Be Nobody

Here is another poem from William Menza. He is a lay dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Be Nobody

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Work to be nobody,

But a humble unknown sage,

Silently helping others,

As best as you can.

And like a bird

Flying through the sky

Leave no tracks, no trace.

This is the way to great happiness:

The Bodhisattva Path.

-Willilam Menza

When I was in Puna, India with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known in his later days as Osho, To be nobody seemed to be the theme of all of my darshan (semi-private interview with a guru) experiences.

When I arrived at the ashram, Rajneesh began a series of talk on Tao: The Three Treasure. These were talks on fragments from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. The next day, I asked a question. Part of the answer was,

You are nobody. You are born as a nobodiness with no name, no form. You will die as a nobody. Name and form are just on the surface; deep down you are just a vast space. And it is beautiful, because if you are somebody you will be limited. It is good that God doesn’t allow anybody to be somebody; if you are somebody you will be finite, limited, you will be an imprisoned being. No, God doesn’t allow that. He gives you the freedom of nobodiness – infinite, nonending. But you are not ready. To me, enlightenment is all about this phenomenon: to recognize, to realize, to accept the fact that one is a nobody. Suddenly you stop trying the impossible. Suddenly you stop pulling yourself up by your shoelaces. You understand the absurdity of it – and you stop. And laughter spreads over your being. Suddenly you are calm and collected. The very effort of wanting to be somebody is creating trouble.

And when you try to be somebody, you cannot love. An ambitious mind cannot love. It is impossible, because he has first to fulfill his ambition.

– Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh from Tao: The Three Treasures, vol. 1, June 12, 1975

So, I think Bill got it right? Yes?

What do you think? What kind of somebody are you trying to be?