"In China it was said that when he died, the emperor ascended to heaven like a dragon. It was believed that when a dragon ascends to heaven, the pressure of its feet on the clouds causes rain. Also in Chinese mythology the dragon is a messenger of heaven who revealed yin and yang, the two forces of the universe, to the Yellow Emperor.

"'In the I-Ching the dragon symbolizes wisdom.

"'In Japan, the three-clawed dragon represents the emperor, having both imperial and spiritual power.'

"This Museum of Gods is immensely significant. It declares the end of all gods. They belong only to the museums. That is the very purpose of the Museum of Gods. Their relevance to life is finished; they can only be remembered as mythologies, as fictions, as exploitations by the priesthood, as pathological inventions of insane people.

"The future man will not have a god; the future man will be a god. For long enough we have been under fictitious entities. It is time to declare ourselves free from all fictions.

"The new man's god is no more in the heaven, it is in his own being – more intimate, more close. The new man will not worship the god, the new man will live the god, will sing the god, will dance the god; he himself will be the temple of the god. Hence I have called the new man the buddha.

"Now I will call Avirbhava to bring the dragon.

"(A green, papier-mache dragon enters Gautama the Buddha Auditorium from the back and stomps around the hall. Every once in a while it sprays from its fanged mouth steam and smoke. Everybody is laughing while oriental music plays. Laughter, Chinese music, hand-clapping. See photo on page 190.)

"The sutra:

Rinzai said, 'I expound the dharma of mind-ground, by which one can enter the secular and the sacred. But you are mistaken if you suppose that your real and temporal, secular and sacred can attach a name to everything real and temporal, secular and sacred. They cannot attach a name to this man.'

"'Mind-ground' simply means the empty mind. Only the ground is left, only the foundation is left, and everything else is gone."