---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Diamond Sutra"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "DIAMON"
dategiven: "29 December 1977 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #9"
chaptertitle: "Pure Land Paradise"
acode: "7712290"
shorttitle: "DIAMON09"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "65mins"
displaytitle: "The Diamond Sutra: Chapter #9"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">VAJRACHCHEDIKA
PRAJNAPARAMITA
SUTRA</p>
<p class="sutra">OF
GAUTAMA</p>
<p class="sutra">THE
BUDDHA</p>
<p class="sutra">THE LORD ASKED:
WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?' SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'</p>
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY, "I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS," HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY. AND WHY? THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI, AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA. THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS."'</p>
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'AND AGAIN, SUBHUTI, SUPPOSE A WOMAN OR A MAN WERE TO RENOUNCE ALL THEIR BELONGINGS AS MANY TIMES AS THERE ARE GRAINS OF SAND IN THE RIVER GANGES; AND SUPPOSE THAT SOMEONE ELSE, AFTER TAKING FROM THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA BUT ONE STANZA OF FOUR LINES, WOULD DEMONSTRATE IT TO OTHERS. THEN THIS LATTER ON THE STRENGTH OF THAT WOULD BEGET A GREATER HEAP OF MERIT, IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE.'</p>
<p class="sutra">THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS. HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD, IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE, HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA. THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME, AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION. AND WHY? BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS, HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'
THE LORD SAID:
'SO IT IS SUBHUTI. MOST WONDERFULLY BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO, ON HEARING THIS SUTRA, WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.' 'MOREOVER, SUBHUTI, THE TATHAGATA'S PERFECTION OF PATIENCE IS REALLY NO PERFECTION. AND WHY? BECAUSE, SUBHUTI, WHEN THE KING OF KALINGA CUT MY FLESH FROM EVERY LIMB, AT THAT TIME I HAD NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF, OF A BEING, OF A SOUL, OR A PERSON. AND WHY? IF, SUBHUTI, AT THAT TIME I HAD HAD A PERCEPTION OF SELF, I WOULD ALSO HAVE HAD A PERCEPTION OF ILL-WILL AT THAT TIME.' 'AND FURTHER, SUBHUTI, IT IS FOR THE WEAL OF ALL BEINGS THAT A BODHISATTVA SHOULD GIVE GIFTS IN THIS MANNER. AND WHY? THIS PERCEPTION OF A BEING, SUBHUTI, THAT IS JUST A NON-PERCEPTION. THOSE ALL-BEINGS OF WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS SPOKEN, THEY ARE INDEED NO-BEINGS. AND WHY? BECAUSE THE TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY, SPEAKS THE TRUTH, SPEAKS OF WHAT IS, NOT OTHERWISE. A TATHAGATA DOES NOT SPEAK FALSELY.'</p>
<p class="sutra">TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI, IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'</p>
<p class="sutra">THE LORD ASKED:
WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI?
IS THERE ANY DHAMMA
WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'
SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'</p>


Dipankara is an ancient Buddha. Gautama Buddha, in his past life when he was not enlightened, had gone to Dipankara. He wanted to be accepted as a disciple, but Dipankara laughed and he said, "There is nothing to be learned." Truth cannot be learned. Yes, something has to be understood, but nothing has to be learned. Truth has to be recognized. It is already there in your being, it has to be uncovered. But there is nothing to learn.


Truth is not new, truth is your very being. You have to become aware. Not that you have to become more knowledgeable, in fact the more knowledgeable you are the less aware you will be. The more you think you know the more you will be covered with ignorance. Knowledge is ignorance. The knowledgeable person is covered with dark clouds of memory, information, scripture, philosophy.


Dipankara said to Gautama, "You need not think in terms of learning. Truth is already in you. Truth cannot be transferred." Not only this, but when Gautama touched the feet of Dipankara, Dipankara bowed down and touched the feet of Gautama. Gautama was not enlightened in those days. He was very puzzled, embarrassed too.


