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

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84 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 in the middle a small minority, but those people are there. With your help they will reach to the other shore; without your help they may wander and wander for centuries and centuries. ”And you are right in saying that what difference does it make in eternity? It does not make any difference to you because you know eternity, but for those poor people who live in time it makes much difference. For many, many lives they will be suffering. For you it makes no difference you have entered eternity but they are living in time, and time means birth, death and the wheel of birth and death. And they will have to go on the wheel, in the vicious circle, millions of times. Compared to eternity it is nothing, but compared to a small life a seventy-year life, a sixty-year life it is too much. You have to think about that third category too.” Buddha listened to them and immediately agreed to speak. He followed the argument: yes, there is a third category. The first category is of those people who cannot understand at all. Words they can understand; intellectually they are capable of understanding whatsoever is said to them. But deep down the meaning is missed, the significance is missed. They hear the music, but they don’t get the melody of it. They hear the noise, but they don’t feel the harmony; that is a subtle phenomenon. They hear the words. All the three categories are here. The majority is hearing my words, but they will not feel my silence, they will not feel my presence in them. It is the same to them. They can read a book, they can listen to a tape or they can hear me directly; it is all the same to them, no difference, because the words are the same. But to the second category there is a difference. To read my words in a book is one thing, because I will not be there in those words, my presence will not be there. I will not be breathing in those words; they will be dead. When you listen to the tape it is a little better than the book, but still my presence is not there. Tapes are mechanical repetitions; there is nobody behind them. Here when you are listening to me, my words are there and my silence is there. My silence can go with the words if you are available. The second category of people will be able to feel my presence, my silence, my song. And the first category of people will immediately realize that this is it! A sudden enlightenment... not even a moment’s gap. The fifth question: Question 5 BELOVED MASTER, THE OTHER DAY I READ THAT TARU MET YOU ONCE IN THE STREETS OF BOMBAY WHILE YOU WERE CARRYING A BAG OF GIN AND WHISKY IN BOTH HANDS. ARE YOU REALLY A DRUNKARD? Prem Aditya, if Taru says so, it must be so. I am such a drunkard that I can’t remember! Yes, vaguely I remember Taru meeting me on the streets of Bombay. I can remember her hug it is difficult to forget! But my memory is not very good... so maybe I was carrying bottles of whisky in both of my hands. That has been very usual for Zen masters in Japan. That is the last stage of enlightenment! To be enlightened means to be utterly drunk drunk with the divine. Maybe those bottles of whisky were empty. They must have been, because a drunkard like me cannot keep those bottles full very long. The moment I get them I drink them. I don’t postpone anything! But my memory is not very good.... ”Doctor, I have a very serious problem,” Max began. ”I am losing my memory maybe I have already lost it completely. I can’t seem to remember anything.” The psychiatrist smiled indulgently. ”I am sure it is not quite that drastic. You must remember something.” ”No, nothing at all. I tell you, I can’t remember a single thing.” ”You mean, of course, such things as names and faces and dates? We all tend to forget them now and then.” ”Doctor, you don’t understand. I mean everything!” ”Ah, that is pure nonsense!” snapped the doctor. ”No one just forgets everything he has ever known. Even a person suffering from amnesia remembers something such as whether he drinks coffee or tea or whether he smokes cigarettes or not.” ”Listen, Doc,” Maxwell said despairingly, ”I am telling you for the last time I can’t remember anything at all. Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I read, it just makes a temporary impression and then goes out of my head forever. That’s it, Doctor, I swear to you. I simply can’t remember one single goddamn thing!” The psychiatrist frowned, leaned back in his chair and pondered this unique malady for several moments. Then he asked, ”How long has this been going on?” ”How long has what been going on?” That’s my situation too! I don’t remember much. I am not much interested in the past, I am not interested in the future either. My whole interest is in the present moment.
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 85 And you can see right now I am a drunkard! Why bother what Taru says, and somewhere it is written and you read it? Why bother? You can look into my eyes... and they are full of whisky! And if you don’t believe me, come to me in private, and I will cry a little and you can taste my tears. And you will know how they taste they will taste of whisky! If Jesus can turn the whole ocean into wine, can’t I turn my own tears? The sixth question: Question 6 BELOVED MASTER, NO ERECTION HAPPENS. AM I STILL SEXY? FISHES COME, BUT GO THIRSTY. Sant... Sant, contemplate on Murphy’s maxim: If you play with something long enough, you will surely break it. The big tomcat was eyeing the cute angora from behind a barbed wire fence. Finally, he decided to jump over it to get to her. With a big leap he landed on the other side. ”Say, aren’t you Toby, the tomcat?” asked the angora. ”Not anymore,” he replied. ”That fence was higher than I thought.” The seventh question: Question 7 BELOVED MASTER, WHAT ARE THE ABC’S OF PSYCHOLOGY? The A of psychology: neurotics build air castles. The B of psychology: psychotics live in them. The C of psychology: psychiatrists collect the rent. The last question: Question 8 BELOVED MASTER, WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO SPEAK INSTEAD OF WRITING YOUR PHILOSO- PHY? Gautam, my spelling is far worse than my pronunciation! Enough for today. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 10 Chapter 1 Beyond happiness is bliss THIRTY-SIX STREAMS ARE RUSHING TOWARD YOU! DESIRE AND PLEASURE AND LUST.... PLAY IN YOUR IMAGINATION WITH THEM AND THEY WILL SWEEP YOU AWAY. POWERFUL STREAMS! THEY FLOW EVERYWHERE. STRONG WINE! IF YOU SEE IT SPRING UP, TAKE CARE! PULL IT OUT BY THE ROOTS. PLEASURES FLOW EVERYWHERE. YOU FLOAT UPON THEM AND ARE CARRIED FROM LIFE TO LIFE. LIKE A HUNTED HARE YOU RUN, THE PURSUER OF DESIRE PURSUED, HARRIED FROM LIFE TO LIFE. O SEEKER! GIVE UP DESIRE. SHAKE OFF YOUR CHAINS. YOU HAVE COME OUT OF THE HOLLOW INTO THE CLEARING. THE CLEARING IS EMPTY. WHY DO YOU RUSH BACK INTO THE HOLLOW? DESIRE IS A HOLLOW AND PEOPLE SAY, ”LOOK! HE WAS FREE. BUT NOW HE GIVES UP HIS FREEDOM.” Gautama the Buddha’s whole religion can be reduced to a single word. That word is freedom. That is his essential message, his very fragrance. Nobody else has raised freedom so high. It is the ultimate value in Buddha’s vision, the summum bonum; there is nothing higher than that. And it seems very fundamental to understand why Buddha emphasizes freedom so much. Neither God is emphasized nor heaven is emphasized nor love is emphasized, but only freedom. There is a reason for it: all that is valuable becomes possible only in the climate of freedom. Love also grows only in the soil of freedom; without freedom, love cannot grow. Without freedom, what grows in the name of love is nothing but lust. Without freedom there is no God. Without freedom what you think to be God is only your imagination, your fear, your greed. There is no heaven without freedom: freedom is heaven. And if you think there is some heaven without freedom, then that heaven has no worth, no reality. It is your fancy, it is your dream. All great values of life grow in the climate of freedom; hence freedom is the most fundamental value and also the highest pinnacle. If you want to understand Buddha you will have to taste something of the freedom he is talking about. His freedom is not of the outside. It is not social, it is not political, it is not economic. His freedom is spiritual. By ”freedom” he means a state of consciousness unhindered by any desire, unchained to any desire, unimprisoned
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