---
section: Library
booktitle: "Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "HYAKU"
dategiven: "04 October 1988 pm"
place: " in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium"
chapternum: "Chapter #9"
chaptertitle: "The Buddha is your empty heart"
acode: "8810045"
shorttitle: "HYAKU09"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "72mins"
displaytitle: "Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus: Chapter #9"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">BELOVED OSHO,
ON ONE OCCASION, ISAN, GOHO AND UNGAN, WERE ALL STANDING TOGETHER IN ATTENDANCE ON HYAKUJO.
HYAKUJO SAID TO ISAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
ISAN SAID, "I WOULD ASK YOU TO SAY IT."
HYAKUJO SAID, "I COULD SAY IT, BUT IF I DID SO, I FEAR I SHOULD HAVE NO SUCCESSORS."
HYAKUJO TURNED TO GOHO. "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" HE ASKED HIS SECOND DISCIPLE.
GOHO SAID, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"
HYAKUJO SAID, "IN THE DISTANT LAND WHERE NO ONE STIRS, I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU."
THEN HYAKUJO ASKED UNGAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"
UNGAN SAID, "OSHO, DO YOU HAVE THEM OR NOT?"
HYAKUJO SAID, "MY SUCCESSORS WILL BE MISSING."</p>


Maneesha, this is the last talk on Hyakujo, and the piece that you have chosen is the strangest  --  a beautiful ending, showing Hyakujo at his peak.


ON ONE OCCASION, ISAN, GOHO AND UNGAN, WERE ALL STANDING TOGETHER IN ATTENDANCE ON HYAKUJO. These three were the most intimate disciples. One of the three was going to be the successor  --  so was the rumor. In the thousands of disciples these three were possible successors. And every master, before choosing, asks a question which is in fact a koan which cannot be answered.


HYAKUJO SAID TO ISAN... This was the evening of his life, time to depart from the world. He was in search now for whom to transmit the light that he had carried his whole life. He asked Isan, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"


Two things: first, the it is the ultimate experience. Zen is very particular. There have been gods which are male gods, created by male chauvinists: "How can a god be a woman?" And there have been women goddesses in the primitive tribes, far closer to the idea of the father god than the mother goddess, because the mother gives birth to life. God can be conceived as the whole womb of universe. He creates the world. It seems to be more human to conceive of God as a woman, but the male chauvinist mind won't allow it. So only in very primitive tribes is there still some idea of mother goddesses. But all over the world, in the so-called civilized societies, the male chauvinist has replaced the mother goddesses and has put father god's.


To avoid this stupid controversy about whether God is a man or a woman, Zen calls the ultimate experience, it  --  neither he nor she. That comes very close to the point of how God can be male or God can be female. It can only be a neutral life principle which can express itself in thousands of ways in men, in women, in trees, in mountains. Those are all just his expressions. In reality, hidden behind all these expressions, is a pure life principle. It can only be called it.


So when Hyakujo asked, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" Those who are not acquainted with the world of Zen, will be simply surprised, "What are you asking, what is it! In the first place you are asking an impossible thing: 'With your mouth and lips closed,' and in the second place you are asking, 'How would you say it?'  --  two mysteries in one question."


ISAN SAID, "I WOULD ASK YOU TO SAY IT." He challenged his masters: "It is impossible, but I will give you a chance. If I cannot say it, I want you to say it. With your lips closed, with your mouth shut, say it."


HYAKUJO SAID, "I COULD SAY IT, BUT IF I DID SO, I FEAR I SHOULD HAVE NO SUCCESSORS." What he is saying is, "If I have to say it, then you are not capable of being my successor. I can say it. Neither the lips are needed nor the mouth. Just a good hit and you will know it that I have said it." Ordinarily Hyakujo was not very much into hitting people. Perhaps this was the first time he had gone so far: "My hit is going to be so great that perhaps you will fall dead. I won't have any successors. And even if you survive my hit, you would have disqualified yourself. You have not answered. Rather than answering my question, you have questioned me  --  and this is a test to choose a successor."
<p class="sutra">HYAKUJO TURNED TO GOHO. "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?" HE ASKED HIS SECOND DISCIPLE.
GOHO SAID, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"</p>


It is a little better than the first answer from Isan: "I would ask you to say it." He is simply accepting his defeat, but hiding it in a circular way rather than saying, "I cannot say it." Even if he had remained silent without saying it, that would have been far better. But very stupidly he said, "I WOULD ASK YOU..." He was not the master and he was not going to choose his successor. Hyakujo was the master almost on the verge of death.


