Ma Tzu The Empty Mirror ~ 03
event type | discourse & meditation |
date & time | 18 Sep 1988 pm |
location | Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, Pune |
language | English |
audio | Available, duration 1h 26min. Quality: good. Osho leading meditation from 1:02:56. 10 minutes of live music after the discourse. |
online audio | |
video | Available, duration 1h 30min. Quality: good. |
online video | |
see also |
|
online text | find the PDF of this discourse |
shorttitle | MATZU03 |
- 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
- One day, when Ma Tzu was on his way home from Chiang-si, he stopped to visit his old master, Nangaku. When Ma Tzu had burned incense and made bows to Nangaku, Nangaku gave him this verse:
- "I advise you not to go home.
- If you do, the Tao is immovable.
- And an old woman
- Next door to you
- Will talk of your infant name."
- Ma Tzu respectfully accepted it and swore to himself never to go home, however often he might be reborn. Staying only in Chiang-si, he had disciples come to him from all parts of China.
- One day a monk called Ta-mei joined a training assembly of Ma Tzu. Ta-mei asked the master: "What is Buddha?"
- Ma Tzu replied: "It is the present mind."
- On hearing this, Ta-mei attained his full enlightenment. He took himself off into the mountains, and over the years hardly noticed the passing of time; he only saw the mountains around him turn green or yellow.
- One day, Ma Tzu sent a monk especially to test him. The monk asked Ta-mei, "When you once saw Ma Tzu, by what word did you become enlightened?"
- Ta-mei replied, "By Ma Tzu's saying, 'The present mind is the Buddha.'"
- "Now his way is another," the monk told Ta-mei.
- "What is it then?" asked Ta-mei.
- "Ma Tzu now says that this very mind which is Buddha is neither mind nor Buddha," replied the monk.
- "That old fellow!" said Ta-mei. "When will he cease to confuse the minds of men? Let him go on with his 'neither mind nor Buddha.' I will stick to 'this present mind itself is Buddha.'"
- When the messenger told Ma Tzu of this exchange, Ma Tzu commented: "The fruit of a plum has ripened."
- Question 1
- Our beloved master, how amazing it would be if you turned up one evening in Gautam the Buddha auditorium, and all you could see was a vast hall of empty mirrors, or rows and rows of juicy, ripe plums.
- Do you really think it's possible? Is anything happening? Or better: Is nothing happening?
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