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"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WAY THE VENERABLE ZEN MASTER TALKS," SAID TAO KUNG.

You are speaking and you say that you don't have a tongue. You go on teaching about devices and goals, and you say there are no mental activities of any use, and there is no goal either.

WHEREUPON HYAKUJO SAID, "NOR DOES THIS OLD MONK UNDERSTAND HIMSELF." He accepted that he does not even understand himself. "Only existence knows what he is using me for.

I am absolutely available to existence. If he wants to lie through me, I will lie. If he wants something else to be done through me, I will do it. I have completely dropped myself into the hands of the cosmos."

Hyakujo is saying something of tremendous importance: a master is absolutely absent as far as his individuality is concerned; he is absolutely present as far as his cosmic experience is concerned.

And you need to have some intelligence, some heart, to understand it.

A haiku by Basho....

MAD WITH POETRY, I STRIDE LIKE CHIKUSAI INTO THE WIND.

"Mad with poetry..." If you are not mad, your poetry will be very poor. Poetry which is sane will be ordinary, prosaic, just a composition of words without any essential meaning running through it. To be a poet is in a certain sense to be mad.

MAD WITH POETRY, I STRIDE LIKE CHIKUSAI INTO THE WIND.

It has not been recognized by the religions of the world. I want to make it an absolute discontinuity with the past in the sense that I don't consider the older saints to be authentically religious. They can be divided in two categories - either they are masochists who enjoy torturing themselves, or they are sadists who enjoy teaching people to torture themselves, who enjoy others torturing. And it is possible that one man may be both - he may enjoy torturing himself and he may enjoy torturing others.

Most of the saints belong to the psychologically sick people, and the real religious people have not been taken in account. They are the poets, the dancers, the painters, the musicians, the sculptors.

All kinds of creative people are the truly religious people, but no religion accepts them as religious because these people are functioning according to their nature, not according to any scripture.

These people are almost part of the universe.

One very rich woman asked Picasso, a great painter of our times, "You have never done portrait.

You have done so many beautiful paintings, but no portrait. My only desire is to have a portrait of myself made by you. And don't think about money. You say it and it will be given." The woman was super rich.

Picasso wanted to tolerate her but he could not tolerate the money. He was in immense need of money. Just for his paintings he needed money, but he did not want to make a portrait, knowing perfectly well that when he started painting he forgot himself, so that what came out may not look like this woman. So he said to her, "Listen... ten million dollars."

She said, "Okay. Start the work."

He said, "My God. I asked for ten million so as not to get involved in this work. I have to explain to you that when I start painting, I forget myself. The colors catch me so hard, their beauty becomes so immense, that I don't know what I am doing; the painting starts painting itself. That's why I have never done a portrait, but if you insist, I will make an effort - and I cannot lose ten million dollars.

But you have to make me a promise: you cannot criticize my painting on any point."

She said, "Agreed."

The painting was done. The woman could not understand what had happened. She could not find where she was in the painting at all. It was a beautiful painting - great colors, very psychedelic, but it was not a portrait. And she had agreed not to criticize so she said, "I am not criticizing, but I just want to know where my nose is, so from that point I can figure out where I am."

Picasso said, "This is the difficulty. I had told you beforehand that when I paint, I forget. Now I don't know where your nose is. You take the painting and meditate over it. Sometime you may find that this is your nose, and then figure out... around it there may be some eyes, a mouth."

The woman said, "This is a strange kind of portrait that I have to figure out where my nose is."

Once it happened, a rich man came and he wanted, "Picasso, two paintings, immediately." Picasso had only one painting ready so he went in and cut the painting in two.

The girlfriend who used to be with Picasso, said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "I cannot miss that customer. He is a rich man and he wants two paintings. I will make two paintings immediately. Anyway nobody can discover what the painting is, whether it is together or in two parts." He made two paintings, and he sold two paintings.

Those who have purchased his paintings, even in great museums, find it difficult to know how to hang them - which way up... which way down.... You can hang them any way. They are beautiful, but you cannot make any sense of that beauty.

And another haiku by Basho:

FOR HIS MORNING TEA A MONK SITS DOWN IN UTTER SILENCE - CONFRONTED BY CHRYSANTHEMUMS.

"For his morning tea a monk sits down in utter silence..." Tea has become associated with Bodhidharma, who introduced Zen into China. He loved tea, and strangely, it helps you to be awake; otherwise, sitting silently, one tends to fall asleep. So tea has become a special Zen thing.

He is just depicting a picture. Under the tree of chrysanthemums, a monk sits in utter silence for his morning tea. Nothing is said - just a silent monk waiting for his tea.

These haikus are, as I have said to you, paintings in words.