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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 15
moment will be born out of this moment. So if this moment is lived rightly, totally, wholly, meditatively, then the
next moment is bound to be more total, more holy, more meditative, because life goes on accumulating. If you
live blissfully, bliss accumulates. You will take with you when you die whatsoever you have gained in this life.
But down the ages people have remained concerned about the other life. I also talk sometimes about the other
life, but just to joke, to laugh at it. It is not really a concern.
In hell, as punishment for his sins, Ayatollah Khomeini and Jimmy Carter had to walk together hand in hand
for eternity. As they were strolling along, they came across Morarji Desai arm in arm with Gina Lollobrigida.
Carter asked, ”Mr. Desai, how come I am stuck for eternity with this turkey, while you get the gorgeous
Lollobrigida?”
Morarji Desai answered, ”Jimmy, she is not my punishment I am hers!”
Only for jokes I talk about hell and heaven and life after death, but it is not my concern at all; I am not
interested. My whole interest is in my present moment. Now is my interest, here is my interest, because God
knows only one time now and God knows only one space here. If you want to be in contact with God you will
have to learn how to be now and here.
The fifth question:
Question 5
BELOVED MASTER, WHY ARE DESIRES A ”NO-NO,” BUT LONGING FOR THE HEIGHTS OKAY? I
GET LOST IN THE SUBTLETIES OF THE WORDS. THE BUDDHA MADE A SUPREME VOW NOT TO
RISE FROM MEDITATION UNTIL ATTAINING ENLIGHTENMENT. FOR THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS
HE HAD VISIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS, INCLUDING ONES OF HELL, DEMONS, ETCETERA. WHAT
KIND OF EFFORT IS THIS?
Jyotirmaya, when Buddha made that vow he was not a buddha; he was as ignorant as you are. In ignorance,
whatsoever he has done, please forgive him. Don’t take much note of it. In ignorance everybody goes on doing
stupid things. That vow is stupid.
Truth is not something that you can force by your willpower. Taking a vow that ”I will not rise from meditation
until attaining enlightenment” shows violence and ignorance. But Buddha was not Buddha at that time, he was
Siddhartha Gautama stumbling, groping in the darkness as everybody else is groping. He was not in any way
different from you. He had himself yet not learned the art of being in the middle; he was an extremist. This is
extremism.
For six years he tried hard and failed. That hard work upon himself did not yield any result; it cannot. That’s
why when he became a buddha he was very much against hard effort, he was very much against extremes. He
had lived through all kinds of extremes: he had lived like an ascetic, tortured himself. For six years he suffered as
much as a human being can suffer but truth cannot be bought by your suffering. It is not a commodity and it is
not possible to attain to it just by sheer force of willpower. You can sit for three days or three lives under a tree,
and you won’t attain it.
He didn’t attain it, remember. What he attained was hallucinations, visions of hell, demons, etcetera. That
was his punishment, so beware of it.
How he became enlightened is a totally different story. After three days, when he was tired, utterly tired of
his effort, and he saw the frustration, the failure... those six years’ continuous torturing himself, and no gain, no
success. He had not moved even an inch nearer to truth; he was still where he had started. Only one thing had
happened: he had become weaker because he had been fasting. He had become ugly; he had become just bones,
all flesh had disappeared. He had become just a skeleton. He looked like he had come out of a grave. No gain, no
success... all efforts had failed.
Then one evening he saw the futility of human effort. He saw the futility of human ego because all efforts are
egoistic: ”I will attain.” The ’I’ is always behind all your achievements, desires of achievement. The ’I’ is very
ambitious: it wants to be successful in this world, it wants to be successful in the other world. It wants to have
money, it wants to have God too. It wants to have power; it wants to have liberation, moksha, truth, nirvana. It
wants to have everything.
Buddha saw it and in that seeing he dropped that mad effort and he dropped the very source of ambition. It
was a full-moon night. He laughed at himself, at the whole stupidity of six years. He relaxed, he sat under a tree.
For the first time after six years, just sitting not to achieve anything, just sitting, not meditating. Hence in Zen,
meditation is called zazen. Zazen means just sitting doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
That evening he sat there under the tree with no desire, because all desires had failed. The worldly desires had
failed, the otherworldly desires had failed.