A Taste of the Other Shore

 The Ocean of Your Original Nature

I want to tell you a statement made by a Zen master many long years ago. But such statements are timeless, as you know.

He says, When I demonstrate Zen in its genuine form, nobody is able to accompany me however much he may desire it; much less a company of five or seven hundred. But when I talk this way or that they crowd into my room and vie with one another to pick up whatever learnings there are. It is like cheating a child with an empty palm. In truth there is nothing real.

I now tell you most distinctly where the holy man’s abode is. Do not attempt to work out your various imaginations on the matter. Only sincerely discipline yourself so as to be in the ocean of your original nature.

To me, in this and the statement I will quote later is contained everything significant that I have come, myself, to understand about the nature of human existence. All the essential things are there. First he says, When I show you Zen, nobody understands. When I simply show you what Zen is, you can’t come with me. Not one person can join me in that demonstration, far less five or seven hundred - which was the number of people who used to come to listen to him when he talked.

He says, I’m a teacher, I am a Zen master; I have been selected or I have chosen myself, to live my life in such a way as to try and pass on delicious truths, enlightening truths, to other people. And he says, I see - and if he is talking to people in such numbers, then he’s been a Zen master a long time; he has tried many ways of sharing - nobody can come with me.

What the great Masters have tried to convey cannot be conveyed. It is a little like trying to convey the taste of an apple, or mustard. Another person can also, equally, know what the taste of an apple is like. But how to convey it from one person to another? So he says a little despairingly, this Zen master, Nobody can come with me.

He says, But when I talk stuff - because since I can’t convey what really matters, since you can’t understand Zen as it really is, I have to talk; but since what I want to say cannot be conveyed, all the talking is really stuff - when I do that, you crowd into the room, you compete with one another to get the teachings.

And he says, It is like cheating a child with an empty palm - a mockery of what I wish to show you. The words are a mockery, and yet we have to use them, if only so that people will sit and listen, and sit and be there, so that maybe the thing that cannot be conveyed in words can jump, or reach the people through osmosis. Then he tries to say again, through words, what is incommunicable really. He says, Do not attempt to work out your various imaginations on the matter.

Whatever you think about the truth is going to be nonsense. It comes from the busy mind that is trying to get something that you already have, but which the mind doesn’t accept, or can’t see that you already have, so it’s constantly presenting new ideas to get it. Therefore it has various imaginations about what is this nirvana, what is this satori, what is this state of enlightenment, what is this self-mastery, what are these things: It’s this, it’s that, it’s the other, I read about it here, someone said this, my friend thinks it’s this. He says, Forget about all your imaginations. Just discipline yourself to be in the ocean of your original nature.

The ocean of original nature can also be, if we’re not careful, an imagination - Ah, the ocean of my original nature! One can visualize some great paradise place where everybody is in the ocean of their original nature, the ocean itself is in the ocean of its original nature, the beach is in the ocean of its original beach nature, and so on. Everything is perfect, like a dream. This is how it can happen. But the ocean of your original nature is there all the time. Right now it is there. It is washing you up on the shore, as you are, as you experience yourself right now. All your thoughts, all the feelings, all the sensations, all the emotions - everything comes out of the ocean of your original nature. So each thing in us has the flavour of the original nature.

But we don’t see the flavour, we see the form, the imaginations. But behind it all, behind every feeling, every thought, every sensation - and not only behind each thought, but in between each thought - is the ocean of your original nature. It is not just that at the very centre of each thought there is the ocean of your original nature, at the very heart of every feeling is the ocean of your original nature. That is also true, but it is a continuity: I speak, there’s one word, there is another word, and in between the words, what is there? Silence? Yes, we call it silence, but it is the place from which the words come.

That place is there when I’m speaking; each word contains it, just as each wave contains the ocean. But when there are no waves, when the sea is calm, and in between each wave, it is also there. In everything that happens, in all experiences, it is there. And when there is no experience happening, it is also there. It is continuously there. And that is the ocean of your original nature.

It will wash up your next thought, it will wash up your next feeling, it will wash up your next movement; it has washed you into life, and it will wash you into death; it will wash you into health, and it will wash you into sickness. It has washed you into this room, and it will wash you out of this room.

