Small Biographical Note about Sekito

SEKITO KISEN WAS BORN IN CHINA IN 700 AND WAS TO DIE NINETY YEARS LATER. KNOWN ALSO AS SHIH-T’OU, SEKITO WAS A CONTEMPORARY OF MA TZU. BUT WHERE THE LATTER WAS PART OF WHAT WAS TO BECOME THE RINZAI LINE OF CHINESE ZEN, SEKITO WAS IN THE SOTO LINE.

These are the two lineages of Zen: Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen. Both are the same, they just come from different masters; there is nothing basically different. But there have been so many masters, it is really amazing that there are only two lines. There could have been a thousand lines, but Zen is only given to the disciple if he is ready. Sometimes the master never finds a single man who can carry the lineage, so that line is simply finished, comes to a full stop.

Many, many masters have lived, whose lines would go for two generations, three generations, and then would stop; because it is not a question of following, it is a question of a direct transfer between the master and the disciple. Unless the master chooses to transfer, that line is broken.

Only two lines are living still. One is Rinzai Zen – we have talked about almost all the masters of the Rinzai Zen sect. This Sekito Kisen belongs to the Soto line. You will not see any difference. There cannot be any difference between two enlightened people.

IT IS SAID THAT BETWEEN MA TZU AND SEKITO, ZEN TOOK FLIGHT.

Ma Tzu was a very strange master – you have heard about him. He walked just like an animal on all fours; he never stood up on his legs – not that there was any problem, not that he was hunchback. He just walked on all fours because he said that is the most relaxed position. It is, because man is standing almost despite nature. No animal stands on two legs, because when you stand on two legs your heart has to pump against gravitation towards the head. This cuts your life in half.

You could live one hundred and forty years if you walked like Ma Tzu. But please don’t do it! What will you do living a hundred and forty years? When you are walking like an animal, your blood flow is horizontal, and you are not putting extra stress on the heart. Ma Tzu would never have had a heart attack, that was impossible. No animal ever has a heart attack, only man does, because he has gone against nature.

He used to walk on four legs.... That is the whole theory of Charles Darwin, of evolution, that man one day was an animal. What kind of animal? Maybe there are different opinions, but one thing is certain, at one time he used to walk on four legs. There were no heart attacks. Just see how healthy animals are – except in a zoo; in a zoo they become more human. See the animals in the wild.

Just nearby, a few hundred miles away, there is a beautiful lake, Tadoba. It is a forest reserve, a very big forest surrounding the lake with only one government resthouse. I used to go there many times. Whenever I was passing by, I would stay in that resthouse for at least a day or two. It was so lonely, so utterly silent, and the forest is full of thousands of deer.

Every evening when the sun sets and darkness descends, thousands and thousands, line upon line, of deer will come to the lake. You just have to sit and watch. In the dark night their eyes look ike burning candles, thousands of candles moving around the lake. The whole night the scene continues. You get tired, because there are so many deer, they go on coming, go on coming. It is such a beautiful experience. But one thing I wondered about was that they are all alike – nobody is fat, nobody is thin, nobody seems to be sick, hospitalized. They are so full of life and energy.

You cannot beat a deer if you run by his side. No winner in the Olympic races can run the way a deer can run, because the deer has such thin legs and such a proportionate body. And he jumps big hedges without any trouble. And his running is a beauty to see. Just the deer’s muscles, their movement, is so healthy that man looks almost sick.

This was the trouble that arose by standing up. Your life has been shortened, your heart is continuously under stress because it has to pump against gravitation. It was not made for that.

So Ma Tzu was a very strange man, perhaps there has never been another man so strange. A unique master in himself, he walked on all fours and always looked like a tiger. Whenever he looked at somebody, people started a deep trembling; he was a dangerous man. He was very healthy; he was bound to be, he was almost like a bull. Just the horns were missing, otherwise....

Between Ma Tzu on one side, Rinzai Zen, and Sekito on the other side, Soto Zen, Zen took flight; both were very powerful people, great masters.

AS A YOUNG BOY, SEKITO TOOK A STAND AGAINST AN OLD CUSTOM OF SACRIFICING A BULL AS A MEANS TO PLACATE EVIL SPIRITS; HE MADE A HABIT OF DESTROYING THE SHRINES DEVOTED TO SUCH SPIRITS, AND WOULD RELEASE BULLS FROM THEIR ENCLOSURES SO THEY COULD ESCAPE.

AT THE AGE OF TWELVE, SEKITO MET MASTER ENO. ENO PREDICTED THAT SEKITO WOULD FOLLOW THE DHARMA, AND ADVISED HIM TO BECOME A MONK AND GO TO MASTER SEIGEN. AFTER ENO LEFT HIS BODY, SEKITO WENT TO SEIGEN.

This is just a small biographical note about Sekito.

God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 22 ♡♥Osho♡♥