There was a great assembly of monks; nobody could understand what was happening, what was going on. Dipankara had never done that to anybody else. And Gautama said, "What have you done? Why have you touched my feet? I am a sinner, an ignorant person. To touch your feet is right, but you touching my feet is absurd. Have you gone mad?"


And Dipankara laughed again and he said, "No, Gautama. You are puzzled because you don't know your future. I am not mad. I can see it happening -- you will be a Buddha soon. Just to honor that fact I have touched your feet. And moreover, for one who is enlightened all are enlightened. It is only a question of time. It doesn't matter much. I have become enlightened today, you will become enlightened tomorrow, somebody else will become enlightened the day after tomorrow -- it doesn't matter. Enlightenment is going to happen to everybody, to every being. You can go on delaying it, that is up to you. The moment you stop delaying, the moment you stop postponing, it is there. It has always been waiting for you to recognize it."


It is one of the most beautiful stories -- that Dipankara touched the feet of Gautama. And Gautama was an unknown man. After centuries, nearly three thousand years afterwards, Gautama became enlightened. The first thing that he did was he bowed down to Dipankara. Then there was no Dipankara, but he bowed down and he laughed and he said, "Now I understand why you touched my feet. Now I can touch everybody's feet. Now I know that the whole existence is going to be enlightened."


Enlightenment is a natural happening. If we don't hinder it, it is bound to happen. It is not that you have to achieve it, all that you have to do is not to hinder it. You hinder it in a thousand and one ways. You don't allow it to happen. When it starts to happen you become frightened. When it takes possession of you, you cannot give that much possession -- you shrink back, you withdraw. You come back in your tiny cell of the ego. There you feel protected, defended, secure.


Enlightenment is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known. And if it cannot be known how can it be taught? And if it cannot be taught, what is the point of being a master and a disciple?


Just a few days ago there was a question: "Why have you declared yourself to be the Blessed One?' It is a drama. I have decided to play the part of the Blessed One and you have decided to play the part of disciples -- but it is a drama. The day you will become aware you will know, there is no master and no disciple. The day you will understand, you will know that it was a dream -- but a dream which can help you to come out of all your other dreams, a thorn which can help to pull out your thorns from your flesh, it can be instrumental -- but a thorn all the same. A poison which can help you to drop your other poisons -- but a poison all the same. Use it as a raft. That's why I say it is a drama.


Your being a disciple and my being a master is a drama. Play it as beautifully as possible. To you it is a reality, I know. To me it is a drama. From your side it is a great reality, from my side it is a game. One day you will also understand that it is a game. That day will be the day of your enlightenment.


Dipankara was simply saying to Gautama, when he touched his feet, that this is just a game. You touch my feet or I touch your feet -- it makes no difference. We are all enlightened, we are all gods. Not that I am god and you are not god -- ALL is divine. Trees are gods, so are animals, so is everything, even rocks!


God is fast asleep in the rocks. He has become a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, a little more alert in you. In a Buddha he has come perfectly to absolute alertness. But the difference is not of quality, the difference is only of quantity. And if you are this much aware, you can become that much aware too.
Buddha says:
<p class="sutra">THE LORD ASKED:
'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'?</p>


He is asking, "Have I learned anything from Dipankara?" There is nothing to learn. Truth is a given fact. Whatsoever you learn will be lies. Truth need not be learned. Truth has not to be invented but only discovered, or more right will be to say it has only to be rediscovered.


And the word learning is dangerous. Learning is accumulating information. The more you accumulate information the deeper your reality goes into the unconscious. You become burdened, you become too top-heavy. Your head starts clamoring with knowledge, becomes very noisy, and then you cannot hear the still small voice of your heart. That silence is lost in the noise of knowledge.


That's why even sinners achieve but scholars miss -- because the sinner can be humble but the scholar cannot be humble. The sinner can cry and weep, but the scholar knows. He is adamant in his knowledge, he is egoistic in his knowledge. He is hard, he cannot melt. He is not open, he is closed. All his windows and doors are blocked by his knowledge, his scriptures that he has accumulated.


