The British Empire was getting tired. Seeing the situation, that India will be getting worse and worse, the British prime minister, Attlee, sent Mountbatten with an urgent message: “Give the freedom as quickly as possible, because we don’t want to take the responsibility for India’s poverty” – which is going to grow every day, and by the end of this century almost half a billion people are bound to die of starvation.
This is not a freedom that is achieved; this is a freedom which has been given. It is a very poor freedom. It has been given to India as if India is a beggar. That is the root cause why there is no freedom, no democracy. Just the names go on being talked about, and nobody bothers to look at the reality.
Now the sutras:
Emperor Shukuso asked Chu Kokushi, “What is the ten-bodied herdsman?”
Kokushi replied, “Go and trample on Vairocana’s head!”
Vairocana is another name of Gautama the Buddha.
Zen has a tremendous courage….
Kokushi replied, “Go and trample on Vairocana’s head!”
The emperor said, “I cannot follow you.”
I cannot do that…trampling on Vairocana’s head.”
Kokushi said, “Don’t take the self for the pure dharma body.”
Why are you afraid of trampling on the body of Vairocana? It is only a statue. It is your self-consideration: What will people say if the emperor tramples on the Buddha’s body?
Kokushi said, “Don’t take the self for the pure dharma body.”
Your ego is not your real authentic self. Don’t listen to it, just trample on Vairocana’s body, because neither is there anyone there – just a wooden statue – nor is there anyone inside your ego. It is just a soap bubble. Then you will know what it means, “the ten-bodied herdsman.”
A strange answer…but I have to tell you first what this ten-bodied herdsman is.
There are ten pictures in China – I have talked about those pictures – and they are called the Zen Bulls.
A man lost his bull. In the first picture he looks all around. He can see thick deep forest, but no sign of the bull. In the second picture he finds the footprints of the bull. In the third picture he looks, and the bull is hiding behind a tree, but he can see only the back part of the bull. Then he catches hold of the bull by his horns; he becomes victorious. Soon he is riding on the bull towards his home. Next the bull is put in its place in the stall, and in the last picture the man is sitting outside his house and playing on a flute.