"Your nature will be with you. The buddha is your highest peak of consciousness.

"We are not using the word buddha in its historical sense. Gautam the Buddha was one of the buddhas. The title 'Buddha' does not denote him personally; it is simply a quality of witnessing, an arriving at home. Certainly he has become the symbol – and a beautiful symbol if you don't make it a tradition, if you keep it alive, if you don't start worshipping it, but just start watching the beauty of it, the silence of it, the grace of it, and reminding yourself that this all belongs to you too.

"So when Bodhidharma revolted, he revolted not against Buddha – nobody can revolt against the buddha – he revolted against the scholars and the pundits and the ritualistic religion that had grown in Gautam Buddha's wake after he was gone. But Bodhidharma became in the same way a tradition. It was very difficult to revolt against the Buddhist tradition, but Bodhidharma maintained a tremendously high quality. His rebellion brings him to the same height as Gautam Buddha. And he was capable enough – he had a genius mind – to create a totally different atmosphere for the seeker on the path.

"But as he died, again the same thing happened: Bodhidharma became a prototype to be followed, to be imitated. Ma Tzu could not tolerate this stupidity. He had to revolt. It was not against Bodhidharma or Buddha; it was against the inertia that tradition creates.

"But to revolt you need immense courage, articulateness, and a great mastery – not only of yourself, but of mind as such. And mind expresses in thousands of ways! – a master has to deal with thousands of types and he has to be capable to encounter each type spontaneously.

"Ma Tzu maintained it even better than Bodhidharma. Ma Tzu's revolution against all tradition, against all sutras, was an immense event in the history of consciousness. He burned the sutras; he simply forced the disciples not to look out, but to look in.

"Now Isan was trying to revolt against Ma Tzu because Ma Tzu had become a tradition. But Isan had not the quality of a Ma Tzu or a Bodhidharma."