To come to truth means unlearning rather than learning. You have to unlearn that which you have known. It is not a becoming but an unbecoming, it is not a learning but an unlearning. To unlearn is the way. If you can unbecome then you will be capable of becoming. If you are capable of unlearning, if you can drop all knowledge utterly, unconditionally, without any clinging, you will become innocent -- and that innocence brings you home.
<p class="sutra">SUBHUTI REPLIED: 'NOT SO, O LORD, THERE IS NOT.'</p>


Between a master and a teacher what is transferred? Not truth, not knowledge -- then what is transferred? In fact, nothing is transferred. In the presence of the master something arises in the deepest core of the disciple, not that it is transferred. Nothing travels from the master to the disciple, nothing at all, but the presence of the master, the very presence of the master, and something that was deep inside starts surfacing. The presence of the master calls forth the being of the disciple -- not that something is given or transferred. Just the very presence of the master becomes a catalytic presence and the disciple starts changing.


Of course, a disciple will think that something is being done by the master. Nothing is being done. No real master ever does anything. All his doing consists of is being present to you, is being available to you. All his work consists of one simple thing -- that he should be there, just like the sun.


The sun rises in the morning and buds open and become flowers. Not that the sun gives them something, not that the sun comes and opens the buds -- nothing is done by the sun, just the presence of the light and the bud starts opening. The opening comes from the bud itself... and the flowering and the fragrance -- it all comes from the bud itself. The sun has not added anything to it, but the presence has been catalytic. Without the sun being present there the bud would find it almost impossible to open. It would not know that opening is possible. It would never become alert of its possibilities and potential.


A master simply makes you aware of your potential. If he has achieved, you can achieve. He is just like you -- the blood and the bones and the body. He is just like you. If something is possible in his being, if his bud can become a flower, then why can't you become? This very idea sinks deep into the heart, stirs your whole being, and energies start surfacing, your bud starts opening.


This is called SATSANGA in the East -- to be in the presence of the master. And the real disciple is one who has come to know how to be present to the master. The master is present, but how to be present to the master?


Have you seen the sunflower? That is the symbol for the disciple. Wherever the sun moves, the sunflower moves that way. It is always present to the sun. In the morning it is facing East, in the evening it is facing West. It has moved with the sun. Wherever the sun is, the sunflower moves. The sunflower is the symbol, the metaphor for the disciple.


Buddha is asking, "Do you think, Subhuti, I have learned anything from Dipankara?" Subhuti says, "Not so, O Lord" -- because there is nothing to learn. Does it mean Buddha is ungrateful to Dipankara? No, not at all. When he became enlightened, the first gratitude was towards Dipankara who had disappeared into the infinite long long ago, not even a trace was left behind. He exists only in the memory of Buddha, nowhere else.


About Dipankara there exists no scripture. Maybe in those days scriptures were not written. There exists no other reference about him. Buddha is the only sole reference. Three thousand years have passed, nobody knows anything about Dipankara, but when Buddha became enlightened, the first gratitude, the first thankfulness, was towards Dipankara.


Why? -- because it was in his presence that the longing became a passion -- to become a Buddha. It was in his presence that the great desire to become a Buddha arose. It was in his presence that the bud of Gautama started dreaming of becoming a flower. It was in his presence that the dream unfolded. It took three thousand years to drop the hindrances, the obstacles, but what are three thousand years in the eternity of time? Nothing... just a few moments.


Why is Buddha asking Subhuti? So that Subhuti can understand that there is nothing to be learned from Buddha. Buddha himself has not learned anything from Dipankara, so "There is nothing, Subhuti, to learn from me. Be with me, don't think in terms of learning. The moment you think in terms of learning you are not with me."


