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

198 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
Two middle-aged men were walking off the tennis court after only a few minutes of play. The older, somewhat
corpulent fellow was puffing heavily.
”I guess I am in pretty poor shape,” he confessed ruefully.
”How long have you been playing, Herbie?” asked the young man.
”About two weeks.”
”Then let me give you a little practical advice. Try the Christian Science way mind over matter.”
”I already have,” admitted the fat one. ”When my opponent serves the ball to me, my Christian Science mind
says, ’Now, Herbie, you just race right up to the net, slam a blistering drive to the far corner of the court and
then jump back into position.’ That’s exactly what my Christian Science mind tells me....
”But my Jewish body says, ’Herbie, to make a schlemiel out of yourself you don’t need!’”
In fact, body and mind are not two things: the body is the outer side of the mind, the mind is the inner side
of the body. To use the phrase ’body and mind’ is not right; you are bodymind, not even a hyphen in between.
We should use it as a single word ’bodymind’, ’psychosomatic’. So of course, your inner affects your outer, your
outer affects your inner you are bodymind but you are not finished with the bodymind. There is a witness also.
John Fisant, rather than bothering about physical immortality, get in touch with your witnessing soul which
watches the body and mind both. It watches life, it watches death; hence it transcends life and death both. Only
this witness is immortal because it is never born and it never dies.
The Zen people call it the original face. This witnessing is your original face. And meditation is nothing
but an art to discover your original face. You are immortal, but not physically; just in your awareness, in your
consciousness you are immortal, you are universal.
The fourth question:
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER, WAS BUDDHA NOT A POET? DID HE NOT HAVE A LOGICAL MIND? HOW ARE
WE AS NEW MEN AND WOMEN TO GO BEYOND WHAT YOU HAVE CALLED HIS ONE-DIMENSIONALITY,
WHEN IT SEEMS THAT YOUR BASIC TEACHING, AS WELL AS THAT OF BUDDHA, IS SIMPLY AWARE-
NESS?
Roderick, Gautama the Buddha was not a poet if you understand him directly, but if you understand him via
me, he IS a poet. When I am speaking on Buddha it is very natural that my color is reflected in him.
I love poetry and I go on finding poetry even where it is not.
Buddha is like a desertland but I love oases and I go on discovering them. If you had seen Buddha you would
have seen immediately that he couldn’t have anything to do with poetry. Poetry was fiction for him, as much
fiction as it was for Plato. In his Republic, Plato says, poets will not be allowed, for the simple reason that they
are liars, they live in lies. What is poetry? Beautiful lying! Buddha was also of the same mind; he would have
agreed with Plato. He was very insistent on truth.
My approach is different. I don’t see religion as a dry, dead thing. To me religion is a song, a dance. If I
am going to create a republic, a utopia, then poets will be the only citizens there; they will be the only ones
allowed because beauty is far more valuable than truth itself. And the poet discovers beauty not only discovers,
he creates. The poet is creative.
It is because of me that in Buddha you will find poetry. Excuse me, I cannot do otherwise. That’s why
Buddhists are not happy with me; particularly Buddhist scholars are not happy at all. They say I go on finding
in Buddha things which are not there. I am not much concerned whether they are there or not. I use Buddha
only as an excuse, just as I use Jesus and I use Mahavira and I use Patanjali. I am not a commentator I have
my own vision. I use them as pegs to hang myself on.
When you are hearing Buddha through me, it is a totally different phenomenon. You are looking through
my eyes; hence Buddha will look like a poet but he was not. He was a very logical man; hence I say he was
one-dimensional. He was utterly logical, as logical as Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein says you should not speak about something which cannot be spoken of. That’s exactly Buddha’s
standpoint; Buddha would have immediately agreed with Wittgenstein. That’s exactly what he said twenty-five
centuries before Wittgenstein. He never spoke about God because nothing can be spoken about God; hence don’t
say anything. Even to say that nothing can be spoken about God is to say something about God; better not to
say even that.
The Upanishads say: Nothing can be said about God; he is indefinable. Buddha will not say even that because
that is self-contradictory. To say that nothing can be said about God is self-contradictory because you have
said something already. Even to say that nothing can be said is saying something. Buddha was utterly logical,
absolutely logical. He kept absolutely silent.