Ma Tzu The Empty Mirror ~ 06

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event type discourse & meditation
date & time 21 Sep 1988 pm
location Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, Pune
language English
audio Available, duration 1h 31min. Quality: good.
Osho leading meditation from 1:09:15.
Live music after the discourse.
online audio
video Available, duration 1h 33min. Quality: good.
online video
see also
online text find the PDF of this discourse
shorttitle MATZU06
notes
synopsis
Reader of the sutra: Ma Prem Maneesha. Questions are being read by Osho himself.
After discourse Osho leads No-Mind Meditation.
The sutra
Ma Tzu was noted for his resourcefulness in finding expedient means of working with his disciples. This is illustrated by his conversion of Shih-kung, who was originally a hunter, loathing the very sight of Buddhist monks. One day, as he was chasing after a deer, he passed by Ma Tzu's monastery. Ma Tzu came forward to meet him. Shih-kung asked him whether he had seen any deer pass by.
Ma tzu asked, "Who are you?"
"A hunter," he replied.
"Do you know how to shoot?" queried Ma Tzu.
"Of course I do," replied the hunter.
"How many can you hit with one arrow?" asked Ma Tzu.
"One arrow can only shoot down one deer," said Shih-kung.
"In that case, you really don't know how to shoot," Ma Tzu commented.
The hunter then asked Ma Tzu, "Does your reverence know how to shoot?"
Ma Tzu replied, "Of course I do."
"How many can you kill with one arrow?" the hunter asked.
"I can kill a whole flock with a single arrow," answered the master.
At this, Shih-kung said, "The beasts have life as you do: Why should you shoot down a whole flock?"
Ma Tzu said, "Since you know this so well, why don't you shoot yourself?"
Shih-kung answered, "Even if I wanted to shoot myself, I would not know how to manage it."
At this point, Ma Tzu remarked, "This fellow has accumulated klesa from ignorance for numberless aeons. Today the whole process has come to a sudden stop."
Tossing his arrows and bows to the ground, Shih-kung became a monk and a disciple of Ma Tzu.
Some time later, when Shih-kung was working in the kitchen, Ma Tzu asked him what he was doing.
"I am tending an ox," the disciple answered.
"How do you tend it?" asked Ma Tzu.
Shih-kung replied, "As soon as it returns to the grass, I ruthlessly pull it back by its nostrils."
This won great approval from the master, who remarked, "You certainly know the true way of tending an ox!"


Question 1
Our Beloved Master, there could never have been a master more resourceful in finding expedient means of working with his disciples than you.
Who else would create a concoction of zany anecdotes, serious sutras, wild dancing, automated animals, jokes, gibberish and silence such as you serve up each evening?
In the context of you, somehow everything feels so absolutely right.


(source:CD-ROM)


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