Osho gave very scientific definition to state of Buddha or Buddha hood. In his definition it is like LaGrange point between Earth-Sun system in our cosmos or universe. It this point the satellite can remain stable in it’s position forever. This is a point of no return, Once this point is crosses then the satellite can go beyond on it’s own without energy, just to manoeuver it we need very little energy.
We have a universe or cosmos within us just like the outer and even better than the outer because it has an unmoving centre ie our centre of being. Buddha is just a state or LaGrange position inside us, once it is crossed we gets transformed internally to never return to our earlier state. People can notice the difference but there will lot be much change in our life. Just one this changes that any wrong or sin cannot happen through us.
27–28 September 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium, Osho was talking to his disciples on famous Ancient Zen scripture wrtiien by Hayakuzo “THE GREAT PEARL’S TREATISE ON SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT” as below to make you clear what does it mean by Buddha/Buddhahood for Osho. Here he made it clear the difference between the then Cylonese, Tibetan and Burmese Buddhism. Hope this will be of some help to you.
“ON ANOTHER OCCASION A GROUP OF DHARMA MASTERS SOUGHT AN INTERVIEW AND SAID: ”WE HAVE SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK. ARE YOU PREPARED TO ANSWER THEM, MASTER?”
HYAKUJO REPLIED, ”YES. THE MOON IS REFLECTED IN THAT DEEP POND; CATCH IT IF YOU LIKE.”
He said, ”Whatever I say will be as far away from truth as is the reflection of the moon from the moon itself. I am ready to answer your questions. But remember, you will have to understand, all my answers are as far away from truth as the reflection of the moon in the deep pond is far away from the real moon. My words are only reflections. Don’t cling to them as if they are the very truth.”
THE GROUP CONTINUED, ”WHAT IS THE BUDDHA REALLY LIKE?”
”IF THAT WHICH IS FACING THE LIMPID POND IS NOT THE BUDDHA, WHAT IS IT?” SAID HYAKUJO.
Hyakujo said – they were all looking at the limpid pond for the reflection of the moon – ”If those who are looking at the reflection of the moon in the limpid pond, if they are not buddhas, then who can be buddhas? You are witnessing. Just move from the object to the subject – who is looking at the reflection? Or in other words, who is asking the question? If it is not buddha, what is it? This witnessing, this watching, if it is not buddha, then what is it?” said Hyakujo.
THE MONKS WERE PUZZLED… Everybody will be puzzled if you say that you are a buddha. Just try it on any stranger, ”Wait! I think you are a buddha,” and see the response. He will simply freak out, ”Are you mad or something? Are you mad or something?” But you are saying the truth. You are revealing his own reality to him.
When I call you the buddhas, it is not a metaphor. I really mean it – and you have to drop your suspicions about yourself. You cannot accept the idea of being a buddha, because you know that you smoke cigarettes. Now poor Hasya is trying to drop cigarettes. I have informed her not to drop it because there is no need to go into unnecessary trouble. She was even taking medication to try and overcome the withdrawal symptoms.
In my buddhafield just smoking cigarettes cannot disturb your buddha nature. If such a small thing disturbs the buddha nature (In scientific language the LaGrange point is never disturbed, it is permanent) , it is of no worth. Just think about it… such small things. And these are the things which make you think, ”How can I be a buddha?” Your reasons for not being a buddha are simply mediocre: because you have a wife, or because you have a girlfriend… A buddha with a girlfriend is simply inconceivable.
Sri Lanka’s ambassador to America wrote to me in a letter, ”You should tell your sannyasins to stop calling their discos Zorba The Buddha, because it is very insulting to the Buddhists. And if your sannyasins open such restaurants or discos in Sri Lanka, they will be burned and there will be riots. So I want to warn you.
I wrote him a really nice letter.