Here also there are two types of people -- the disciples and the students. The students are those who are in search of learning something. They are here to gather something so that they can brag and say that they know this and they know that. They are just collecting colored stones while diamonds are available.


The disciple is one who is not interested in knowledge, who is interested in being, who is interested just to be here with me, for no other reason, for no other motive. His heart has been touched, his dream has started unfolding, a great intense desire is arising in him.


Just the other night Saroj was here and she was saying that she becomes very afraid of death. I asked her, "Why? Why do you become so much afraid?" And her answer was beautiful. She said, "Not because of death, Osho, but because I have not yet known anything, not yet realized anything. I have not yet felt anything. I am afraid that I might die without knowing the truth, that is my fear."


A disciple is one who has become immensely interested in being -- in truth itself, not knowing about it. She is not afraid of death, she is afraid death may come in and may disturb the intimacy that is arising between me and her. Death may come and may disrupt the presence that she is drinking, the presence that is going into her being and changing a thousand and one things in her soul -- that is the fear.


A disciple is one who does not bother about knowing but is interested in being. Not that he wants to know something about God, but that he wants to taste God, to drink out of that reservoir called God, to become part of that oceanic energy.


Remember, if you are a student here you are not very wise. To be a student here is to be unintelligent. This is not a school. Life is available here -- but you have to be a disciple. To be a disciple means to be courageous enough to come close to a master, whatsoever the cost. The disciple means the one who can take the risk of being close to a master. It is a risk -- a risk because you will die. The bud will die, only then the flower can come. The seed will die, only then the tree can come. You will have to die, only then God can bloom in you.
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'WHAT DO YOU THINK, SUBHUTI, IS THERE ANY DHAMMA WHICH THE TATHAGATA HAS LEARNED FROM DIPANKARA?'</p>


A great seeker has written, "I went to the wise for answers. There were many wise men, each one with his answer. It was by that that I came in time to see that they betrayed themselves. But there were also a few I happened upon who were otherwise, one or two, who sat with a serene vitality, who smiled at my questions, and in face of my insistence for answers, generously gave me further questions.
"There were moments with them that I forgot all about wisdom and smiled as carelessly as fools and children only can. I got no answers from the truly wise. It was lack of wisdom that had sent me to the wise. How then could I have understood anything wise, even if it was sayable, even if it was said? The truly wise were too true to give wise answers."


The truly wise gives you his being, gives himself. The truly wise simply makes himself available to you, and if you are courageous you can drink and eat out of his being. That's what Jesus means when he says to his disciples: "Eat me! Drink me!" The master has to be eaten. The master has to be absorbed, digested, only then will you stumble upon your own truth. There is nothing to learn -- no Dhamma to learn, no doctrine to learn, no philosophy to learn.
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY,
"I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS,"
HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY.
AND WHY?
THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,
AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT BY THE TATHAGATA.
THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'</p>


The word buddhafield is of tremendous importance. You have to understand it, because that is what I am doing here -- creating a buddhafield. It is just to create a buddhafield that we are moving away from the world, far away, so that a totally different kind of energy can be made available to you.


Buddhafield means a situation where your sleeping Buddha can be awakened. Buddhafield means an energy field where you can start growing, maturing, where your sleep call be broken, where you can be shocked to awareness -- an electric field where you will not be able to fall asleep, where you will have to be awake, because shocks will be coming all the time.


A buddhafield is an energy field in which a Buddha matures beings, a pure land, an unworldly world, a paradise on earth, which offers ideal conditions for rapid spiritual growth. A buddhafield is a matrix.


The word MATRIX comes from Latin; it means the womb. From that word we get the words matter, mother, etcetera. The womb offers three things to a newly forming life: a source of possibility, a source of energy to explore that possibility, and a safe place within which that exploration can take place.


