The Search

A young woman who was planning her wedding visited the hotel where the reception was to be held. She was busily looking over the place, pointing out where the punchbowl would be, where the bridesmaids would stand, and then she said to the hotel manager, “In the receiving line, my mother will stand here, and I will stand next to her, and here on my right will stand what’s-his-name.”   She had forgotten the name of the husband! In life it happens continuously that you go on making arrangements about the useless, and about the most essential you become completely oblivious.

Ref. 9F44-A

In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. What do the tall grasses symbolize? Poetry talks in symbols. Painting paints the symbols, poetry talks the symbols. The tall grasses in which your bull is lost are desires. So many desires, pulling you this way and that. So many desires! Constantly a tug-of-war: one desire pulls you to the south, another to the north.

Ref. E4B5-B

In a small school the teacher asked, “Now, can anyone tell me where we find mangoes?” “Yes, teacher,” replied a little boy. “Wherever woman goes – man goes.”   Wherever woman goes, man goes on following the woman; the woman goes on following the man. The whole of life is just a running after this desire or that. Finally, nothing is attained; only frustrated dreams, a heap of frustrated dreams. Look back – what have you attained? You have been running and running – where have you got? These are the tall grasses.

Ref. 5850-C

is as if a person was thirsty and we put him on a track which leads to more and more money. He comes, struggles hard, accumulates much money, but the money is not related to the thirst at all. Then suddenly he feels frustrated. Then he says: Money cannot do anything; but now it is too late.

Ref. DFA5-D

But people are afraid to become themselves. People are very afraid to be themselves because if you try to be yourself you will become alone. Everybody is unique and alone. If you try to be yourself, you will feel aloneness. So people follow others, the crowd; they become one with the crowd. There they do not feel alone – surrounded, so many people are there. If you meditate, you will be alone, but if you get mad about money, you will never be alone – the whole world is going there. If you search for godliness you will be alone; but if you search for politics, power, then the whole world will be there, you will never be left alone.

Ref. 2EA2-E

People are afraid of being alone. People can never know themselves if they are afraid of being alone; they can never search for the bull.

Ref. 480C-F

The more decisive you become, the more integrated you become. The more you take the responsibility for commitment. Of course, it is very dangerous, but life is dangerous. I know there are many possibilities of going astray, but that risk has to be taken. There are possibilities you may err, but one learns by erring. Life is trial and error. I have heard…

Ref. 711D-G

Sighing, the scholar made the matter simpler, went more slowly, used more basic words, but still the young nobleman said, “My good man, I don’t follow you.” In despair, the scholar finally moaned, “Oh, monsignor, I give you my word that what I say is so.” Whereupon, the nobleman rose to his feet, bowed politely, and answered, “But why, then, did you not say so at once so that we might pass on to the next theorem? If it is a matter of your word, I would not dream of doubting you.”

Ref. 5867-H

They will burden you; they will not make you free. In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.

Ref. 126D-I

If a man is searching for more and more money, what in fact is he searching for? Money? If he is searching for money, then there will come a point where he will be satisfied – but that point never comes. It seems he is searching for something else. Mistakenly searching for money, he is trying to find something else. He wants to be rich. Let me say it this way: a man who is searching for money wants to be rich but he does not know that to be rich is totally different from having money. To be rich means to have all the experiences that life can give you. To be rich means to be a rainbow, not black and white – all the colors together. To be rich means to be mature, alert, alive. The man who is searching for money is searching for something else; that’s why when money is achieved, nothing is achieved. The man who is searching for power – what is he, in fact, searching for? He wants to be a god. In the world, he says, if you have power you can pretend to be a god. Behind his search for power, the search for godliness is hidden. So when he attains to power, suddenly he will feel powerless inside, impotent: outside, riches; inside, poor, a beggar.

Ref. B231-J

This is the situation: the faster you run, the more confused you get. The speedier you get, the more confused you get. By and by, you lose all sense of direction. You simply go on zooming from here to there. Speed itself becomes the goal, as if by running fast one feels one is getting somewhere; hence the attraction for speed. It is a neurosis.

Ref. 540A-K

A woman was very upset. “My husband,” she told the doctor, “seems to be wandering in his mind.” “Don’t worry about that,” said the doctor. “I know your husband. He can’t go far.”

Ref. CD89-L

The world is a dream. Not that it does not exist, not that it is not. The world is a dream because the world that you think is is nothing but your dream; you are asleep, unconscious, sleepy, moving, doing things. It is fortunate that you cannot go far! You can become awakened this very moment. Now Kakuan’s prose comment for the first sutra: The bull never has been lost. What need is there to search? Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads, but which way is the right one I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.

Ref. 2ED3-M