I told him that if Zorba cannot be the buddha, then nobody can be the buddha. Everybody has to begin from the Zorba. Zorba is the beginning. Buddha is the end. (Zorba means people living material life)
These, my people, who are calling their discos Zorba The Buddha, are saying ”We are starting with Zorba, hoping to end up as buddhas.” And I told him, ”Remember that Buddha is not the monopoly of the buddhists. The word ‘buddha’ simply means the awakened one. It can happen in any religion, to any community, you don’t have the monopoly.
And if you want to see buddhas, before going back to Sri Lanka, come to our commune and you will find everywhere buddhas and buddhas... We don’t have any other kind, just one kind, and you will never find such juicy buddhas anywhere – with their girlfriends, smoking cigarettes, going to the disco, having all the fun that existence allows you.
Just sitting under a tree with a sad face wondering, ‘What am I doing sitting here? The whole world is enjoying all kinds of things and it is a strange destiny that I am just sitting under the tree all the time.’” He never answered my letter, and he never again wrote.
A buddha is not something separate from you, it is your intrinsic being. (It is point of our inner movement towards our centre of being or centre of inner universe).
It is your most essential being. Everything else may have gathered all around it. Much junk has gathered around it, but that does not matter. It does not make any difference to the pure gold of your buddha. It may fall into the dust, it may be covered in mud, but it remains twenty-four carat gold. You are covered with a body, covered with a mind, but that does not make any difference.
You are the buddha, but the Buddhist traditional mind will not even accept an umbrella in Buddha’s hand. Even while it is raining, the poor fellow has to sit without an umbrella.
Who has ever heard of Buddha having an umbrella?
But my approach to the buddha is closer to the approach of Zen, not the Ceylonese or the Burmese Buddhism. The Burmese, the Ceylonese and the Tibetans are more Hinduized.
The people who took Buddhism to Burma were traditional orthodox people. And the woman emperor, Ashoka’s daughter, Sangamitra, who took Buddhism to Ceylon was as orthodox as her father. From its very beginnings Tibetan Buddhism has remained attached to Indian Buddhism.
Zen has a speciality; in fact, it should not be called Buddhism. Although it is the very essential message of Buddha, it originated with Mahakashyapa’s laughter. Zen considers Mahakashyapa to be their founder, not Buddha. Buddha is Mahakashyapa’s master, and that is their business.
Zen considers Mahakashyapa to be its originator. And Bodhidharma was a disciple of the line that followed Mahakashyapa. That line became a little alienated from the orthodox line because very individual people, freedom lovers joined Zen – all kinds of eccentrics, geniuses, not mediocre fellows who just go to the temple to read the sutras and say the prayers.
That is being done by every other religion. Their scriptures may be different, their prayers may be different, their temples may be different, but essentially they are all doing the same thing.
Zen has broken new ground. Mahakashyapa did the first thing: he laughed. Buddha never laughed in his life. With his laughter starts a new stream of more joy, of more rejoicing, of more dancing, of more human beings.
And when Bodhidharma took Zen to China, it took another turn. It became more eccentric, because Bodhidharma was far more eccentric than Mahakashyapa. He was the strangest fellow, but always to the point. He looked strange. You could not understand him. He was not part of the common crowd.
So first, Bodhidharma made it a very special dispensation and then it met with Taoist mystics. This is one of the greatest meetings of two religions where there was no conflict. They simply understood each other’s silence – not even a debate. They looked into each other’s eyes and knew that they were both in the same space.
So Zen is a by-product of the meeting of Buddhism and Taoism. It has a different character from both, it is a crossbreed: something of Tao that is essential, and something of Buddha that is essential has created a new phenomenon, Zen.
And when it reached China, it took a few centuries to be clear that it was no longer the orthodox Buddhism and no longer the orthodox Taoism, it was something new. Out of the meeting of those two came a strange flower, and this flower has been carried to Japan, where it blossomed to its ultimate peak.
Osho, Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haiku’s, Ch #4 Lie Down and Witness.
