A Zen master asked, ’What is the secret of Buddha? What did he deliver to Mahakashyapa when he gave him the flower? Why did he say, ”I give to Mahakashyapa what I have not been able to give to anybody else – because others can understand only words, Mahakashyapa can understand silence”?’
Buddha had come that day with a lotus flower in his hand. All his disciples looked and looked, and they were worried and they started getting more and more restless. He would not say anything, he was going continuously into the lotus. He was looking at the lotus… as if he had forgotten the whole assembly.
Minutes passed, and the hour was passing, and then people were very fidgety. And then Mahakashyapa started laughing. And Buddha called him and he gave the flower to him and he said, ’What I can give through words, I have given to others. What I cannot give through words, I give it to you, Mahakashyapa. Keep it until you find a man who can receive the message in silence.’
A Zen master asked his disciples, ’What was the secret? What was given through the lotus? What happened at that moment?’ A disciple stood, danced, ran out. And the master said, ’Right. Exactly this is what it is. ’
But another master in the same monastery came to see this master in the night and said, ’You should not agree so soon; your agreement was too early. I suspect.’ So the master went to the disciple who had danced and to whom he had said, ’Yes, this is it.’ In the night he went there and he asked the same question again: ’What was it that Buddha gave in the lotus to Mahakashyapa? What was it that Mahakashyapa understood when he smiled? What was it? Tell me the answer.’ And the young man dancing. And the master hit him hard. And he said, ’This is wrong, absolutely wrong.’ And the disciple said, ’But just in the morning you said it was right.’ And the master said, ’Yes. In the morning it was right, in the night it is wrong. You are repeating. In the morning I thought it was a response. Now I know it was a reaction.’
