So we don’t know many names, we don’t know when they were born, we don’t know when they became enlightened, but we know that a sudden explosion of light has happened in a man. We have included only these people in our history.

All that is concerned with the physical we have deleted from Eastern history. But we have remembered, and we continue to remember…and if you sit before the statue of Buddha outside the entrance, just sitting silently, you will be surprised how for the first time you feel so relaxed, so peaceful, so unworried. The form of the statue creates a certain space and a certain energy.

This was discovered in the early days of this century when there was great excitement about the Egyptian pyramids. They are completely sealed. When one pyramid was opened – the first pyramid – there was a strange peace inside, a strange fragrance inside.

And the most puzzling thing that came to light was a cat that must have died hundreds of years before, but there was no rottenness of the body. It was as if she had died just then. They could not believe it because the stupa was three thousand years old, and it had never been opened.

When they were closing the last doors, somehow the cat must have got in, and remained in, and of course had to die; there was no way out. She must have died three thousand years before, but the problem is there was no deterioration.

And scientists became interested that perhaps the form of the pyramid creates a certain space in which nothing can die. Death came because there was no food, no water, but the pyramid kept the cat as if it was as alive as any cat can be.

Now there are on sale in the world markets small pyramids. You just sit under the pyramid for an hour and you will see some changes; you are no more in a hurry, you don’t have any tension. The stupa has done something, but it is still a mystery.

The Buddhists also have made stupas: in India, Bodhgaya, where Buddha became enlightened…in Sanchi, where many buddhas became enlightened. But nobody seems to be interested except in their architecture. Studying the architecture is not the way to find the mystery of why these stupas were made in a certain way.

In India, in Tibet, in China, in Japan, in Ceylon – wherever Buddhism went, these stupas, these memorials were raised to give an indication that nobody dies; only the body and the mind are left behind and you open your wings of consciousness. And for the first time when all the shutters are broken the whole blue sky is your empire.

Kyozan studied with many masters, but either they were not masters…and certainly he was not ready to be a disciple. The moment he saw Isan, suddenly a new breeze, a new fragrance passed through him.

They met on a small footpath on the mountain. He could not resist…this man smells like sandalwood and has such a light around him, such an at-easeness.

He turned and asked Isan, “Can you accept me as a disciple?”