That's what we are going to do. The new commune is going to be a great experiment in buddhahood. Energies have to be made available to you, possibilities have to be made clear to you. You have to be made aware of your potential, and you have to be given a safe place from where you can work: a place where you are not distracted by the world, a place where you can go on without any disturbance from the crowd, a place where ordinary things, taboos, inhibitions, are put aside, where only one thing is significant -- how to become a Buddha; where everything else simply disappears from your mind -- money and power and prestige; where all else becomes insignificant, when all else becomes exactly what it is -- a shadow world -- and you are no longer lost in the apparent.


MAYA is to be caught up in the apparent. That is the greatest illusion in the world. The apparent holds such sway on our minds. A buddhafield is a place where you are taken away from the apparent.


In the silence of a commune, in the uninhibited, untabooed atmosphere of a commune, the master and the disciple can enact the drama totally. The ultimate is when the master can touch the feet of the disciple, when the master and disciples are lost into one reality.
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'IF ANY BODHISATTVA WOULD SAY,
"I WILL CREATE HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS,"
HE WOULD SPEAK FALSELY.
AND WHY?
THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,
AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT
BY THE TATHAGATA.
THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'</p>


Now understand: if somebody says, "I will create the buddafield," and the emphasis is on 'I', then the statement is false, because a person who has the 'I' still alive cannot create a buddhafield. Only a person who has no 'I' within him can create a buddhafield. In fact then to say he creates is not right; language is inadequate.


The Sanskrit word for creation is far better. The Sanskrit word is NIRPADAYATI. It means many things. It can mean to create, it can mean to accomplish, it can mean to ripen, it can mean to mature it can simply mean to trigger into existence. That's exactly the meaning.


A Buddha does not create, he triggers. Even to say he triggers is not good; in his presence things happen, in his presence things are triggered, processes start. Just his presence is a fire, a spark, and things start moving and one thing leads to another, and a great chain is created.


That's how we have been going on. I simply sit in my room doing nothing, and seekers from all over the world have started pouring in. I don't even write a letter... just the presence. One comes, another comes, and the chain is created. Now the time has come when a buddhafield is needed, a matrix is needed, because you don't know -- thousands more are on the way. They have already moved, they are already thinking of coming.


And the more people are there, the bigger the buddhafield will be there, and the more powerful it will be. The possibility is that we can create one of the greatest and the most powerful buddhafields ever created in the world, because never before was there such search, because never before was man in such a crisis.


We are on the threshold of something new that is going to happen to humanity. Either humanity will die and disappear, or we will take a jump, a leap, and a new being will be formed. We are exactly at the same point as millions of years ago when monkeys came down from the trees and humanity started and a new being was born. Again the moment is coming very close. It is a very dangerous moment, because there is every possibility....


It was possible that the monkey may not have survived on the earth, he may have died on the earth, but a few monkeys took the risk. And they must have been thought of as fools by other monkeys, mm? who had always lived on the trees and were perfectly happy. They must have thought, "These people are going mad, crazy. Why in the first place are you going to live on the earth? Why create unnecessary trouble for yourselves? Our fathers and their fathers and their fathers have all lived on the trees."


Again the same situation is going to happen. Man has lived a long time the way he has lived. By the end of this century a critical quantum leap is possible. Either man will die in a third world war or man will take the jump and will become a new man. Before that happens, a great buddhafield is needed -- a field where we can create the future.


But a bodhisattva cannot say, "I will create the harmonious buddhafields." If the emphasis is on 'I' then the person is not yet a Bodhisattva. Even Buddhas use the word 'I' but they insistently emphasize that it corresponds to no reality, that it is just a language use, that it is utilitarian.


And Buddha says, "Those harmonious buddhafields are not even harmonious." Why? -- because harmony means conflict is still alive. Harmony means the conflicting parts are there but they are no longer conflicting. Buddha says the real harmony is when the conflicting parts have dissolved into one unity. But then you cannot call it harmony, because harmony needs many, harmony means that there are many fragments in a harmonious whole. Buddha says the real harmony is when those many are no longer there; they have become one.


