| Torei Enji (Jap.) |
| born: 1721 died: 1792 71 years place: Japan |
| Zen master: Hakuin Zen disciples: Gasan Jito, ... |
| stories: Torei Detailed Study of the Fundamental Principles of the Five Chan Houses Osho The Language of Existence, ch. 5 |
Chin., Dongling Yuanci
East Mountain Peak Circle Love
| oshobob The Living Workshop |
| Zen Masters |
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| Torei said: “If you want to be free from this world of suffering, first you must contemplate impermanence. Those who are born must inevitably die. Even the young are not exempt; even the strong are in danger. Even a long life does not last more than eighty years or so. If you don't annihilate the nature of afflictions somehow, and arrive on the path of liberation, even if you ascend to the rank of sovereign of a nation, great minister, deity, spirit, or wizard, it is still evanescent as lightning and morning dew, lasting only for a while. “When conditions meet, everything surely seems to exist; but when the conditions disintegrate – emptiness. This body is gained through the relationship of father and mother, and comes from their conditions. Solidity becomes skin, flesh, ligament, and bone; fluidity becomes spittle, tears, pus, and blood; heat becomes warmth and flexibility; air becomes breath and movement. When these four conditions suddenly are exhausted, the body gets cold and the breath stops – there is nothing called "me." At that time this body is really not our own; it is only a temporary inn. How can we be so greedily attached to this temporary inn that we ignore eternity? “Contemplating these four transcendences – impermanence, suffering, emptiness, selflessness – seeking the way of enlightenment is called, "the teaching of four realities for disciples." This is the essential gateway to beginning entry into the way for all enlightened ones.” When all the conditions collapse, Torei is saying, nothing remains. This word `nothing' has very strange connotations. When a buddha says "nothing" he means no-thing, and when a scholar says "nothing" he simply means emptiness. When a buddha says "nothing" he says there is no-thing anymore: pure space, utter silence... We all speak the same language. The master has also to use the same language but he gives new meanings to words, new fragrances to words, new poetry to words. They go dancing into your heart, the same ordinary words, with such extraordinary radiance, penetration. But one has to be a knower himself... --Osho The Language of Existence, ch. 5 |