The second disciple Goho did a little better. GOHO SAID, "OSHO!" Osho is a very honorable word. There are many respectful words, but the sweetness of Osho, the love, the respect, the gratitude, all are together in it. It is just like Christians using 'reverend', but that is no comparison to it. Just the very sound of Osho  --  even if we don't understand Japanese, the very sound is very sweet. He said, "OSHO! YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!"


It looks very contradictory, on the one hand addressing him with the most honorable word in Japanese, and on the other hand telling him "YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!" but that is how Zen is. It is as sharp as a sword  --  it cuts hard and straight to the heart  -- and it is as soft as a lotus leaf. It is both together. It is not right for the disciple to say to the master, "YOU SHOULD SHUT UP!" To avoid the disrespectfulness of his answer, he first addresses the master, Osho! Don't misunderstand me. I have great respect and love for you, but you are asking nonsense. You should shut up. At the moment of death, have you gone a little senile. Just shut up!
<p class="sutra">HYAKUJO SAID, "IN THE DISTANT LAND WHERE NO ONE STIRS, I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU."</p>


Beautifully, he has rejected. He is not accepted as a successor because he has not answered the question. But yet he has been very careful. Although he has not answered, he has been very loving, honoring, grateful. Out of this gratitude and love he has earned a special virtue. Hyakujo says, "IN THE DISTANT LAND..." Somewhere in the universe, if we meet sometime, WHERE NO ONE STIRS  --  where everything is silent, utterly quiet  --  I SHALL SHADE MY EYES WITH MY HAND AND WATCH FOR YOU. He is saying, "You can be my companion, but you cannot be my successor. Somewhere faraway in the distant future at some corner of the universe I will watch for you. You will reach to the goal. Of that I am certain." But saying this he has rejected him as a successor. His answer was better than Isan's answer.
<p class="sutra">THEN HYAKUJO ASKED UNGAN, "WITH YOUR MOUTH AND LIPS CLOSED, HOW WOULD YOU SAY IT?"</p>


UNGAN SAID, "OSHO, DO YOU HAVE THEM OR NOT?" It is a little better. With tremendous respect he says, "Osho, what are you asking, do you have it already or not. If you have it, then what is the point of asking. And if you don't have it, you will not understand it." But this too is not the answer. Although the second answer is better than the other, Hyakujo sadly said, "MY SUCCESSORS WILL BE MISSING." I will not have any successor, it seems. You are all well versed, you are all great scholars, you have tremendous love and respect for me, but that is not enough for the successor.


What is enough, what is needed is that the successor should be able to say it. His whole life will be devoted to teaching people, to provoking people, to challenging people to get it. If he cannot say it, how can he be a successor?


A successor has to be a master. You are all mystics but none of you is capable of being a successor, a master. This will help you to understand. The mystic is one who can experience, but is not articulate enough that through some gestures, some device he can manage to convey it to others. Out of a hundred mystics perhaps one is a master, because the task is immensely difficult. To say it perhaps is the most impossible thing in the world. You can go roundabout, you can bring the person to the experience by creating false devices, but you cannot say it. Those false devices needs a very articulate craftsman  --  a master who knows that even lies can be used to indicate the truth. Hyakujo said, "Perhaps I will not have any successors."

A little biographical note:
<p class="sutra">ALL THAT IS KNOWN ABOUT HYAKUJO'S LAST DAYS IS THAT ONCE, WHEN HE WAS GETTING RATHER OLD AND FEEBLE, HIS MONKS TRIED TO PERSUADE HIM NOT TO WORK, BUT THEIR WORDS HAD NO EFFECT ON HIM.
FEARING FOR HIS HEALTH, THEY FINALLY RESORTED TO HIDING HIS WORKING TOOLS FROM HIM. BUT HYAKUJO REFUSED TO EAT, FOLLOWING HIS OWN PRECEPT OF: "A DAY WITHOUT WORK IS A DAY WITHOUT FOOD." FINALLY, HIS MONKS RETURNED HIS TOOLS.
HYAKUJO DIED IN 814 AT THE AGE OF 90.</p>


He did not choose anyone as a successor. He left it to the assembly to find out a successor. So the assembly of the sannyasins nominated a successor. This nomination is just like nominating a pope; he is not authentically a successor. And nobody even objects to the very idea of how unenlightened people can elect the successor of Jesus Christ, who is the representative of God.