And if you are there where the ocean is, you will see it happening. You will see your own reality as manifested, and as perceived, by other people, and perceived by your own mind - you will see it happening. And you will see that this is exactly you; that this movement of the ocean of your original nature into action or sound is, absolutely in that moment, who you are, what you are. You can’t make a mistake, you can’t be false, you can’t get it wrong. You cannot get it wrong because it’s your original nature simply expressing itself without any distortions, without any conditionings, without any fears, without any concerns, without any judgements, without any discriminations. It is simply this, this, this, this - as it happens in you.

Normally we are not there to see that happen. We are in a manic activity that has taken over our reality, and is masquerading as ourselves. And that has to go. That’s not our self; that has to go.

Meher Baba, the great Indian mystic who died in the sixties, and who for decades ran his teaching without uttering a single word - he would only give messages by writing something on a blackboard for people to transmit to others - he says, Stop the search. Don’t seek. All you have to do is to lose the false self.

Not get anywhere; remove the false self - that manic activity - then you come to the ocean of your original nature. You do not find the original nature. You realize it. You discover that it is there under all the distortions, all the caricatures that you have tried out in response to life as you’ve met it so far.

The Zen master says, Only sincerely discipline yourself so as to be in the ocean of your original nature. Discipline yourself means simply not going with anything that doesn’t have the flavour of your original nature; simply not going off on trip plus trip plus trip plus trip, but being at the beginning. Being at the beginning - your beginning. Not the beginning of your life but the beginning of this instant life, because at every instant we are beginning, we are emerging out of the ocean of our original nature.

At each instant - that’s what is meant by being reborn each moment. Not an idea: Now I have to remember and forget my history - that’s hard work, to remember to forget your history. It’s an existential reality that you can taste, that at each moment you are emerging out of nowhere. You are not emerging out of your history unless you insist upon doing it, and running from your mind which is telling you who to be and how to be. When you drop telling yourself how to be and who to be, and you simply are, you will discover that you are emerging, instant by instant, out of your original nature.

Then this Master says:

Attain the source and the rest need not bother you. But so long as you are kept away from the source nothing else will be of any value to you. When all your imaginations, holy and worldly, are exhausted, Reality presents itself, true and eternal, in the unity of One and Many, and this is where the Buddha of Suchness abides.

Attain the source and the rest need not bother you. But as long as you are kept away from the source - as long as you are not in that place where your original nature is, and where you are emerging from - nothing else will be of any value to you. It’s not worth anything, because it’s not based on the original nature. It is just copy-cat, something you’ve heard, something you’ve picked up, something you believe in, something you’re trying out - some ploy, some technique of living, some play to see if it works. All these things are just excuses, alternatives, as a substitute for the original nature which one is afraid to live, or one cannot find. He says nothing else will be of any value to you.

When all your imaginations, holy and worldly - spiritual and ordinary - are exhausted - they don’t work, they don’t have any substance, they don’t have the depth, the feeling of ultimate, timeless, unchangeable truth - when they are all exhausted, Reality presents itself…

You know what reality is? Reality is you standing on the shore of the ocean of your original nature, letting the waves run over you and take you into life. Reality presents itself, true and eternal…

True, because how can you be false to yourself when you are simply allowing yourself to emerge out of your original nature which is not possible to be false? Only when you are trying to be something you are not can you be false. Only when you are using yourself to get some goal that you think you should have do you have to be false. Otherwise you cannot have any other goal than the goal that comes when you can have no goal. Because you have reached the goal, which is simply to let life happen out of your ocean of your original nature. There’s no goal out of that - that is the goal, to be there. The goal is to live like that, purely and truly to your original nature.

You can play at having another goal - being this or being that - but if you’re not careful, having another goal will distort the original goal. Because then you’ll say, Well my original nature says this, but I don’t want to be like that. I want to be like this, because this will help me get my goal more likely.

And that’s how we lost touch with our original nature: by having false goals which said, I don’t want to be who I am, because that won’t get me what I want. So I will be who I’m not, because that will get me what I want - just for today; and then the next day and the next day. And then we’ve lost touch.

