🌹❤ Zorba The Buddha ❤🌹

FALSELY PROCLAIMING THE BUDDHADHARMA, SUCH PERSONS, IN FACT, BLASPHEME THE BUDDHA AND SUBVERT THE DHARMA. THEY PREACH AS IF THEY WERE BRINGING RAIN. BUT THEIRS IS THE PREACHING OF DEVILS NOT OF BUDDHAS. THEIR TEACHER IS THE KING OF DEVILS. AND THEIR DISCIPLES ARE THE DEVIL'S MINIONS. DELUDED PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW SUCH INSTRUCTION UNWITTINGLY SINK DEEPER IN THE SEA OF BIRTH AND DEATH.

UNLESS THEY SEE THEIR NATURE, HOW CAN PEOPLE CALL THEMSELVES BUDDHAS? THEY'RE LIARS WHO DECEIVE OTHERS INTO ENTERING THE REALM OF DEVILS. UNLESS THEY SEE THEIR NATURE, THEIR PREACHING OF THE TWELVEFOLD CANON IS NOTHING BUT THE PREACHING OF DEVILS. THEIR ALLEGIANCE IS TO MARA ... Mara is the buddhist equivalent of the devil. THEIR ALLEGIANCE IS TO MARA, NOT TO THE BUDDHA. UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH WHITE FROM BLACK, HOW CAN THEY ESCAPE BIRTH AND DEATH?

WHOEVER SEES HIS NATURE IS A BUDDHA. WHOEVER DOESN'T IS A MORTAL. BUT APART FROM OUR MORTAL NATURE IF YOU CAN FIND A BUDDHA-NATURE SOMEWHERE ELSE, WHERE IS IT? OUR MORTAL NATURE IS OUR BUDDHA-NATURE.

It only needs recognition. There is no other difference. One who recognizes and is aware of his nature is a buddha. One who does not recognize his own selfnature, who has never gone inwards, is a mortal. But the difference is only of recognition, of awareness; there is no qualitative difference between you and the enlightened man. The difference is only that he knows it and you are unaware of your own treasures.

Hence, Bodhidharma declares: OUR MORTAL NATURE IS OUR BUDDHANATURE. BEYOND THIS NATURE THERE'S NO BUDDHA. THE BUDDHA IS OUR NATURE, but unless we are aware we will remain mortals. THERE'S NO BUDDHA BESIDES THIS NATURE. AND THERE'S NO NATURE BESIDES THE BUDDHA.

The word `buddha' will be repeated again and again by Bodhidharma so you have to understand what it means. It is not a personal name of anybody. Buddha simply means one who is awakened. Gautam Buddha is the most famous awakened person but that does not mean that he is the only awakened person. There have been many buddhas before him and there have been many buddhas after him and as long as every human being can become a buddha, there will go on springing up new buddhas in the future.

Because everybody has the potentiality ...it is only for a time, the right time that you are waiting. Some day, tortured by the outside reality, in despair of having seen everything and found nothing, you are bound to turn inwards.

Gautam Buddha's personal name was Siddhartha. Gautama is his family name so his name was Gautama Siddhartha. Buddha is not his name, it is his awakening. Because I have named our discos ZORBA THE BUDDHA, the ambassador of Sri Lanka -- Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country -- the ambassador wrote a letter to me, saying, "It is very disrespectful and it hurts our religious feelings that you have given the name ZORBA THE BUDDHA to discos. Please take the Buddha out of it."

I wrote him a letter saying, "Perhaps you are a born Buddhist, but I am a buddha. And I have every right to call the discos, ZORBA THE BUDDHA; it has nothing to do with your Buddha ...you can be satisfied. If I were calling it "Zorba the Siddhartha", there would be a point to your being disturbed. But buddha is not a personal name; Gautam Buddha is only one of the buddhas amongst millions. And Zorba has every potential to become a buddha. I cannot prevent it and neither can you. And you are only a Buddhist, just a follower, an imitator. You don't even know exactly the meaning of the word `buddha'. You have never experienced what self-awareness is. So write to me again what you want."

He has been silent, he has not answered. And I don't think he has shown the letter to anybody else.

So whenever Bodhidharma uses the word buddha, remember he is not mentioning Gautam Buddha. He is saying awareness, enlightenment, liberation, total freedom -- all those qualities are in that word buddha. It is nobody's name and it is everybody's potential.                                                           

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