Two Scholars

Vipassana

Sufis have such devices. They say, “Act totally differently, and not only will others be surprised, you will be surprised.” And just small things… For example, when you are nervous you walk fast. Don’t walk fast, go very slow and see. You will be surprised that it doesn’t fit, that your whole mechanical mind immediately says, “What are you doing? You have never done this!” And if you walk slowly you will be surprised – nervousness disappears because you have brought something new.

These are the methods of vipassana, zazen. If you go deeply into them, the fundamentals are the same. When you are doing vipassana walking, you have to walk as slowly as you have ever walked, so slowly that it is absolutely new. The whole feeling is new, and the reactive mind cannot function. It cannot function because it has no program for it; it simply stops functioning.

That’s why in vipassana you feel so silent watching the breath. You have always breathed but you have never watched it; this is something new. When you sit silently and just watch your breath – coming in, going out, coming in, going out. The mind feels puzzled, what are you doing? Because you have never done it. It is so new that the mind cannot supply an immediate reaction to it. Hence it falls silent.

The fundamentals are the same. Sufi or Buddhist or Hindu or Mohammedan is not the question. If you go deep into meditation’s fundamentals, then the essential thing is one – how to de-automatize you.

Gurdjieff used to do very bizarre things to his disciples. Somebody would come who had always been a vegetarian, and he would say, “Eat meat.” Now, it is the same fundamental. This man is just a little too much of his own… A little eccentric. He says, “Eat meat.” Now, watch a vegetarian eating meat. Now the whole body wants to throw it out and he wants to vomit and the whole mind is puzzled and disturbed, and he starts perspiring because the mind has no way to cope with it.

That’s what Gurdjieff wants to see – how you react to a new situation. To the man who had never taken any alcohol, Gurdjieff would say, “Drink. Drink as much as you can.”

To the man who had been drinking alcohol Gurdjieff will say, “For one month stop. Completely stop.” He wants to create some situation which is so new for the mind that the mind simply falls silent; it has no answer for it, no ready-made answer for it.

The mind functions in a parrotlike way. That’s why Zen masters will sometimes hit the disciple. That is again the same fundamental. Now, when you go to a master you don’t expect a buddha to hit you, or do you? When you go to a Buddha you go with expectations that he will be compassionate and loving, and he will shower love and put his hand on your head. And this buddha gives you a hit – takes his staff and hits you hard on the head. Now, it is so shocking – a buddha, hitting you? For a moment the mind stops. It has no way, no idea what to do; it does not function. And that nonfunctioning is the beginning. Sometimes a person has become enlightened just because the master did something absurd.

People have expectations, people live through expectations. They don’t know that masters don’t fit with any kind of expectations.