As Sri Dattatreya taught about 4000 years ago, "'It is spontaneous and comes of itself". It cannot come to "normal" people, because the civilized "normal" man is so artificial. He will strive for something and make efforts which prove to be obstacles. He will try to reason, debate, memorize and wrangle to improve his knowledge and the Essence only gets further and further away. To become natural and stop reasoning and calculating often proves to be impossible because he has been conditioned and educated that way. He is always tempted to seek knowledge from someone he thinks has studied more and read more books than himself. This leads to more confusion.

The Master Ma-Tzu summed this up by saying: "Cultivation is an obstacle for attaining the Tao. All you can do is become free from defilements (conditionings). When the mind is tainted with thoughts of life and death or intentional action, they are defilements. Grasping the Truth is a quality of everyday mindedness. Everyday mindedness (spontaneity) is free from intentional action, free from the concepts of right and wrong, taking and giving, the finite or the infinite. All our daily activities should be natural responses to situations as we deal with all circumstances when they arise. All this is Tao".

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The real Masters are the hermits, vagabonds, and disembodied rogues who live in nature's wilds, blown about like leaves in the wind.

Thus Zen must be the simplest of all simple patterns. It can have no methods beyond the spontaneity of natural people. It cannot be preached, for there is nothing to preach. It is the Golden Flower beyond explanation or definition. Children and insane vagabonds are nearer to Zen than most of the people who call themselves Zen masters. Its real history and records are written in the trees, plants and stones, and its only temples and monasteries are the hills, mountains, rivers and clouds. It belongs to nature and to natural man. You will not find it in the cities because it cannot live or survive there.

The first approach to Zen is the first approach to the Absolute Reality. It means you are already Zen just as you are also Supreme Reality. It is only ignorance and delusion of maya which prevents you seeing this. Stop reading newspapers, listening to radio and watching television. Worry not about what you wear or how you are dressed. Stop planning and living in the delusions of a vague future. Live only in the bliss and detachment of the present moment. Cease holding opinions and being well-informed. If you sincerely seek the Absolute, remember only verse 13 of the Book of Ashes:

All the materials of the higher path,
All the foundations for spiritual gain,
All and everything to attain the goal
Are sleeping latent in the human frame.

WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ?

Hari Om!!!