THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 113
Jung went a little further into the unconscious. He went into the collective unconscious. This is getting more
and more into muddy water, and this is not going to help.
Assagioli moved to the other extreme. Seeing the failure of psychoanalysis he invented psychosynthesis. But it
is rooted in the same idea. Instead of analysis he emphasizes synthesis.
The psychology of the buddhas is neither analysis nor synthesis; it is transcendence, it is going beyond the
mind. It is not work within the mind, it is work that takes you outside the mind. That’s exactly the meaning of
the English word ’ecstasy’ to stand out.
When you are capable of standing out of your own mind, when you are capable of creating a distance between
your mind and your being, then you have taken the first step of the psychology of the buddhas. And a miracle
happens: when you are standing out of the mind all the problems of the mind disappear, because mind itself
disappears; it loses its grip over you.
Psychoanalysis is like pruning leaves of the tree, but new leaves will be coming up. It is not cutting off the
roots. And psychosynthesis is sticking the fallen leaves back onto the tree again gluing them back to the tree.
That is not going to give them life either. They will look simply ugly; they will not be alive, they will not be
green, they will not be part of the tree but glued, somehow.
The psychology of the buddhas cuts the very roots of the tree which create all kinds of neuroses, psychoses,
which create the fragmentary man, the mechanical man, the robotlike man. And the way is simple....
Psychoanalysis takes years, and still the man remains the same. It is renovating the old structure, patching up
here and there, whitewashing the old house. But it is the same house, nothing has radically changed. It has not
transformed the consciousness of the man.
The psychology of the buddhas does not work within the mind. It has no interest in analyzing or synthesizing.
It simply helps you to get out of the mind so that you can have a look from the outside. And that very look is a
transformation. The moment you can look at your mind as an object you become detached from it, you become
disidentified from it; a distance is created, and roots are cut.
Why are roots cut in this way? because it is you who goes on feeding the mind. If you are identified you feed
the mind; if you are not identified you stop feeding it. It drops dead on its own accord.
There is a beautiful story. I love it very much....
One day Buddha is passing by a forest. It is a hot summer day and he is feeling very thirsty. He says to
Ananda, his chief disciple, ”Ananda, you go back. Just three, four miles back we passed a small stream of water.
You bring a little water take my begging bowl. I am feeling very thirsty and tired.” He had become old.
Ananda goes back, but by the time he reaches the stream, a few bullock carts have just passed through the
stream and they have made the whole stream muddy. Dead leaves which had settled into the bed have risen up;
it is no longer possible to drink this water it is too dirty. He comes back empty-handed, and he says, ”You will
have to wait a little. I will go ahead. I have heard that just two, three miles ahead there is a big river. I will
bring water from there.”
But Buddha insists. He says, ”You go back and bring water from the same stream.”
Ananda could not understand the insistence, but if the master says so, the disciple has to follow. Seeing the
absurdity of it that again he will have to walk three, four miles, and he knows that water is not worth drinking
he goes.
When he is going, Buddha says, ”And don’t come back if the water is still dirty. If it is dirty, you simply sit
on the bank silently. Don’t do anything, don’t get into the stream. Sit on the bank silently and watch. Sooner or
later the water will be clear again, and then you fill the bowl and come back.”
Ananda goes there. Buddha is right: the water is almost clear, the leaves have moved, the dust has settled.
But it is not absolutely clear yet, so he sits on the bank just watching the river flow by. Slowly, slowly it becomes
crystal-clear. Then he comes dancing. Then he understands why Buddha was so insistent. There was a certain
message in it for him, and he understood the message. He gave the water to Buddha, and he thanked Buddha,
touched his feet.
Buddha says, ”What are you doing? I should thank you that you have brought water for me.”
Ananda says, ”Now I can understand. First I was angry; I didn’t show it, but I was angry because it was absurd
to go back. But now I understand the message. This is what I actually needed in this moment. The same is the
case with my mind sitting on the bank of that small stream, I became aware that the same is the case with my
mind. If I jump into the stream I will make it dirty again. If I jump into the mind more noise is created, more
problems start coming up, surfacing. Sitting by the side I learned the technique.