So a harmony, a real harmony, cannot even be called harmony. The real harmony is simple unity. There is no conflict and no friction, because all the fragmentary parts have disappeared, dissolved.
<p class="sutra">'AND WHY?
THE HARMONIES OF BUDDHAFIELDS, SUBHUTI,
AS NO-HARMONIES HAVE THEY BEEN TAUGHT
BY THE TATHAGATA.
THEREFORE HE SPOKE OF "HARMONIOUS BUDDHAFIELDS".'</p>


Remember again and again; it is a question of the inadequate language. That's why Buddha goes on insisting again and again to remind you so that you don't become a victim of inadequate language expressions.
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'AND AGAIN, SUBHUTI, SUPPOSE A WOMAN OR A MAN
WERE TO RENOUNCE ALL THEIR BELONGINGS
AS MANY TIMES AS THERE ARE GRAINS OF SAND
IN THE RIVER GANGES;
AND SUPPOSE THAT SOMEONE ELSE,
AFTER TAKING FROM THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA
BUT ONE STANZA OF FOUR LINES,
WOULD DEMONSTRATE IT TO OTHERS.
THEN THIS MATTER ON THE STRENGTH OF THAT
WOULD BEGET A GREATER HEAP OF MERIT,
IMMEASURABLE AND INCALCULABLE.'</p>


It is said that Hui Neng, one of the greatest Zen masters, the sixth patriarch in the Zen tradition, became enlightened by hearing four lines of The Diamond Sutra. And he was just passing by in a marketplace. He had gone to purchase something, he was not even thinking of enlightenment, and somebody by the side of the road was reading The Diamond Sutra. That man had been reading The Diamond Sutra for his whole life -- he must have been a kind of scholar, or a parrot -- and it was his usual thing, his ritual, to read the sutra every morning, every evening.


It was evening and the market was just closing and people were going home and Hui Neng was passing. He heard just four lines. He was struck dumb. He stood there, it is said, for the whole night. The Diamond Sutra finished, the market closed, the man who was chanting it went, and Hui Neng was standing there and standing there and standing there. By the morning he was a totally different man. He never went home, he went to the mountains. The world became irrelevant. Just hearing? Yes, it is possible if you know how to hear. This Hui Neng must have been of a very very innocent mind. He was a wonderful man.


Buddha says that even if somebody demonstrates one stanza of four lines from The Diamond Sutra, his merit is more, his merit is immeasurable and incalculable, more than the merit of a man or a woman who were to renounce their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges.


Renunciation does not help, understanding helps. Renouncing the world is not going to take you anywhere, you have to understand. Renunciation is a stupid effort. Only stupid people renounce, the wise tries to understand what the case is. The wise is never an escapist. Only the stupid people are escapists, because they cannot face life, they cannot encounter life, and they cannot take its challenge. They don't have the guts.


They move to the Himalayas, they escape to Tibetan monasteries or somewhere else. They run away from the world. These are the cowards. And religion is possible only if you have courage -- immense courage is needed.


Buddha says these sutras are so valuable that if you can listen totally, with an open heart, if you are vulnerable to them, they can transform your life. Even sometimes a single word can be such a transforming force.


I have heard about a man, he must have been like Hui Neng. He was very old, sixty-five or seventy. He had gone for a morning walk, and some woman must have been waking her son, or somebody else, inside a hut. The old man was on the road and the woman was saying, "It is time to get up. It is morning! It is no longer night!"


The old man heard these words. Mm? --  It was not even The Diamond Sutra, it was just a woman telling somebody, "Get up! It is enough! You have slept long. It is no longer night. The sun has risen, it is morning," and the old man heard. He must have been in some receptive state of mind -- the early morning, the birds singing and the sun and the cool breeze -- and those words struck hard, like arrows in the heart: "It is morning and you have slept too long and it is no longer night." He never went home.


He went outside the town, sat in a temple meditating. People came to know about him, and the family came rushing and they said, "What are you doing here?"


