Bodhidharma The Greatest Zen Master (Commentaries on The Teachings of the Messenger of Zen From India to China)

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“You cannot explain what sweetness is to the man who has never tasted sweets. You can bring all your articulateness, but you cannot explain a simple thing, sweetness. The only way is to offer him some sweets. That’s what the masters have been doing all along. Rather than telling you what sweetness is, they offer it to you to taste. They themselves are offering, their own presence for you to taste it.” Osho

Bodhidharma is named as the 26th Patriarch in the line emanating from Gautam Buddha. However, as Osho says, he shows even “higher flights” than Buddha—who would not accept any female disciples—as his master was the enlightened woman, Pragyatara.

Buddhism had entered china six hundred years earlier, and now Pragyatara instructed Bodhidharma to go there and to pass on Buddha’s essential message of enlightenment. The earlier messengers of Buddha’s teachings had had a great impact on the people of China, but none had been enlightened. It was now time for the taste of realization, of Awakening, to be passed on.

Osha dissects these three volumes of notes from Bodhiddharma’s disciples in detail, pointing out where, and how, the disciples’ minds have come in to distort the message of this Buddha—an awakened one.

Osho is a revolution, inspiring millions of people worldwide with his approach to the science of inner transformation. Yet in his own words, he says, “I am nobody. I don’t belong to any nation, I don’t belong to political party. I am simply an individual, the way existence created me.”

His books and audiobooks are international bestsellers and cover an extraordinary range of topics from the wisdom of the word’s mystics to intensely personal questions about the inner search.

“Bodhidharma’s statement is, buddhas don’t save buddhas. He is saying you are all buddhas whether you know it or not, and how can one Buddha save another Buddha? All that a Buddha can do is to wake you up. That is not much of a saving. When you wake somebody up, do you think you are holier, and special, and you have done a great service to humanity, by waking a poor fellow who was sleeping?

Buddhas don’t save buddhas. This is a very pregnant statement. It gives equality to every being. The only difference, which is not much of a difference, is that everybody is abuddyha; a few are asleep and are unaware of who they are, and a few have become awakened and know who they are. But essentially, there in no difference at all.”

when you see a beautiful sunset, enjoy the beauty of it; when you see a buddha, enjoy the beauty of the man, enjoy the authenticity of the man, enjoy the silence, enjoy the truth the man has realized — but don’t become a follower. All followers are lost.

Remain yourself. This man, Gautam Buddha, has found because he has remained himself. And all these beautiful names — Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Bodhidharma, Nagarjuna, Pythagoras, Socrates, Heraclitus, Epicurus — all these beautiful names which have been a great inspiration to many people were themselves never inspired by anybody. That’s how they protected their originality; that’s how they remained themselves.

I have been with masters, and I have loved them. But to me the very desire to be like them is ugly. One man is enough; a second like him will not enrich existence, it will only burden it. To me, uniqueness of individuals is the greatest truth.

Love people when you find in them a true and authentic, blossoming dimension. But remember, they are blossoming because of their authenticity and originality; so remember, be mindful not to fall in the trap of following them. Be yourself.

The famous maxim from Socrates is: “Know thyself.” But it should be completed — it is incomplete. Before “Know thyself” another maxim is needed, “Be thyself”; otherwise you may know only some actor that you are pretending to be. Knowing thyself comes second; first is being thyself.

The real, great masters have been only friends, a helping hand, fingers pointing to the moon; they have never created slavery. But the moment they died they left such a great impact around them that cunning people— theologians, priests, scholars — started preaching to people, “Follow Gautam Buddha.”

Now the man is dead and he cannot deny anything. And these people started exploiting the great impact that Buddha had left. Now the whole of Asia, millions of people, have followed in the steps of Gautam Buddha for twenty-five centuries, but not a single Gautam Buddha has been created. It is enough proof: two thousand years and not a single Jesus again; three thousand years, not a single Moses again.

Existence never repeats. History repeats itself because history belongs to the unconscious mob. Existence never repeats itself. It is very creative and very inventive. And it is good; otherwise, although Gautam Buddha is a beautiful man, if there are thousands of Gautam Buddhas around — if wherever you go you meet Gautam Buddha, in every restaurant! — you will be really bored and tired. It will destroy the whole beauty of the man. It is good that existence never repeats. It only creates one of a kind, so it remains always rare.

You are also one of a kind. You just have to blossom, to open your petals and release your fragrance.