Two hundred cardinals come to the Vatican when one pope dies. There is a special place for these two hundred cardinals  --  small caves in absolute secrecy. Everybody goes into a cave, different caves. Nobody is allowed to talk to each other, or confer with each other about whom to choose. Twenty-four hours are given and everybody meditates. I don't know how they meditate, because I have not come across any bishop or cardinal... I have met these people and none of them knows how to meditate.


What they call meditation is contemplation. They contemplate over who will be the right person out of two hundred. So they write down the name, and after twenty-four hours those names are collected. Whoever is chosen by the majority becomes the pope. Of all these two hundred cardinals none of them is enlightened, so it is simply a political election.


As for becoming a successor to a master, it cannot be an election, it can only be a transmission of the lamp. Only the master can choose. But it was a strange situation because the master refused to accept the most intimate three followers. This shows something special about Zen  --  that it will not choose anything less than the best.

I am reminded of another choosing of the successor by Bodhidharma....


He had four disciples who were very intimate to him. And all the other disciples thought it was almost certain that out of these four, one was going to become the successor.


At the time of departure, Bodhidharma was not dying, he was coming back to the Himalayas. He had gone to China because his master, a woman, had told him to take the message to China. So he traveled for three years to reach China. He remained there for fourteen years until he saw that, "Now a few people are ripe and ready, and I can choose a successor and move back to the Himalayas."


The Himalayas have attracted for centuries and centuries the mystical people. There is some quality of mystic atmosphere in the Himalayas. No other mountains in the world have that quality  --  the height, the eternal snow that has never melted, the silence that has never been broken, paths that have never been trodden. There are some similarities between the Himalayan peaks and the inner consciousness.


Bodhidharma said, "Now I am old enough and sooner or later I will have to die. I don't want to leave my footprints behind me. I want to disappear into the Himalayan snows without leaving a trace behind. And it is time that I should move, because it will take years to reach again to the deepest part of the Himalayas." So he collected his disciples and the four disciples he called forth. Everybody knew that these four were the probable candidates.
He asked the first one, "What is the essence of my teaching?"


The first man said, and very rightly, "The essence of your teaching is meditation." It is not a question of right and wrong, it is a question of depth and height. The answer is very flat. "Your teaching is meditation." Any idiot could have said that.


Bodhidharma said to him, "Your answer to my question is right but not right enough. You have my skin, at the most. Just sit down."
He asked the second, and he said, "Your essence is to achieve buddhahood."


The master said, "You are right. Meditation finally leads to buddhahood. But that can be said even by a schoolchild. Those who have heard me for fourteen years, can easily say it. You have at the most my bones. Just sit down. You have gone a little deeper than the first. So you have my bones."


He asked the third one and he said, "Your essential teaching is to be silent."


Bodhidharma said, "It is better than the other two answers, but if my teaching is to be silent, why have you spoken? You are breaking my teaching yourself. You have my marrow"  --  the marrow is the inner side of the bones  --  "but sit down."


The fourth came forward with tears in his eyes, bowed down to the master, touched his feet, did not say a single word. Bodhidharma said, "You have my very soul. You are my successor. Your tears have said what the others have missed. Your gratitude has said what the others have missed. Your silence has said what the others have missed."


This man was chosen by the master as a successor. This is not an election. This is just finding out how deep the person has gone and whether he has realized truth or not. Only that way in Zen is the successor chosen. Just in some instances where the master has found that nobody is ripe enough  --  then too it shows such a devotion to truth that he will not choose anybody  --  will he then leave it to the assembly. "It is better that all together you find out who is going to be the successor. I am not going to commit the mistake of choosing an unenlightened person. You are at least free. You are unenlightened. What else can you do? You can choose an unenlightened person, very scholarly, learned, clever, a good speaker, a convincing logician. You can do that. But I cannot do something in my last moments of life for which I will be forever condemned by the buddhas."