He said, "It is morning. It is no longer night, and I have already slept enough. Enough is enough! Excuse me. Leave me alone. I have to wake up. Death is coming -- I have to wake up."


And whenever he would pass the door of that woman -- he had never seen that woman -- he would go and bow down at the door. That was his temple and that woman was his master. He had never seen the woman, and the woman was an ordinary woman.


Sometimes a few words, even uttered by ordinary people, can fall in the right soil of the heart and can bring great transformation. What to say about words of a Buddha?...
<p class="sutra">THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA
MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.
HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,
IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,
HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT
THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA.
THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME,
AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION.
AND WHY?
BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS,
HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'</p>


It is very rare that a man of the qualities of Subhuti will cry and weep and tears will come to him. But when such compassion, when such love from Buddha is showering on him, when such diamond words are falling on him like rain... he was overwhelmed.
<p class="sutra">THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA
MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.</p>


Remember, there is no deeper way to relate your gratitude than tears, there is no higher way to pray than tears. Just a few days ago Geet Govind had come from Esalen. He could not say a single word to me -- tears and tears. And he started feeling a little embarrassed. He wanted to say something, but nothing was coming.


Those tears were beautiful. And since then he has been crying here. For all these two or three weeks that he has been here he has been crying, and he has been writing to me: "Osho, what to do? How to stop these tears? They go on and on." The impact.... He has made contact with me, hence the tears. He has seen me, hence the tears. His eyes are showing gratitude, hence the tears. The eyes are fulfilled, hence the tears.


Never be afraid of tears. The so-called civilization has made you very afraid of tears. It has created a kind of guilt in you. When tears come you start feeling embarrassed. You start feeling, "What will others think? And I am a man and I am crying! It looks so feminine and childish. It should not be so." You stop those tears -- and you kill something which was growing in you.


Tears are far more beautiful than anything that you have with you, because tears come from the overflow of your being. And tears are not necessarily of sadness; sometimes they come out of great joy and sometimes they come out of great peace and sometimes they come out of ecstasy and love. in fact they have nothing to do with sadness or happiness. Anything that stirs your heart too much, anything that takes possession of you, anything that is too much, that you cannot contain and it starts overflowing -- that brings tears.


Accept them with great joy, relish them, nourish them, welcome them, and through tears you will know how to pray. Through tears you will know how to see. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing truth. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing the beauty of life and the benediction of it.
<p class="sutra">THEREUPON THE IMPACT OF DHAMMA
MOVED THE VENERABLE SUBHUTI TO TEARS.
HAVING SHED TEARS, HE THUS SPOKE TO THE LORD: 'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,
IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL, O WELL-GONE,
HOW WELL THE TATHAGATA HAS TAUGHT
THIS DISCOURSE ON DHAMMA.
THROUGH IT COGNITION HAS BEEN PRODUCED IN ME....'</p>


He says, "Your presence, your compassionate words, your love, your grace, has produced cognition in me. It has given me an insight, a vision, of what is truth, AND IT IS INDEED NO PERCEPTION." Still Subhuti says, "But let me remind you, it is no perception because there is nobody to perceive it. It is pure cognition."


Knowing has arisen but there is nobody who knows and there is nothing that is known, only knowing has arisen. It is pure knowing. The division is not there of the knower and the known and the knowing. It is just knowing.
<p class="sutra">'AND WHY?
BECAUSE THE BUDDHAS, THE LORDS,
HAVE LEFT ALL PERCEPTIONS BEHIND.'

"And now I know why it is said that the Buddhas have left all perception behind, because perception needs the perceiver and the perceived, observation needs the observer and the observed. All these dualities have been dropped. There is only oneness."</p>


It is very difficult -- to say it. Michael Adam's words will be helpful: "It has taken all these words to tell, but what is there to tell? Here and now, what is there? A wind in the trees; it blows and they bend. I have spoken in many words. It is cause for smiling now, for truth is only a word. Life is a word, death is a word, happiness is a word, God is a word. The wind and the tree, the robin and the seal, the child and the sun are real. The rest is only words.
"Words about the sun lack even the reality of shadows and are colder by far. What the sun is the clamoring mind and the seeking heart cannot know, for the sun is of another kind, makes no sound and does not strive. But this still and silent earth would seem to understand, all without effort the earth would seem to know what the sun is. Beneath this semblance of death, under the shroud of snow, in the very midst of the winter, the open quiet earth well knows what the sun is."


