they asked him: Master, what would you do if in a dark alley you were attacked by bandits? The Master responded (notice, simple): In my life no dark alleys are found. –Here everything is Enlightened. It is like the devil wanting to meet God. Or the devil wanting to meet Lao Tzu. He has no one to meet there, there is the Boundlessness, it scares him. – In my life no dark alleys are found.
Zen is independent from all scriptures, sciences, religions. Zen lives in Truth and this is totally enough, simply enough.
For Zen freedom is given so that we own nothing else but the Truth. This is how Zen values freedom – it is given so that you own nothing but the Truth. You remember when we talked about Sufi, when that one ship was sinking, what was the most important thing for a Sage? They say it: The most important thing in a flood is what you can take with you. If you have Spirit, if you have Truth you are free, otherwise the flood is for you.
Zen does not bother with gloves. It grasps the Truth bare-handed.
In Zen Truth is spoken by Silence. I will explain: Zen uses words to lead the person into that state where there are no words – this is the Zen state, this is the Truth, this is the inexpressible.
Truth is not a question. It is Voidness, it is Mystery. Truth smites logic, logical people. It smites illogical people as well. It has a face only for sincere people. I will divert here for a bit: in Rousse the question arose about sincerity, a sister asked: I am very sincere and they insult me. – Let us not speak of the matter that the reasonable person, the awakened person cannot be offended by anyone, they have no such comprehension, but that is another topic. I said: If you really are sincere, this is already changing things. But how to become a sincere person? I will only hint this here, in time we will talk about sincerity according to the Sufi. They call it ihlas -sincerity, the teaching of sincerity. You have to train sincerity many years, many years. And this is not a measure, it is not enough. But if you are really sincere and in time if God joins in this sincerity, He then gives you the gift of sincerity. Sincerity is also a Divine gift. Whether or not God will give it, that is another matter.
They asked Al Rabiya: If I repent deeply for my old life will God accept my repentance? The answer of Al Rabiya: God will not accept your repentance, but if God decides He will accept it. So you can repent, but whether you are deeply sincere or not, God sees your depths, He will decide whether to accept your repentance or not. There is another law, a deeper one, but later on I will focus on that in more detail.
Zen says: When you ask about the Truth, ask yourself the question: Are you yourself Truthful? Ask yourself if you are Truthful because otherwise your question is thrown to the wind. Do not hurry to think, says Zen, that you are living, because only the Truthful person, only the Void person is living. You are only moving, movement is life, yes, you are moving.
What is Truth? This is a question with no answer. I will explain: questions that have no answer – this is the measure that they are true questions. Common knowledge, i.e. ignorance deals with questions that have an answer. Ignorance gives many answers, common knowledge gives many answers. Common knowledge is that which does not know, but it is speaking.
And so, the Void is your Essence, but this is no answer. Zen is not an answer. Zen is connected to the Sacred simplicity of Truth and it lives inside of it. It does not ask, does not even seek it, but lives it, manifests it. Like Meister Eckhart, he does not speak of God, but he speaks through God.
And so it is neither an answer, nor a question, this is simply Zen – your Pre-Eternity.
The Zen-Master is something very Truthful, because they never lead you towards themselves, they lead you towards Truth. They never lead you towards themselves, they do not want followers, nor do they seek them and deeply within themselves they do not want them – they lead you towards Truth so that you yourself can know yourself – the Source.
According to Zen the True Essence of a person is not in what they have, but in what they do.
A Zen-Master, whether they are speaking or being silent, is always an Elixir. Very simple – because here the Essence, Truth, is found.
They asked a Zen-Master: How do we rid ourselves of the shackles of life and death? The Zen-Master answered simply: Life and death do not exist. There is only Voidness, a great Boundlessness. There are no shackles there. It is not restricted by some death and some life.
Zen is the Truth, but the Truth is not a word. It looks like a word, but it is not. It is the Radiated Essence. What is radiated is Inexpressible and when we explain it it remains Inexpressible. But Zen says: You can however experience Truth, but without explanations because here you forget explanations. Because the Truth, the Primordial Essence is not part of the alphabet, of words, of speech – they are only compromises, they are only directions, only hints.
Here is a hint: A monk went to one Zen-Master and wanted to know where is the Entrance to Truth, where is the Entrance to Zen. The Master said to him: Do you hear the bubbling of the stream? The monk said: Yes, I hear it. Then the Zen-Master said: There is the Entrance. Go, there is the Entrance. If you understand, that is the Entrance.
AUM
Translated by Ruah Ezekiel