All these popes are elected people.


Just by the way, today Prarthana phoned from California. She goes on finding things for me. She was visiting a company which specializes in making bedcovers and pillowcovers. The manager asked her, "For whom are you ordering these?"
And she said, "For Osho."


The man said, "It is a strange coincidence that Osho and the pope will not agree on anything, but they both are my customers."


He has the best customers around the world, Princess Diana... and he himself enjoyed the idea.... I have to tell Prarthana to find somebody else. I cannot sleep on those sheets on which this idiot pope.... There is no agreement between me and him on anything, not even on bedsheets.

Basho wrote the haiku:
<p class="sutra">ONLY THE SHELL
OF THE CICADA LEFT?
DID IT SING ITSELF OUT OF EXISTENCE?</p>


An old cicada tree, almost dead, no foliage left  --  and Basho is saying, "Only the shell..." The inner life has left the tree....
"Only the shell of the cicada left? Did it sing itself out of existence?"


Did it go out of existence singing, dancing? He is indicating to every disciple who is in search of the eternal sources of life that you should go dancing in your death. Only then can you find it. Dancing transforms death into eternal life. Dancing is a very transforming force. It contains your joy, your blissfulness, your peace, your gratitude; your thankfulness to existence that it gave you time to blossom, it gave you great foliage, great flowers. And now that it wants you to return to the source, you should not be sad. That is ungratefulness.


You should be in a celebrating mood, in a thankful mood for all that the existence has done for you. Go dancing and in that dancing death becomes a fiction. That dancing transforms even death into a new life, or into eternal life.
<p class="question">Maneesha has asked:
BELOVED OSHO,
ARE THERE ANY OCCASIONS WHEN IT IS NECESSARY FOR DISCIPLES TO PROTECT THEIR MASTER FROM HIMSELF?</p>


Maneesha, in fact every day is the occasion to protect the master from himself for the simple reason he has attained whatever was possible to attain in life. Now he is lingering on this shore just for you. As for himself, he has come to the dead end of the street. His life is just for those who love him. There is nothing in the world that he longs for.


He may suffer old age, he may suffer sicknesses, just for the sake of the few who love him  --  that they should become ripe, that they should come to their ultimate flowering.


Every day the disciples have to protect the master against himself, because every moment the master feels: What is the point?  --  it is good to leave the body now. Just your love prevents him. There is nothing else to prevent him. All the threads that were connected with life, all the strings that were keeping him attached to the body-mind structure are finished. His empty heart can only listen to your love. And as long as he can manage... because his body goes on becoming old faster than the ordinary body. The ordinary body follows a natural pattern. The enlightened man has got outside the natural pattern. He starts dying quickly.


Most of the enlightened people have died immediately after their enlightenment. Very rare people have survived enlightenment. It is such a shock  -- thousands of volts. That creates a great gap between consciousness and the body, and it becomes absolutely difficult to live. For the unenlightened it was very simple. There was not a problem at all. The body was too much attached with the soul. The enlightened person lives in a shell of a body  --  unattached. Any moment he can open his wings and say goodbye to you.


Your question is significant, Maneesha. The master's whole existence is for those who love. If the people he loves let him down, then there is no need for him to go on unnecessarily suffering. Because now the body is a suffering, now every moment it is a dragging. And it becomes more painful because he is capable of leaving all this suffering immediately  --  just close his eyes and go away. The disciple is responsible, immensely responsible to protect the master against himself.
Maneesha's question may have made you sad, I have to change the subject.
It is Anando time....


Freddy Feinstein, a Jew from New York, is tired of all the high, fixed prices of clothes in America. A friend tells him that in India, bargaining is a way of life, so Freddy jumps on the next plane.


Two days later, he finds himself walking down M.G. Road in the pouring rain. His New York sneakers are soaking wet, so Freddy runs into a shoe shop to buy a new pair of shoes.


He is eager to try out his bargaining skills, so when Rajiv, the salesman, asks a hundred rupees for some shoes, Freddy immediately says, "Fifty!"
"That's impossible," replies Rajiv.
"Fifty or nothing!" says Freddy, firmly.