The disciple has to become like thirsty earth -- the thirsty earth knows what the cloud is. The disciple has to become like open, vulnerable earth. The vulnerable earth knows what the sun is. It cannot say it, it cannot express it, but it knows.


That's what Subhuti means when he says, "Cognition has arisen in me. I cannot say, I am not there to capture it, I am not there to seize it, I am just an emptiness -- but perception has arisen, cognition has arisen, darshan has arisen. I have seen, and there is no seer."
<p class="sutra">THE LORD SAID:
'SO IT IS, SUBHUTI.
MOST WONDERFULLY BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO,
ON HEARING THIS SUTRA,
WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.'</p>


These sutras are deathlike, they are crucifixion -- you will have to die. Only through death will you know what life is. Resurrection is possible but only through crucifixion. That's why Buddha said these sutras are dangerous and
<p class="sutra">'MOST WONDERFUL BLEST WILL BE THOSE BEINGS WHO,
ON HEARING THIS SUTRA,
WILL NOT TREMBLE, NOR BE FRIGHTENED, OR TERRIFIED.'
MOREOVER, SUBHUTI,
THE TATHAGATA'S PERFECTION OF PATIENCE
IS REALLY NO PERFECTION.
AND WHY? BECAUSE, SUBHUTI,
WHEN THE KING OF KALINGA CUT MY FLESH FROM EVERY LIMB,
AT THAT TIME I HAD NO PERCEPTION OF A SELF,
OF A BEING, OF A SOUL,
OR A PERSON.
AND WHY? IF, SUBHUTI,
AT THAT TIME I HAD HAD A PERCEPTION OF SELF,
I WOULD ALSO HAVE HAD A PERCEPTION
OF ILL-WILL AT THAT TIME.'</p>


He reminds Subhuti of his old experience of a past life, when the king of Kalinga had cut his limbs. He says, "At that time when my limbs were cut, my hands were cut, my legs were cut, and my tongue and my eyes were taken away, I was watching and I could not see any 'I' arising in me. There was nobody who was seeing it, there was nobody who was hurt by it."
"If any perception of 'I' had arisen at that time, then it would have been followed by ill-will. Then I would have been angry with the king who was killing me and destroying me, but I was not angry. There was no anger."


The ego brings anger. Anger is the shadow of the ego. The ego brings aggression, violence. Once the ego disappears all violence disappears. A man becomes love only when the ego has completely disappeared.
<p class="sutra">'AND FURTHER, SUBHUTI,
IT IS FOR THE WEAL OF ALL BEINGS
THAT A BODHISATTVA SHOULD GIVE GIFTS IN THIS MANNER.
AND WHY?
THIS PERCEPTION OF A BEING, SUBHUTI,
THAT IS JUST A NON-PERCEPTION.
THOSE ALL-BEINGS OF WHOM THE TATHAGATA HAS SPOKEN,
THEY ARE INDEED NO-BEINGS.
AND WHY?
BECAUSE THE TATHAGATA SPEAKS IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY, SPEAKS THE TRUTH, SPEAKS OF WHAT IS, NOT OTHERWISE. A TATHAGATA DOES NOT SPEAK FALSELY.' 'TATHAGATA, SUBHUTI, IS SYNONYMOUS WITH TRUE SUCHNESS.'</p>


Buddha says, "I have said only that which is -- YATHA BHUTAM. I have not said anything else. That's why my statements are so paradoxical, so illogical, because truth is illogical. To understand truth, you will have to drop logic."

Enough for today.
			

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