Once, a monk asked Joshu, “What is the body without illness?”
Joshu said, “The body made of the four elements and five skandhas.”

On another occasion, Ummon asked a monk, “What are you?”
He replied, “I’m the head of the infirmary.”
“You don’t mean to say so!” said Ummon. “Is there anybody not ill?”
“I don’t understand,” replied the monk.
“Why can’t you understand?” asked Ummon.
The monk was silent, and then Ummon said “Ask me the same question.”
So the monk asked Ummon, “Who is the man without any illness?”
Ummon pointed to the next monk.

Once there was a monk ill in the infirmary who asked to see Tozan. When Tozan went there the monk said to him, “Why don’t you save ordinary people?”
Tozan asked him, “Who is your family?”
The monk replied, “A great icchantika family.”
Tozan remained silent for some time. Then the monk said, “What shall we do when the four mountains come pressing round us?”
Tozan said, “I myself came from under the roof of a family.”
The monk said, “Is there relativity or no relativity?”
Tozan answered, “None.”
The monk asked, “Where will you let me go?”
“To a rice field,” answered Tozan .
The monk heaved a sigh and said, “Good-bye,” and died sitting there.
Tozan tapped him on the head three times with his staff and said, “Like this, you knew how to die, but not how to live.”

When Sozan was about to die, he made a verse:

My road is beyond the blue sky;
the clouds never make any commotion.
In this world there is a tree without any roots;
its yellow leaves send back the wind.

After saying this, he passed away.

Maneesha, before I enter into your tremendously significant anecdotes, I have to reply again to the old goat of Puri, the Shankaracharya. He is such a nice fellow. He goes on inventing such things that you cannot even imagine. Now he has come with the idea that I lead in the ashram everyday a procession of naked women. Do you think you could have imagined it?

Now these seven thousand people here are evidence, but who will tell this idiot?

[Sardar Gurudayal Singh is laughing loudly in the back of the hall.]

I have to send Sardar, because it is a question between Pune and Puri. Only Sardar can convince him, tapping three times on his head, “Stop talking nonsense.”

Another thing he has said is that he cannot bring an AIDS-negative certificate, because he is a celibate. Celibate or no celibate, if you want to discuss with me in this assembly of buddhas you will have to bring the certificate. And particularly because you are a celibate, the certificate has become an absolute necessity.