So Rajiv consults the manager, who consults the owner, and then comes back and says, "Okay, fifty."
"No!" shouts Freddy. "Twenty rupees!"
Again, Rajiv consults the manager who asks the owner.
"Okay, twenty," says Rajiv, when he returns a few minutes later.
"No! Five!" shouts Freddy.
"Listen," snaps Rajiv, getting irritated, "just take the shoes and get out!"
"No!" shouts Freddy.
"No?" asks Rajiv, in surprise, "you don't want the shoes?"
"No!" says Freddy. "I want two pairs!"


When a live sex show opens up in a small theater just outside the Vatican, Pope the Polack is furious.


He gets together Cardinal Catsass, and a flock of bishops, and they go to watch the show to see if it would be harmful for good Catholics to view it.


Coming out of the theater an hour later, Pope the Polack and his crew all agree that it is a terrible, filthy show, and completely unsuitable as entertainment for Catholics.


They are marching back to the Vatican, when suddenly Pope the Polack stops in his tracks.
"I have to go back!" he cries. "I have forgotten my hat."
"No you haven't," points out Cardinal Cats-ass, "it is hanging in your lap!"


Sean O'Reilly is driving his horse and cart into town one morning with a load of potatoes, when he has a head-on collision with a truck.


Sean makes a claim for damages against the trucking company, for injuries to himself, his horse and cart, his dog and his load of potatoes. The whole claim amounts to a considerable sum of money.


But a few weeks later in the high court, when Sean is called to the witness stand, his case does not seem to be going too well.


"Isn't it true," says Simon Sharkfin, the opposing lawyer, "that while you were lying on the ground at the scene of the accident, someone walked up to you and asked you how you were feeling, and you replied, 'I've never felt better in my life.'"
"Yes," replies Sean, "I remember that."
"Good," says Sharkfin, "I hope the jury takes note of it."


Then Sean's own lawyer comes over to Sean and says, "Would you mind telling the court the circumstances you were in when you said, 'I've never felt better in my life'?"


"Certainly," replies Sean. "I was lying there on the ground when a police car drives up and the deputy sheriff gets out. He tells me that my horse is screaming with pain and has two broken legs. He then takes out his gun, points it into the horse's ear and finishes him off.


"He then tells me that my dog is whining with pain and has a broken back. So he sticks his gun into the dog's ear and finishes him off.
"Then he turns to me and says, 'Now, how are you feeling?'"

Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
(Gibberish)
(Drumbeat)
Be silent.
Close your eyes.


Feel your body to be completely frozen. Now look inwards with your total consciousness and with an urgency as if this is going to be your last moment.


Deeper and deeper... At the deepest is your center. This center joins you with the universal life. And this center is called the buddha, because at this center one becomes so alert, so conscious, so awakened. The buddha is only a symbolic name.


This moment you are all buddhas. It is up to you to remain twenty-four hours a buddha, or take here and there a few holidays. But once you have known the beauty, and the joy, and the grandeur, and the splendor of being a buddha, you will not want to go back to the blind valleys, in darkness groping. At this moment you are the light.

To make it more clear, Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)
Relax.


Just be a witness of the body, of the mind and of everything. This witnessing is the only thing which is eternal in existence. Everything is changing. Just the reflecting witness remains here and now without any change. This is the very center of existence.


The evening was beautiful already, but by ten thousand buddhas witnessing, you have made it the richest evening possible.


Remember this silence when you come back. Don't leave it behind. Bring as many flowers and as much fragrance and juice with you as possible. And take care of noting what is the way you reach to the center. The same is the way you come back to the circumference.


You have to become very acquainted with the path. It is a small path. Once you have become acquainted, you can go in, any moment, just as you go in the house and out of the house without any difficulty. This is your space, this is your home.


So blissful is the moment. So many flowers are showering on you. Let your whole life become the light, the awakening, the buddha.

Nivedano...
(Drumbeat)


Collect as much from your life source and come back slowly, gracefully and sit down like a buddha for few a moments remembering where you have been, remembering the path that you followed in and out. And keep this quietness, this beautiful grace in all your actions and gestures, in your words and in your silences.
The buddha is your empty heart.

Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?
Yes, Osho!
		

> [!info]
> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
>