“We are starting a new series of talks: Ma Tzu: The Empty Mirror of Zen. Ma Tzu is also known as Baso. I am not using his name Baso because our second series is going to be on the Japanese Basho – the great mystic poet of Zen. And the name Ma Tzu itself is more meaningful than his popular name, Baso.

“Before I discuss the sutras, a biographical note on Ma Tzu is absolutely needed because he is not known to the world. He is one of those unfortunate geniuses whom the world tries in every way to ignore, to forget that they even existed. Even the idea that they existed hurts the ego of the crowd. It has been doing harm to every genius because the very existence of a genius reduces you to a retarded being. Every enlightened master is evidence that you are living in darkness, that you have to transform your darkness into life, into light.

“It seems to be such a great task – which it is not, but it appears to be a great task – to transform your blindness into clear perceptive eyes, to transform your darkness into beautiful morning light. It is a simple thing, the simplest in the world, but just because it is simple, it does not appeal to the mind. The mind is interested in doing great things. The desire behind every ambition of the mind is to be special. And you can be special only with special achievements.

“The problem with Zen is that it wants you to be utterly simple, not special. It goes against the very desire of the mind, which is not a small phenomenon – it is a four-million-year-old desire that everybody is carrying in different lives. The mind cannot understand why you should be simple when you can be special, why you should be humble when you can be powerful. And the mind is heavy; it has the great weight of the past. The moment the mind sees anyone humble, simple, natural, a buddha, it immediately condemns him because such a man goes against the whole makeup of the human mind.

“And in a way, the mind is right. To be a buddha, you will have to drop the mind completely; you will have to become an empty mirror.”