Only one goal is worthwhile, and that is to be with your original nature and let yourself emerge from it. Then, Reality presents itself, true and eternal, in the unity of the One and the Many… The One is the ocean of your original nature, which is the same as my ocean and everyone else’s ocean: different waves, same ocean. That’s the One, and out of the One comes the Many. Who you are today, who you are tomorrow, who you were yesterday, when you’re with your lover, when you’re going for a walk, when you’re having lunch, when you’re doing your work - this is the Many.

On one side is the Many, and on the other side is the One, and you are standing exactly there. So this is the unity of the One and the Many. You are the unity of the One and the Many.

In the unity of the One and the Many, and this is where the Buddha of Suchness abides. Suchness is the essence of things, the very intrinsic life in itself.

It is said that samsara, the unenlightened state, has no beginning - because it’s always been there - but an end - when you get enlightenment. Enlightenment has a beginning - when you get enlightened - and no end - because once you get enlightened it stays. But Suchness has no beginning and no end, because it includes both. When you’re unenlightened there is still Suchness. When you’re enlightened there is still Suchness.

So the Buddha of Suchness is the one who understands what is the very bloodstream of reality, the bloodstream of the universe. Can you feel what I’m saying? It’s a question of clearing away all the debris, all the rubbish, all the falseness, all the things you’ve picked up from other people, all the belief systems, all the conventions, all the rules, all the habits - all of this. Plus clearing away all your dreams - holy and unholy - all your imaginations of what you’re after, and what you would like it to be, and how soon you would have it, and what you’re going to do with it - clearing away all that in order to be open to perceive what was always there, obscured: your connection with life itself. Your particular, individual, unique, connection with life itself.

It’s like the edge of a cliff. You are ‘over the edge’, but you can stand on the edge - your edge. You can’t see over the edge, but you can feel the wind coming, you can feel the tide coming, you can feel the life coming and taking you, each moment, into this life that we play. This is not an explanation of why we are here. I’m simply stating what seems to me to be the nature of our reality, as far as we can see right now: that we stand on the frontier between the One and the Many; that we are the Many and we are also the One; and that each one of us stands uniquely in that place. And each one’s Many is different from everybody else’s Many, but each one’s One is the same One.

To find such a place you have to be calm, or find calmness. You have to be silent, or find silence; be peaceful, at rest, no longer agitated, your fears lost. Not for their own sake - although silence is beautiful, peace is beautiful - but simply because this seems to be the way to taste, to know, to become re-acquainted with, the original nature.

The mind, that’s so busy, at best can only have an idea of the original nature. One has to deliver the mind. Not just silence the mind, or surrender the mind, but deliver the mind. There’s a difference - a big difference. Buddha said: A man who delivers his mind is a great man. A man who merely surrenders his mind is not a great man. He is a good monk, but he’s not a great man.

One has to deliver the mind from its obsessions, from its targets ahead, the future; its goals to be achieved. One has to deliver the mind from all imaginations about what is and what is not, so that it can become the energy of consciousness to experience the simplicity of existence at that original point. Life is not simple, but existence is simple - very simple.

When you find that place to be, you will not be any different from anybody else. It doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t make you instantly recognizable as a member of the spiritual nobility. To have been able to reach a place where you can taste that original nature means that you are likely to be a quiet and peaceful and easy-going sort of person. But then many people also are, without having found that place.

There won’t be anything particularly special about it to anybody else, perhaps. You will not shine with a great light, necessarily. As somebody has put it:

The cosmically conscious individual does not behave any differently from anyone else. The only criterion is internal: Is the self recognized as independent of all activity?

Is the self understood, realized, perceived to be independent of its activity? Can you see the ocean on one side - the One - and the Many coming on the other side? Can you see that the nature that you are is in itself without activity, but expresses itself - or comes forth from the ocean - in the form of activity?

But if you think you are your activity, then you will never find the original self. You will just find the splashes from the ocean. You are independent of all activity. The ocean of the original self is really not in this world. As soon as it’s in this world it is activity of some sort. Even sitting quietly doing nothing, watching the grass grow by itself, is an activity. But you cognize yourself to be independent of all activity. That is the criterion.

You are not different from anybody else, but you know that you know your on taste. And you know you are tasting it each moment for whatever it is, beyond any judgements, beyond manipulation.

From “The Arrow of Man”, 1991.